April, 190S. 



American Hee Journal 



unfertile, that is, drones that never will breed? 

 Now when this queen begins to lay, it lays in 

 worker-cells, never in drone-cells, and lays 

 all worker-eggs, never drone-eggs. All queens 

 lay worker-eggs first. I have had queens lay 

 all summer without laying a drone-egg. Some- 

 times you may see a good queen rear a few 

 little drones among worker-bees in worker- 

 cells, but they are all from worker-eggs, just 

 the same; only a little mistake in being made 

 unfertile, that is all. So you see all these 

 unfertile drones are reared from unfertile 

 worker-eggs. 



A man says about propolis, "It will always 

 be a mystery to man where they get such, 

 and how they obtain it." Now there is no 

 mystery to me about it. First, there never 

 was a bee living that went out after such stuff 

 on purpose. No one ever saw bees bring 

 such stuff to the hives till the fruit through 

 the country was getting towards ripe, and 

 when the weather was right. There is a little 

 hairy-like stuff grows all over most kinds of 

 fruit, and of just the right length to come 

 even with the pollen places on the bees' legs. 

 This hairy-like stuff has a little waxy stuff on 

 top of it, and when the bees are after honey 

 and licking all around and around so much, 

 never looking for pollen or anything but 

 honey, this waxy stuff begins to catch on the 

 pollen places on the bees' legs, and when it 

 begins it goes on easy. Now this is the way 

 the bees get what we call propolis and never 

 in any other way. They never try to make 

 any use of it for any purpose whatever; just to 

 get rid of it, and that is a hard job. They 

 stick it on anything and everything. I have 

 seen both legs sticking together many times 

 when the bee was trying to get it off. 



John McCandlish. 



Delhi, N. Y., Feb. 21. 



[The foregoing original views are given with- 

 out the endorsement of the American Bee Jour- 

 nal as correct. — Kditor.] 



A Queen Experience — Newspapers 

 for Wintering. 



I had a very curious thing happen to me 

 this winter in reference to queens that I 

 introduced late last fall, and I haven't been 

 able to think out the reason. In September 

 I introduced 2 queens to 2 colonies that I 

 made queenless the day previous, and in Jan- 

 uary I found 2 dead queens on the alighting- 

 boards, and felt very much concerned over 

 the loss. Saturday, March 7, being a warm 

 day, and the bees were flying nicely, I made 

 an examination of the 2 hives and found the 

 two ladyships hard at work with quite a large 

 ba^ch of sealed brood and quite a large batch 

 of fresh-laid eggs, also 2 old queen cells that 

 had been badly ripped apart on the side — I 

 suppose where those queens came from, but 

 on examination of those queens that I found 

 dead, I felt assured that they were fully ma- 

 tured and had met the drone. Now I cannot 

 account for the above as the bees had no rea- 

 son to supersede their queens. 



My bees have wintered far beyond my ex- 

 pectation. I examined 29 hives on Saturday, 

 and made some changes, putting all winter cov- 

 ers over them, and I found hives with ample 

 stores and no less than 4 frames fully covered 

 with bees. I didn't find any of the hives 

 that had less than 4 frames and some had 6 

 with lots of brood and eggs for this time of 

 the year. 



Mv bees were all wintered on the summer 

 stands, protected only with newspapers. Now 

 I see in reading several bee-papers, that there's 

 quite a lot of controversy over wintering bees 

 with newspapers. I think if the hives are thor- 

 oughly painted, so as to exclude the weather, 

 and have several thicknesses of newspaper tied 

 carefully over the super covers and around 

 the sides of the hives, with a galvanized-iron 

 cover, and plenty of nature's stores, a good, 

 strong colony of bees will winter in the alti- 

 tude of Philadelphia in any kind of weather. 

 I found only one dead colony in 37. 



My crop of honey last year amounted to 1850 

 pounds from 17 colonies, and an increase of 

 20 colonies. The season was rather "off" for 

 this neighborhood, but I consider that amount 

 of honey a pretty good showing, considering 

 all conditions. 



Heo. M. Steele. 



Philadelphia, Pa.. March 10. 



Swarming — Hive-Covers — Wintered 

 Well. 



I examined all my colonies of bees this week, 

 and clipped all queens that I found undipped. 



