American B^c Journal j 



January, 191 1. 



applied too early in the spring. We ap- 

 proach in the following manner : 



When you see that there are young 

 bees galore in the strong colony, which 

 usually is about a month before the honey- 

 fiovv, then simply exchange places, or in 

 other words, move the weakling to the 

 stand that was occupied by the strong, 

 and the strong colony to the stand of the 

 weak. The weakling will get the field- 

 force of the strong coiony, consequentiy, 

 strengthening the -weakling. We also in 

 that way make use of those old, cranky 

 bees that otherwise would devote their 

 time to stinging and robbing. 



Some might imagine that the queens 

 of the weak colonies will be killed, but 

 no, not so. I have never had a queen 

 bailed or killed since I tried this prac- 

 tical way, and I have tried it on weak- 

 lings where there were only bees enough 

 to cover one Langstroth frame. The 

 bees from the strong colony that enter the 

 hive of the weakling will at once recog- 

 nize that it isn't their original home, and 

 will run and fly about the hive for a 

 while, and consequently will be glad to 

 join the weakling. 



Now I wall again repeat, do not try 

 to strengthen weak colonies before there 

 is an abundance of young bees in the 

 strong colonies (and not one day soon- 

 er) ; that is the secret of success. You 

 will see that all the field-bees will leave 

 the strong colioiiy, and if there are no 

 young bees the brood will be starved and 

 chilled. Alfred L. Hartl. 



Elmendorf, Texas. 



Is the Queen's Drone Progeny 

 Affected by Her Mating? 



Some time ago I wrote some articles 

 which appeared in the October, 1907, and 

 the February, 1908, issues of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, in which I oom'bated the 

 generally received theory that a queen's 

 drone progeny are unaffected by her 

 mating; and also gave my experience and 

 observations, which I thought sufficiently 

 supported my contention, as I had twice 

 tried to Italianize my apiary with queens 

 mated in it where I had allowed drones 

 to fly that came from mismated Italian 

 queens, with unsatisfactory results. I 

 hoped to elicit replies from those who 

 had had experience in the matter, to see 

 whether our experience coninoided or not. 

 Perhaps I was unwisely positive on the 

 subject, but I really intended some things 

 I wrote to be received with a smile. But 

 I soon saw the difference between the 

 smile of those who knew me and under- 

 stood me, and those who did not, and 

 took it more seriously than I intended. 



The replies I received were sometimes 

 derisive, and none gave any experience 

 of their own in the matter, even when it 

 seemed they ought to have had abundant 

 opportunity for scientific experiment, but 

 all seemed satisfied to reply on the ex- 

 periments of the very few scientists who 

 had examined the eggs of a queen with a 

 microscope and found spermatozoa only 

 in those laid in worker-cells. This seemed 

 to me far from conclusive, and I thought 

 we ought to have more corroborative evi- 

 dence than we had, before we regarded 

 the theory as established. 



I knew that my observations were not 

 infallible, that there were plenty of 

 chances to be mistaken, and thait further 

 evidence was necessary before a just 

 conclusion could be reached, and I was 

 surprised at the apathy of bee-keepers on 

 so important a subject. 



As my experience relating to this sub- 

 ject had only been with Italian bees, 

 which I know would sometimes appear to 

 be pure when they were not, and having 



a strain of "golden" Italians that were 

 too cross to suit me, and having found 

 the Banats to be as good in every respect 

 and the most peaceable bees I ever saw, 

 I decided to replace all my queens with 

 those reared from a tested Banat, allow- 

 ing them to mate, as they almost invaria- 

 bly would, with golden drones, and this 

 I carried into effect, carefully eliminating 

 all sources of error. This gave me the 

 opportunity to observe carefully the ef- 

 fect of such mating on the resulting prog- 

 eny. I found that the workers varied 

 from mostly dark colonies to those that 

 would pass for pure Italians if color 

 alone was considered as an index ; but, to 

 my surprise, the drones were in every 

 case all black, like those from a tested 

 Banat queen. After the drones from the 

 goldens had disappeared, I rearerd about 

 a dozen more Banat queens, which must 

 almost unavoidably mate wiith the drones 

 fnom mismated Banat queens, and, I must 

 confess, in every case but one the result- 

 ing worker progeny were apparently pure, 

 and that one was but s.lightly impure. 

 There are several things that might have 

 caused this exception, and I can not tell 

 which, but I must now confess that it 

 appears to me that a queen's drones are 

 affected very slightly, if at all, by her 

 mating. 



I intend to replace all these mismated 

 queens with the Banat queens, reared 

 from tested mothers, as soon as conven- 

 ient, but need not be in a hurry about it 

 a-s these hybrids are not as cross as those 

 from the Italian and German races. In 

 doing this, I may learn something more 

 on the subject, but at present I will re- 

 tire without any further apology, as I do 

 not think my articles have done any real 

 harm to any one, and I do not intend 

 often to inflict my cogitations on the bee- 

 keeping fraternity in the future. 



T. W. Livingston. 



Leslie, Ga., Oct. 19. 



