Januar}', iprr. 



I^Amqrican Bee Journal 



him. In this time he inspected 1214 col- 

 onies, finding 48 having foul brood, be- 

 sides 148 all diseased, making 1362 colo- 

 nies inspected. He will resume the good 

 work ne.N/t spring, when, with the co-opera- 

 tion of our bee-keepers, he hopes to clean 

 up all the foul brood in our countj'. An- 

 other meeting is called for the first Mon- 

 day in June. 



I sent 2 items from the American Bee 

 Journal to our county papers — the kidney 

 cure and the case of rheumatism. A few 

 days ago I met a lady who saw the items, 

 and she said she was eating hone}' every 

 me-al, hoping for happy results. 



I WiOuld suggest that bee--men might 

 do Others good by such use of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal and help the sale of 

 honey very much, also. 



T. M. B.*RT0.\. 



Butler, Ky., Dec. 13. 



The Bees Use of Propolis 



I wonder if it ever occurred to the 

 learned writers on bee-cuilture that the 

 habdt bees have of filHrg every' crack and 

 crevice with propolis (or bee-glue, as it 

 is commonly called) is simp'ly the fufill- 

 ing of one of the first laws of Xature — 

 self-preservation. The bee-moth or mil- 

 ler being eternally on the lookout for some 

 place to deposit their eggs, will place 

 them under the edge of the cover or other 

 crack, wihere they hatch, and, while yet 

 small and unobserved by the bees, make 

 their way into the hive. and. unless dis- 

 covered by some watchful bee, are soon 

 protected by a web of armor, and start 

 on their tour of destruction. 



The little bee, guided by instinct, looks 

 with suspicion on ail cracks it cannot 

 freely travel through and investigate, and 

 knows of no better way to guard against 

 its commion foe than to keep all such 

 cracks filled with glue. This glue is prac- 

 tically proof against the moth-worm. 



You will have little trouble with bee- 

 glue if you wrill make all cracks either 

 large enough for the bees to pass through 

 freely or so small as to seem solid ; at 

 least that has been my experience in this 

 locality. 



I aslo wonder why the "A B C & X Y 

 Z of Bee Culture" places the worker-bee 

 in the masculine gender. 



Rocky Ford, Colo. A. S. Parson. 



The Art of Selling Things 



I am quite inti-rtstcd in Mr. Wesley 

 Foster's salesmanship articles. I was 

 pressed into service as a salesman at the 

 age of 10. To get some money of my 

 own, I picked up beechnuts in Xorthern 

 Michigan and sold them by the quart, also 

 wild blackberries. Then later on at a 4- 

 year term in the city of selling vegetables 

 and fruits. I learned to study my cus- 

 tomer. When I met a careworn face. I 

 used the "negative" salute, as "You don't 

 want to buy." It aroused a little com- 

 bativeness and started an investigation, 

 and then with a cheerful countenance, — 

 "Come and look at my goods!" 



One time a man was carrying goods 

 from a hoa^e back from the road. I 

 asked, "Does your family eat onions?" 

 "Yes." "Need any?" "Guess not to- 

 day." But I noticed out of the corner of 

 my eye after I started on. that he was 

 taking ."vhort steps. I stopped. "Come 

 and look at them!" He said, "Say, those 

 are large ! — But I have nothing to carry 

 thcim in." There was the old basket I 

 brought on purpose. Sale. 



I went to the door of a fine house in 

 the country, and rapped. The door 

 opened about 6 inches. "Use onions?' 

 "Yes; too early to buy." his teeth grind- 

 ing on a piece of meat while trying to 

 •^alk. "Don't need to pay for them if 

 they rot," Come and look at them. "Nice 



location here for peaches — nice enough 

 for anything." "Two bushels — here is 

 your dollar." 



. I olfered an old cow with one lower 

 front tooth gone, for $17.00 The custo. 

 mer hitched his team to the covered 

 buggy, and he and his family drove 22 

 miles to visit the wife's folks a w^eek, 

 but left me crying to sell. I started out 

 one morning to where a cow was wanted 

 I met the man coming, but did not tell 

 him my business. We talked one hour, 

 and the cow came and visited us. I pet- 

 ted her. "When will she 'come in?'" 

 "Won't 'come in.' " "Glad to see you're 

 honest." "Price?" "$22.00 or $23.00." 

 "Here is $22.00." 



I offered another cow for $30.00, but 

 no sale for two weeks. Siners wanted a 

 cow. "Price?" Thirty-five whole dol- 

 lars, sir." Sale. 



When I came to Idaho, they told me 

 I couldn't "work" people here that way. 

 I bought a "coyote" for $10. She did 

 not fill the bill, so I offered her for a 

 $4.00 watch, but the fellow wanted $2.50 

 to boot. Then I got all kinds of cheap 

 offers. I finally got 2 coyotes for mine 

 sold one for $7.00, and the other which 

 filled the bill cost me $3.00. 



The first requisite is a demand; the 

 next is to have goods you are in no way 

 ashamed to offer ; then comes gentleman- 

 ly sociability ; and last but not least, a 

 wonderful store of enthusiasm, that is 

 given vent in a logical manner. 



A good salesman after ten hours duty 

 is tired enough to sleep well. But it is 

 fun to sell honey. It is so sweet. I 

 get 16 2-3 cents for extracted and 20 

 cents for comb. Sold out. 



