214 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



stated, will be mailed to every member 

 in good standing-, when the reports are 

 sent out. 



Lighting a smoker when planer shav- 

 ings are used for fuel is a slow job, un- 

 less you know how to do it. You may 

 think it is well to going, and yet, unless 

 there is a little bed of live cinders in the 

 bottom, it is almost sure to go out when 

 set down. I have used kerosene oil to 

 start the fire — squirt it on the shavings 

 from a spring-bottom oil can, such as is 

 used to oil machinery. This works very 

 well, but it leaves an odor of kerosene 

 about the fire for a while. Recently, I 

 have been starting the fire by wadding 

 up a piece of newspaper, lighting it, 

 dropping it down in the smoker, then 

 sprinkling on a few shavings, puffing the 

 smoker, meanwhile. Sprinkle on a few 

 at first, then, as these take fire, a few 

 more, and so on until I have a good fire 

 going. I like it the best of any plan I 

 have yet tried. After a shavings fire is 

 once well under way, there is no trouble 

 from its going out. 



The Importance of a Good Location. 



I have seldom read a book in which I 

 found so little to criticize as in "How to 

 Keep Bees for Profit," by D. Everett 

 Lyon; but there is one point in which I do 

 not agree with the author, and it isone of 

 considerable importance to the man who 

 is going to make a business of bee keep- 

 ing; viz., that of securing a location 

 furnishing abundance of some specific 

 source of nectar. In several places in 

 the book there crops out the idea that 

 bees may be kept with profit in almost 

 any location. Here is a quotation: 



Another popular fallacy is the idea that 

 only those sections of the country are 

 suitable where some specific, honey- 

 producing blossom abounds in large 

 numbers, such as alfalfa, sweet clover, 

 basswood and buckwheat. While it is 

 true that those bee keepers who are 

 located in such favorable sections are 



reasonably sure of a good crop of honey, 

 in fact, of even obtaining lecord crops, 

 yet the bees have such wonderful ability 

 to adapt themselves to almost any 

 locality, that it is astonishing how often 

 they produce a goodly surplus for their 

 owners when there are few evidences of 

 large areas devoted to the cultivation of 

 those plants of which they are most fond. 



I will admit that bees sometimes store 

 considerable surplus in locations that 

 cause us to wonder where the nectar 

 comes from, but this is not the rule; and 

 the man thinking of engaging extensively 

 in bee keeping should leave no stone 

 unturned in finding the best possible 

 location. To waste time and money in 

 just ordinary locations, v/hen there are 

 rich harvests awaiting the coming of a 

 claimant, is not good business. There 

 are few locations in which bee keeping 

 as a pastime or a side-issue may not be 

 engaged in with satisfaction, but the 

 cornerstone of successful specialty is the 

 pasture. 



Keeping Laying Queens on Hand. 



It is possible to keep queens in cages, 

 away from the bees, for two or three 

 weeks. Cage them with a few workers 

 and some candy for food, the same as 

 when a queen is to be sent by mail, and 

 they can be kept in some comfortable, 

 quiet place much safer than when sent 

 by mail; but such confinement certainly 

 does the queen no good, although it is 

 possible that it does her little harm. 

 Queens may also be kept several weeks 

 by simply caging them in cylindrical 

 cages, and laying them on the tops of 

 the frames of a populous colony of bees. 

 I think a queenless colony might give 

 them better care, but of this I am not 

 sure. The best way, however, to keep 

 queens is in nuclei. Of course, we then 

 lose the use of the nuclei, but it is not 

 necessary to have very large nuclei. I 

 have used the ordinary 4)4 x4^ sections 

 for combs, having three in a nucleus, and 

 eight nuclei in an ordinary super, by 

 putting in partitions. It will be neces- 

 sary to put a slip of queen excluding 



