3S0 



November, 1913. 



American Hee Journal 



Bee-Keeping in Oregon. Mr J. H. Berry. of Central Point, and a portion of his bees. 



day out they came with more virgins. 

 I gathered them in the basket and 

 placed them in my bee cellar for 24 

 hours, as by that time all but one vir- 

 gin would be killed. There were four 

 dead virgins in the basket. 



The f)octor says kingbirds might 

 catch the queen. Did any one ever 

 kill and dissect a kingbird ? It is an 

 old traditional saying that they are 

 bee birds. Well, they are, but what do 

 they catch ? Nothing but drones, as 

 far as I have been able to see, and I 

 have dissected at least one dozen, for I, 

 too, was sure they were guilty. So I 

 am afraid the Doctor's queen that ab- 

 sconds with the swarm is perfectly 

 safe. 



This article would be too long to 

 enter into all the details, so I will only 

 touch those that are the most familiar 

 to every one. If your swarms came 

 out prior to 10 ;30 a.m., there were very 

 few drones with them. If between 

 10:30 and 2 o'clock, there would be a 

 multitude of drones to alight with the 

 swarm, as they are foolish and will 

 follow the crowd from all hives, for at 

 that time they are taking their daily 

 flight. 



I strive to have as little drone comb 

 as possible. I have many hives that 

 do not have a single drone hatch, but 

 there are drones in them all summer. 

 They come from other hives. They 

 are not there because of virgins; 

 but as the little boy says, " Just for in- 

 stance." Drones have no choice of 

 home unless the hive is pretty well 



isolated. Years ago, when I bred Ital- 

 ian bees only, I had some queens that 

 produced very yellow drones, and 

 some that produced very dark. Th^-y 

 would mix all through the yard, the 

 dark with the yellow and the yellow 

 with the dark. 

 Lansing, Mich. 



A Peculiar and Unusual Time 

 to Take Honey 



BV C. W. REE;.. 



LAST winter (1912) I visited my old 

 home in Kansas. One pleasant 

 afternoon in February a friend, 

 an old neighbor, came over and 

 asked me to " rob " his bees. He 

 said that he had taken but little honey 

 yet. The sun was shining brightly, 

 and it was warmer than it had been a 

 good part of the time, and I thought 

 perhaps we could take some honey 

 from the bees, but he surprised me by 

 saying, "Not now; it is too warm. 

 Come early in the morning before the 

 bees can fly. They can't sting us then." 

 Next morning I was at my friend's 

 house early, for I wished to see and 

 learn how it would do to take honey 

 when bees could not fly. We took the 

 honey from two or three hives, then 

 he said, "It is too warm now; wait 

 until a cold spell comes; these bees 

 are too lively now." 



It was not long until there was a 

 storm, a snow storm, I think. When 

 it quit snowing I hastened to the bee- 



yard, and my friend and I with smoker, 

 pans, buckets, knives, hammers, chis- 

 els, etc., attacked the poor bees without 

 mercy, for most of the covers w-ere 

 nailed on tight. The supers, some of 

 them, had extracting frames in them, 

 and some had sections filled with 

 honey. The brood-nest had three 

 frames running crosswise, I think. I 

 don't remember whether any of them 

 had more frames or not. T he bees 

 were, or had been, closely clustered on 

 the combs in the brood-nest before we 

 commenced to hammer and pry the 

 hives apart ; for supers as well as cov- 

 ers were nailed fast. But few bees 

 tried to fly, and these soon fell to the 

 ground with cold. The others, what 

 few there were in the supers, soon ran 

 down when we smoked them, and the 

 supers that we could get the covers oflf 

 easily had no bees in them, so all we 

 had to do was to pry oft', carry them to 

 the house and cut out the honey. The 

 supers were not very hard to get off, 

 for the comb and wax were so cold 

 and brittle they broke apart easily, as 

 it was freezing cold. The extracting 

 frames came out easily, but the sec- 

 tions were apt to break. 



He had, perhaps, 20 colonies of bees, 

 and we took the honey from the most 

 of them, if I remember right. It was a 

 cold job, for part of the time we had to 

 work barehanded. We wore overcoats 

 overshoes, and caps drawn down close 

 over our ears to protect them from the 

 cold. 



There may possibly be one advan- 



