292 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



livered to the buyer with the minimum 

 of freights. Such a system is very much 

 needed, but the solution of the difficulty 

 is not clear. Many difficulties lie in the 

 way; yet there are none that may not be 

 overcome. 



When bee-keepers are fully organized 

 in a co-operative way, the head National 

 office will know what is being done in the 

 north, east, south and west. The sub- 

 offices will know what is known at the 

 head office. There is never over-produc- 

 tion, but there is lack of distributiou . 



ii^u»v»»'*'^t» 



BEE-KEEPING AS A NUISANCE. 



Mr. H. F. Moore of Chicago, in his ad- 

 dress, at the recent National convention, 

 on " Bee-Keepers' Rights and Their Pro- 

 tection by Law," said that in the minds 

 of most people who don't keep bees, and 

 know nothing of their habits, there is an 

 insane fear of a bee sting for themselves 

 or their children. A bee-keeper settles in 

 a neighborhood, and makes no efforts to 

 make himself agreeable, or to show his 

 little pets and their harmless ways. If a 

 child or an animal is stung, the neigh- 

 bors instantly put on their war paint, and 

 vow the banishment of bees and bee- 

 keepers from that neighborhood. 



Nearly all of the prosecutions of bee- 

 keepers have been on the ground that 

 bee-keeping, of itself, ipso facto, is a 

 nuisance, and to be abated, as a matter of 

 course. In such cases, bee-keepers have 

 been almost universally victorious. Bee- 

 keeping of itself is not necessarily a nui- 

 sance, but may become such by an objec- 

 tional method of management. So, too, 

 may hogs, dogs, horses, cows, etc., be- 

 come nuisances by an objectionable man- 

 ner of caring for them. The supreme 

 court of Arkansas has decided that "Bees 

 may become a nuisance in a city, but 

 •whether they are so or not is a question 

 to be judicially decided in each case." 



For a dozen years I have kept bees in 

 the city of Flint, and not one word of 

 complaint has ever reached my ears. 

 The neighbors have kind feelings for me 



and for my bees. I have been very care- 

 ful not to handle bees in the middle of 

 the day when there is a scarcity of nectar; 

 such work being done just at dusk when 

 the bees will not fly far from the hives, 

 and robbers will not trouble; and by the 

 next morning all is quiet. Of course, a 

 large apiary could not well be managed 

 on that plan, but I think that near the 

 streets of a city is not the proper place 

 for a large apiary. An apiary in which 

 work must go on regardless of cross bees 

 ought to be isolated. Of course, tall 

 trees or buildings between the apiary and 

 the street do much to bring about this 

 needed isolation. The one thing needed 

 in all this matter is a little common sense. 



'»»>t»»>nt»»^^^ 



BREEDING FOR LONGER TONGUED BEES. 



At the Chicago convention Mr. John ]\I. 

 Rankin of the Michigan Agricultural 

 College read a paper upon the breeding 

 of bees for longer tongues. So long as 

 the mating of queens is the haphazard 

 affair that it now is, this is a very dis- 

 couraging problem. I\Ir. Rankin firmly 

 believes that it would not only be possi- 

 ble, but comparatively easy, to breed bees 

 with longer tongues if there were some 

 way of controlling the mating of the 

 queens. He has tried the plan of clipping 

 the tips of the queen's wings to curtail 

 their flight. He has clipped off all the 

 way from a hair's breadth to one half of 

 the wing, but out of 65 thus treated, only 

 one mated. He has also tried the plan of 

 putting the nucleus containing the queen, 

 and a full colony with drones, in the cel- 

 lar until late in the afternoon when the 

 other drones had ceased flying, when 

 these confined bees were given their 

 liberty, but his success with this plan 

 was no better than with the clipping of 

 queens' wings, The plan that had given 

 him the best satisfaction was thst of keep- 

 ing a colony with choice drones queen- 

 less until the close of the season when 

 the other drones were killed off. If this 

 colony is kept in the same yard with the 

 others I should not put any great faith in 



