September, 1913 



American ~Bae Journal 



her. She will take hold of my finger with 

 her feet (three on each side of finger). 1 now 

 grip the three legs on the left with thumb 

 and finger en left hand and with my right 

 hand 1 use the slim shears and clip either 

 wing or both if I wish and put her head in 

 the hole in the cage. With one finger behind 

 she marches in. I then hold the cage between 

 thumb and middle finger of the left hand 

 and the first finger acts as a door to close 

 the hole in cage to prevent the queen and 

 bees from escaping while filling the cage 

 with escorts. 



It is an established fact that some queens 

 are injured in the mails and I believe very 

 few if any, are carelessly handled by the 

 queen-breeders. As a sample case I will 

 state that Brother Wood sent me a $5.00 

 queen, and I am sure he put her up in fine 

 condition. But she has never (since I re- 

 ceived her) had a strong colony of bees and 

 some of her daughters are extra good breed- 

 ers. 



The lack of fresh air, the sudden stoppage 

 of egg-laying, the rough handling of the 

 mails and the confinement in small cages, 

 would all have a tendency to do damage to 

 a queen that is taken from her hive in the 

 lirime of her egg production. 



We, as breeders, must use large, well ven- 

 tilated cages and use the best judgment in 

 making proper food to provision the cages 

 and put in escorts of proper age. Then the 

 purchaser should understand that when the 

 fiueen is damaged Uncle Sam is to blame and 

 not the breeder. 



GRANT ANDERSON. 



San Benito. Tex., July 26, 1913. 



Too Dry for Clover 



The basswood honey crop was good this 

 year. The white clover started out fine but 

 when it was in full bloom the dry, hot weath- 

 er burnt it out so it was not what was ex- 

 pected. JOHN B. WELS, 



Dubnque, Iowa, Aug. 4, 1913. 



Bee Sense 



A few years ago, Peter Brandow of Tiskil- 

 wa, 111., moved on a farm, caught a swarm of 

 bees out of the trees around the house, and 

 made a hive for it out of old boards. In 

 two years he had seven colonies, he sold 

 three of them for $5.00 apiece. Last spring 

 he put up fifteen little decoy boxes, made 

 from waste board from the store, and so far 

 caught thirteen swarms, by placing the en- 

 trance facing the south or west, for bees know 

 which way the storms come and will not en- 

 ter a place exposed to them. He has now 

 seventeen good colonies of bees. His older 

 colonies have over 100 pounds of honey in 

 them, but he tells the grocers he will not 

 handle it 'till cool weather, for the combs 

 stand up under the handling better in the 

 fall. 



Who can beat that record for a beginner 

 The next best that I have heard of is that 

 his nephew, who never has tried to have 

 bees, caught seven swarms out of the trees 

 this year, and therefore has not bought any 

 bees for his start. 



T,. , ., ,„ REV. GEO. A. HOOD. 



Tiskilwa. Ill 



Will Not Extract Closely 



^ Honey flow through June was good, about 

 /D pounds per colony, but ended July 1st 

 two weeks sooner than usual. July is very 

 dry. Weather Bureau report July driest on 

 record. Prospects poor for fall flow. I will 

 not dare extract too closely. 



„. _ , E. A. DORSEY. 



Uixon, la., Aug. 2, 1913. 



Good Crop in Iowa 



I started this season with 40 colonies of 

 bees. I have 63 now and have taken off 

 2640 lbs. 94 supers on the hives vet, about 

 40 of them full. I expect over 400'0 pounds. 

 We never had a better year. Plenty of 

 white clover and basswood. ' I had two colo- 

 nies on scales several days and they gath- 

 ered from four to seven pounds. One day 

 one of them gathered seven pounds. They 

 kept me busy through the best of the season. 

