THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



223 



claim advertised, but her dauiihters are 

 ver\- apt not to be able to show the 

 same characteristics. Along this line 

 Mr. Root says, "It is almost impossi- 

 ble for a queen-rearer to duplicate the 

 characteristics of his breeding queen. 

 The fact that Nature has designed that 

 there shall be promiscuous mating 

 among the drones, explains how sports 

 showing "extra yellow" or "long 

 tongues" revert back to normal in spite 

 of us. It was for that reason, several 

 years ago, we discontinued advertising 

 long-tongued bees. When we lost the 

 old original long-tongued breeding 

 queen we found that her daughters 

 were not quite equal to the mother, 

 and her grand-daughters showed a still 

 greater departure, until the great- 

 granddaughters went back to the orig- 

 inal type. If we could control the male 

 parentage a little better we might be 

 able to produce golden-all-over Italians 

 and five-banders that would be true to 

 name, and not bees that show a sprink- 

 ling of three, four and five banders." 



Henry M. Basford, in Printers' Ink, 

 goes Mr. Root one better. He says 

 that not only must the advertiser's 

 statements be true, but they must ap- 

 pear true to the casual reader. In other 

 words, not even the truth should be 

 always stated, if that truth appears 

 untrue to the one who doesn't know. 

 The very extravagance of a statement 

 will often arouse suspicion. This fact 

 is well understood by a great many 

 experienced specialty salesmen, who, 

 when introducing a new article, will 

 usually state the simple, easily-believ- 

 able facts first, gradually leading up to 

 the stronger statements later. 



Along this line we might question the 

 advisability of arguing with the public 

 about manufactured comb, or adulter- 

 ated extracted honey. The average 

 consumer believes there is such a thing, 

 and your direct statement to the con- 

 trary is apt to arouse suspicion. Why 

 not confine your arguments to con- 



vincing him that your hpney is not 

 manufactured or adulterated, and then 

 you can convince him of the other 

 much easier later. Of course, I don't 

 mean that you should ever admit that 

 there is such a thing as manufactured 

 comb honey, but you can keep still 

 when the statement is made, if neces- 

 sarv. 



Diagnosing at the Entrance. 



In the same issue. Editor Root gives 

 a clear explanation of how they diag- 

 nose the condition of a colony by 

 simply looking at the entrance. He 

 says in part as follows : 



"But the beginner may ask how we 

 can tell by the flight of the bees 

 whether they need room or not. If 

 we see them streaming in and out like 

 hot shot, and appear to be laden when- 

 they come in, and the record on top of 

 the hive shows the colony was given a 

 super a week previously, we conclude 

 it needs more room, and. we set an 

 empty super beside it. 



"The next hive does not seem to show 

 much activity at the entrance — that is, 

 the bees are not flying much, if any. 

 We pass this. The next colony is do- 

 ing a little better, but not a great 

 number of bees are flying. We pass 

 this. The next hive shows a stream 

 of bees going in and out. We lay an 

 empty super beside it. The next hive, 

 a powerful colony that was working 

 strongly a week ago, has a lot of bees 

 clustered in front. Bees are going to 

 the field, but in a sort of listless way. 

 Right JTcre we may expect swarming- 

 cells; some Italian colonies, instead of 

 going into the super, will jam 

 honey in the brood-nest. In this 

 case we find the combs are "honey- 

 bound." and very little capped brood 

 and queen-cells in all stages of devel- 

 opment. We destroy the cells, uncap 

 the honey, and put into the super a 

 section or two started from some other 

 colon^■. We smoke the bees at the 