200 Pounds of Honey from i Pound 

 of Bees 



Hamilton County, Ohio (in which the 

 City of Cincinnati is located) has 3500 

 colonies of bees. Here is where the late 

 Chas. F. Muth (who loved bees so much 

 that he kept them next to his sleeping 

 room, and originated the first roof-api- 

 ary of the world) went along the high- 

 ways, the hills and waste-places, and scat- 

 tered the seeds of honey-plants 40 years 

 ago. His unselfish love and prophetic 

 eye have made a Garden O'f Eden here for 

 the honey-bee. Toward the east, on the 

 hillsides, we have 2000 acres of yellow and 

 white sweet clover blooming the first of 

 May and the first of June, respectively; 

 toward the west, in the lowlands, we 

 have 1000 acres on which grow the span- 

 ish-needle, smartweed, sweet clover, wild 

 cucumber, etc. 



At Hamilton, Ohio, just 20 miles away, 

 the great poet, prophet and most help- 

 ful philosopher of bee-culture lived and 

 experimented for many years; and 50 

 miles away his sacred dust rests in Wood- 

 land Cemetery in Daiv'ton, Ohio. Oh ! sa- 

 cred dust, whose love was wonderfully 

 exemplified in the life and works of L. 

 L. Langstroth, author of the "Hive and 

 Honey-Bee." 



Now let us come to the specific expla- 

 nation of how one pound of bees gathered 

 such a splendid crop of honey : 



Last winter many of my bees died. ' I 

 have an out-apiary at Dayton, on a little 

 home-apiary at Cincinnati as a sort of 

 thermometer. Three colonies out of 

 the 4 died at the home-apiary. This left 

 me with splendid combs on which to start 

 another colony. I sent for i pound of 

 bees to a firm in New York State, which 

 were sent by express for $i.oo, in a small 

 ■box largely made of wire-netting. The 



bees arrived in early May, in' excellent 

 condition, for by actual count I found 

 only 27 dead bees in the box. I started 

 them with a queen 4 weeks old, on 5 

 frames well packed in a lo-frame hive 

 in perfect condition. 



In 3 weeks I gave them 5 more frames, 

 with about 10 pounds of honey. The mid- 

 dle of June I gave them another hive- 

 story, and the last of July another. They 

 had no comb to build. Some talk of 

 "shaking" bees ; I suspect the express 

 company shook them well (for they 

 "shake" all their patrons!) 



The way those bees went to work was 

 simply wonderful. They were just like 

 some people escaping from a great ca- 

 lamity — expressed their gratitud; by a 

 most faithful service. The hive condition 

 must have been perfect, and their ex- 

 press journey terrible. Then there was 

 the 2000 acres in front of them, and 

 1000 acres back of them — the harvest 

 great, and labors few ; a perfect honey- 

 field, and more perfect weather. Then 

 Halley's Comet may have electrified this 

 old earth again, so that all plant life 

 shall more bountifully secrete nectar for 

 the next 75 years (for I have often heard 

 old "gray-heads" speak about the "great 

 honey crop" 40 years ago). 



Now, Mr. Editor, since the comet has 

 come and gone, you cart lay your plans 

 good and strong, for again the Old Earth 

 has renewed her honeyed youth ; and 

 Mr. Reader, if you cannot understand, 

 and do not believe that my bees produced 

 this splendid crop of honey, why, come 

 and see me, and I will be able to drown 

 you in a barrel of honey I 



This experiment suggests to me that 

 we might in early April or fruit-blorm 

 secure bees by the pound from the South, 

 and then renew our colonies that hard 

 winters have put to sleep. 



(Rev.) F. R. Wagner. 



Cincinnati, Ohio, Oct. 27. 



Some Bee-Keeping Experiences 



I have been a subscriber to the Jour- 

 nal for the last 2 years, have been in the 

 bee-business 3 years, and have read many 

 communications from other bee-men which 

 I have enjoyed very much, so I will give 

 some of my experiences. 



I am not as extensively in the busi- 

 ness as I expect to be. I began in 1908 

 with only 2 colonies, increased to 4, and 

 ran for comb honey only. I got along 

 nicely. My bees were all hybrids at that 

 time, and my troubles did not begin until 

 the spring of 1909. All my bees came out 

 in the spring of 1909 very strong, and in 

 good shape, but the spring was back- 

 ward, cold and rainy, and in May they 

 began to swarm. In the beginning I had 

 one of the best systems that could be 

 had, I studied it thoroughly, and had no 

 trouble in controlling the swarms as they 

 issued. I increased to 27 strong colonies, 

 and put supers on the old colonies and 

 some on the young colonies that had 

 issued early. It wasn't long until the 

 honey-dew began to roll in, and I realized 

 that I was "up against a tough proposi- 

 tion." But I let things go on until .^ug. 

 1st. I sent to a prominent queen-breeder 

 in Illinois for several of his best red- 

 clover queens, and received them prompt- 

 ly and in fine shape. I went through all 

 the colonies that had stored surplus, and 

 took off all the black stuff, for it wasn't 

 good for anything; but when going 

 through I found that they did not have 

 very much honey of any kind in the 

 brood-chambers, and I took some of the 

 weakest queens out and introduced the 

 red clover queens. About Sept. ist I 

 began to feed until they were all in good 

 shape. 



Out of the 27 colonies that I had, they 

 were not all natural swarms, as I got 