 I have kept bees nearly thirty years and 



i 



Apiary of Frank Hill. Sabetha, Kan. 



have passed my 75th year. I had 3707 

 pounds of honey last year, but this is my 

 banner crop. The honey is fine. I am put- 

 ting it on the market at 13c and may have to 

 drop it one-half cent. I am the only bee- 

 keeper in this county that went through the 

 hard seasons three and four years ago and 

 held his own. I very seldom lose any 

 through the winter. I have a dry cellar. If 

 I had twenty years more to live and was 

 well and hearty, I could make money with 

 bees now. But I am an old war pensioner 

 and have seen hard service. 



WM. CLEARY. 

 Algona, Iowa, Aug. 8. 



Another Dry Report 



Attached are two pictures of n.y small 

 apiary. They did mighty well 'till about 

 July S, when we had a lot of Jiot winds that 



1200 sections for this season. Not bad for a 

 man who works every day in a saw mill, 

 who has to do all his apiary work before he 

 goes to work and after he comes home in 

 the evening; not bad for a man who lives 

 in the city not over four squares from 

 the Court House. No swarms got away from 

 me this season, as I clipped all queens and 

 my wife catches them in a cage I have and 

 puts them back in the hive from which they is- 

 sue. Next morning I go through the hives and 

 cut all the cells; then when the queen is- 

 sues again in two or thr e weeks. I kill the 

 old queen and cut out all cells but one. This 

 does away with the swarming for the bal- 

 ance of the season; and you ought to see 

 the hives. They are boiling over with bees. 

 This plan gives me young queens to go into 

 winter quarters. All of my honey brings 

 20c here at the house and it is no trouble 

 to sell a man the second time. 



F. LANGOHR. 

 Columbia City, Ind., Aug. 6, 1913. 



A Kansas Ai-iarv When the Crop is On. 



stopped everything. I have 3000 pounds ex- 

 tracted and about 100 cases No. 1 comb 

 honey all from clover. 



It looks bad, as we are having the driest 

 time any one knows of in this part of Kan- 

 sas. We have had no rain since June 25 and 

 the temperature has been close to and above 

 the 100 mark most of the tnie. 



FRANK HILL. 



Sabetha, Kans., Aug. 12, 1913. 



Over 100 Pounds to the Colony 



Up to date I have taken off 621 sections 

 of nice clover honey from 12 colonies, Spring 

 count, and expect to take off at least 300 

 more ; then the golden rod will be in next 

 and then buckwheat, but of the latter there 

 is not much in this locality. If this season 

 is good for the golden rod and buckwheat, 

 I expect to take off at the least calculation 



A Beginner in Dakota 



I am a beginner at the bee business and 

 have never seen any bees except my own. 

 North Dakota has less bees than any other 

 state in the L'nion. I started last year in 

 April having one colony shipped to me from 

 Minnesota. I had about seven swarms last 

 summer, but all but two were destroyed by 

 robbing. My first swarm filled an eight frame 

 hive with brood and swarmed again just 

 thirty days later. I took 100 pounds of honey 

 from the two surviving colonies. I wintered 

 two colonies and they seemed to come out in 

 the spring as strong as when I put them in 

 in the fall. I wanted increase and during 

 the winter I had prepared si.xteen hives with 

 supers, but up to date. July -0, there is no 

 sign of swarming. I obtained some pound 

 packages of bees from Alabama in April, each 

 of which has now increased to about four 

 frames. With these I now have six colonies. 

 But I have not had a drone in any of my 

 colonies this summer, except some that came 

 from Alabama and they were all killed off 

 within a week after they arrived. 



As near as I can judge the symptoms, my 

 strongest colony has been afflicted with bee- 

 paralysis for the past six weeks. This colony 

 has already filled one extracting super with 

 honey and has made a good start on a super 

 of sections. It is doing good work and yet 

 each day it drives out about a teacupful of 

 dead or sick bees. These bees lie on the 

 ground in front of the hive for several days 

 before dying. It was getting worse until last 

 week when we had a heavy rain, which seem- 

 ed to check it. I have thrown fresh earth 

 over the dead and sick bees and have tried 

 to sweep them away but each morning there 

 would be a new pile accumulated. 



Perhaps this trouble will disappear when 

 cold weather comes. Our honey flow ends 

 about September 1, and as there is no pros- 