I do not replace any queens unless they 

 show some failure. It does not pay here. I 

 examine my bees each year about this time, 

 if the weather is good, as the queens are not 



so hard to find as if done later in the sea- 

 son, when there are more bees in the hives. 

 It is a great help to have clipped queens, in 



When the bees are seen to begin to cast a 

 swarm, I, or some one of the family, catch 

 and cage the queen and remove the old hive to 

 a new place at once, and put in its place an 

 empty hive with starters 01 foundation in the 

 brood- frames. As soon as the bees begin to 

 come back I release the queen so that she can 

 go in with the bees. I also find it a great 

 help to place a frame of brood in the new- 

 hive. 



Bees do almost as well here if handled as 

 above, as if they had not swarmed, unless it 

 is late in the season. 



The next day I remove the super from 

 the old hive and place it on the new one that 

 the colony (or swarm) is in. It is not often 

 that there is brood reared in the sections, and 

 very little pollen carried up into the sections. 



I make an extra cover to go on top of my 

 hives to shade them in summer and protect 

 them from the weather in winter. It is a great 

 help in saving the colony, and still gives the 

 bees shade. I do not mean some flat boards 

 laid on top for the ants to build and rear young 

 under. I use a roof-shaped cover. I cut a ixio 

 inch board in lengths of 26 inches, and end- 

 pieces 4 inches wide in the middle, tapered to 

 one inch at the ends. ^AJiy kind of lumber 

 will do for this unless it is some kind of wood 

 that will rot easily. The reason I use one- 

 inch lumber is that it is not so easy to blow 

 off. I have tried lighter lumber but had to 

 use a weight. 



I have not lost a single colony of bees this 

 winter. All were wintered on the summer 

 stands. There are only 3 weak colonies in the 

 lot of about 100. Only 2 colonies were queen- 

 less, and one of them was queenless last fall. 

 Prospects are good for elm, maple, and fruit- 

 bloom. Clover is looking fine at this time. 

 We are expecting a good harvest this year. 



I am preparing to commence queen-rearing as 

 soon as I see drones flying. I find my own 

 reared queens do as well or better than the 

 ones I buy. W. A. Swearinxen. 



Lewis Co., Ky., March 24. 



Fair Crop — Bees Wintering Well — 

 Feeding Sugar Syrup. 



My honey crop was only fair, but I think 

 pretty good for such a poor season, and the 

 condition the bees were in. as more than half 

 of them were mere nuclei on May 15, 1907. 

 Had I not taken the best care of them and 

 fed them thin sugar syrup, I never could have 

 made the increase I did, let alone getting any 

 honey. We had a fair flow of clover and bass- 

 wood honey, but buckwheat and fall flow of 

 honey were nearly a total failure. I had on 

 over 600 sections, but got only 75 pounds. 

 From beginning to the end it was the poorest 

 season I have had since I have kept bees. I 

 had to feed them nearly one barrel of sugar 

 last fall to winter on, as the most of them 

 were light in stores. But they went into win- 

 ter quarters in good shape, and have wintered 

 fine so far. I have some in the cellar, some 

 out-doors, and 6 colonies buried in the ground, 

 or "clamps." as some call them. I will report 

 next spring as to how they wintered in the 

 clamps. 



We have had a very mild winter so far. It 

 has not been down to zero yet. The bees that 

 are out-doors have had 3 flights this month, 

 and are out to-day. I think they will winter 

 all right out-doors. 



I am a firm believer in feeding sugar syrup 

 both fall and spring, especially if they can't 

 get any honey. In spite of the poor season, 

 and losing over lialf of my bees last spring, 

 I have made some money out of them this year. 



T think the American Bee Tournal is fine, 

 and worth twice the price asked for it. I hope 

 all the readers will send in their reports wheth- 

 er poor or good, as we should^ tell of our 

 failures as well as our successes «'ith bees. 



Edw. A. Reddert. 



Baldwinsville, X. Y., Dec. 29. 



Bees Hard to Work With— Bad 

 Winter. 



The last season has been one of the most 

 trying to the beekeeper. In the first place, 

 the bees came throuijh the winter in No. i 

 condition. They bred up to boiling over with 

 bees. Then the cold set in and rain about 

 every other day, and this kept up till June 

 15. Then the bees were starving by the thou- 

 sands. All of this lime there was no honey 

 to be gathered. Then the weather changed, 

 and what bees were left began to gather a 

 little honey and pollen; and till the honey 



season was over they stored plenty to winter 

 on and surplus besides. 