Fraser, Idaho. F. F. George. 



Rearing Queens from Best Colonies 



I have just been reading page 342 

 (1910) — "What about the Long-tongued 

 bees?" — and were it not for the fact that 

 ni" Moore queen has given such surpris- 

 ing results the past season, I probably 

 would express myself as having little 

 confidence in the matter of any particu- 

 lar strain of bees possessing that qualifi- 

 cation. 



However, notwithstanding the fact that 

 I sometimes order a queen bo facilitate 

 l<«eping up my stock of bees, I believe 

 greatly in my ability to do a great deal 

 along that line by breeding from my bet- 

 ter colonies. I take particular notice of 

 all my ooloruies that make the best record 

 as honey-gatherers, and a«n careful to 

 rear queens from these particular colo- 

 nies. I am quite sure that I have got- 

 ten good results in this way. and am 

 equally as sure that a goodly number of 

 queens ordered from those who have 

 made a -business of rearing and shipping 

 queens have proven absolutely worthless. 



Rcdlands, Cal. C. L. Grigsby. 



Foul Brood Law for Kentucky 



I would 'like to know how many bee- 

 keepers there are in this State, and what 

 they think about trying to get a foul brood 

 law, so we could have an inspector in 

 Kentucky. If they think it advisable. 

 every one should work to that end. All 

 tnc States that produce much honey, or 

 most of them at least, have a foul brood 

 law, and have an inspector to protect 

 them from the ravages of the dreaded 

 disease. I do not know tihat the disease 

 has done any damage in this State, but 

 we can not tell how soon it .may. 1 

 think I am the only one in this State 

 who writes to the American Bee Journal, 

 for I don't sec very many letters from 

 Kentucky. 



I'.eing an amatetir in the business, I 

 feel a little backward about writing, but 

 when I look over the pages of the "Old 



Reliable" and see the experiences of oth- 

 ers, I feel like placing mine in line, too. 

 I will give a plan I tried this fall for cur- 

 ing foul brood. I was away from home 

 most of the summer, so when I came 

 home for the fall crop, I found a colony 

 with foul brood. I did not have time to 

 doctor them, but I had a weak colony 

 so I doubled them up the last .of August 

 Nov. 18 I took 8 of the combs from a 

 healthy colony filled and sealed, except 

 2, with a small patch of unsealed honey. 

 I placed tlhese 8 frames in a new hive, 

 then moved the diseased colony back and 

 put the new one on the old stand. I took 

 out the frames and shook all the bees in 

 front of the new hive. As it was not 

 very warm that day, I did not run much 

 risk of spreading the disease, for there 

 were very few bees flying from the other 

 hives. 



I can not tell how this plan would work, 

 but I can't see why it would not get rid 

 of the disease, as the little hone^' the 

 bees take into the new hive will be very 

 quickly used up, and so no chance to 

 infect the new combs. I will report in 

 the spring how they wintered, and how 

 this plan works. It will make things 

 easier, for where there are two or more 

 diseased colonies, they can be doubled up 

 before brood-rearin.g stops, and then at 

 the last work for the winter they can be 

 put on new combs, the old combs melted 

 up, and th.e hive burnt out or up, as one 

 likes. I would like to hear what the 

 older heads think of this plan of destroy- 

 ing both kinds of foul brood. I think it 

 is all right when you discover the disease 

 too late to doctor it by the other plans — 

 McEvoy or Alexander way. 



L. S. Dickson. 



Princeton, Ky., Dec. 24. 



Spring Strengthening of Weak 

 Colonies 



Spring is not nc.ir \ el, but will arrive 

 agaiin some time in the future when every 

 bee-keeper will get busy to have every 

 colony in the apiary as strong as possi- 

 ble ; and to obtain these requirements the 

 apiarist must assist some colonies that are 

 weak in bees. No matter how careful the 

 apiarist is, there are always some weak- 

 lings in an apiary in the spring. The ma- 

 jority of bee-keepers strengthen their weak 

 colonies by giving frames of sealed brood, 

 which has nearly reached the emerging 

 stage, iwhile others take a few frames of 

 bees that are from strong colonies and 

 are shaken at the entrance of the weak- 

 ling: but I have found some serious ob- 

 jections in strengthening colonies in that 

 way. 



Strong colonies usually have their 

 frames filled with brood from one ena- 

 bar to the other, while a weak colony has 

 brood in 3 or 4 frames in the egg form. 

 By inserting a frame that is fi,lled with 

 brood the bees are forced to spread out, 

 then, if the weather gets cool, the bees are 

 ha,ndicapped, consequently lots of chilled 

 brood and the colony v;ill be as weak as 

 ever. When shaking some bees from the 

 strong colonies at the entrance of the 

 weakling there as always a possibility that 

 we shake the queen of the strong on the 

 entrance of the weakling, which is usually 

 among the best queens in the apiary. 



Taking all in all, I have never iiui 

 much confidence in that management, so- 

 I have experimented until I have suc- 

 ceeded in finding a way whereby T can 

 accomplish every retiuirement necessarv 

 to bring my weak colonies to super-work 

 at the opening of the honey-flow. I will 

 say at the very beginning, do not at- 

 tempt to try my way before there is an 

 abundance of young bees in a strong 

 colony to maintain the right temperature 

 and care of the brood, bcc-iusc the meth- 

 od will be worse than worthless if it is 