It was the hardest season to do anything 

 with the bees. You could hardly make them 

 accept a queen. When you would try to in- 

 troduce a cjueen they would ball the caue. The 

 ball would get as large as your fist ana remain 

 that way for a week at a time, and no let-up. 

 They killed 3 out of 5 queens for me last sea- 

 son, and I never lost but one before in 24 

 years. They would keep the cage balled if I 

 did not interefere with them. 



This is a bad winter for the bees, as they do 

 not get to fly any. They arc soiling the hives 

 at the entrance as they crawl out of the hives. 

 It is too cold for them to fly this winter, and 

 if it does not become warm enough soon so 

 that the bees can fly, there will be lots of 

 dead colonies in the spring. Henry Best. 



Hibbetts. Ohio, Jan. 26. 



" Attic '* Bee-Keeping. 



The honey crop in this section with many 

 bee-keepers was a failure, with others it was a 

 partial success. I have seen no "fancy" and 

 very little No. i honey on the market this 

 winter, although it is in good demand and at a 

 good price. 



We live in a city of 40,000. The houses 

 are about 20 feet apart on each side of us. 

 The past year I had 4 colonies in my attic, and 

 they gave me 400 pounds of comb honey. The 

 best yield from a single colony was 178 pounds. 

 I have had bees in the attic for 5 years, and 

 never had a swarm. They never show any 

 inclination by building nueen-cells. 



I always feed between fruit-bloom and white 

 clover, as many colonies jvill starve at that 

 time if left light in stores from the previous 

 winter. * 



Last spring the 4 colonies carried away each 

 day 2 quarts of water in which I put a tea-cup 

 of granulated sugar. 



At fruit-bloom I give each colony an extra 

 hive-body and combs, and manipulate them so 

 as to have 20 frames well filled with brood, 

 and so have lots of bees for the harvest, 

 which lasts about 2 months. 



I use a frame of the Danzenbaker dimen- 

 sions. Just before white clover blooms I take 

 away 10 frames containing the last brood, and 

 replace with supers containing full sheets of 

 foundation and baits. I have never failed to 

 get a surplus if there was any in the field, 

 and I have never had to teed for winter. 



I can control the temperature in their room 

 to a certain extent, so I keep them cool during 

 the heat of the aay and give them lots 01 



I never keep a qt 

 always replace with a 

 ble dealer. 



I am a locomotive e 

 road my spare time i 

 with my bees, from \ 

 of pleasure, a great 

 profit. 



My bees have 



;en over two years, but 

 pure one from a reputa- 



igineer and when off the 

 . spent around my home 

 hich I take a great deal 

 leal of sweet, and some 



never stung any one viciously, 

 often driven under them to 



unload^ coal, and have never had any trouble. 



It is no trouble to dispose of all the honey I 



have, among our neighbors. 



Elmira, N. Y. P. F. Conklin. 



Bee-Papers for Beginners — Poor 

 Season. 



In the summer of 1905 my father told me 

 ana mv brother that we could keep some bees, 

 and that struck us just right, and gave us 

 the bee-fever about proper. We thought bees 

 were honey. We had one colony to begin 

 with, and toward fall we bought 10 more 

 colonies from an old bee-keeper who kept bees 

 on the "let-alone" plan. These bees were 

 short of honey and we did not Know anything 

 about feeding bees, and of course the man of 

 whom we bought our bees did not tell us any- 

 thing either, so we were left alone to venture 

 into the business. I was 1 9 and my brother 

 14 years old. 



In January. 1906, we put our bees in an 

 open shed, and of course we had to peep in 

 occasionally to see whether they were all alive 

 yet; and when spring came wc had 4 colonies 

 left for the harvest. That was a hard jolt for 

 beginners, but it didn't cure us of the fever, 

 .ve still hoped to get a good lot of honey. 

 When fall came we had about 50 pounds of 

 honey in all. Well, wp found out that bees 

 were not honey. 



In December, 1906, my brother died, 'and I 

 was left alone to continue in the bee-busi- 

 ness. But that winter I had read how to feed 

 bees and I didn't lose any out of 5 colonies, 

 but one was rather weak and in an old hive, 

 so I concluded I would transfer them, but they 

 didn't do any good, so in August, 1907, I 

 unitfd tlum with another, and I got only one 



