May, iQli. 



American Vee 



German Honey-Booklet. — This booklet 

 of 5t) pages, published in the German 

 language, has for its object the popu- 

 larization of honey as an important 

 food and domestic medicinal remedy. 

 Some idea of the nature of its contents 

 may be had from the headings of chap- 

 ters : 



What is Honey ; Honey Adulteration ; 

 How to Recognize Pure Honey; To 

 Detect Adulterated Honey; How Bees 

 Gather and Prepare Honey; The Chief 

 Sources of Honey; The Different Va- 

 rieties of Honey; Honey in the House- 

 hold; Honey as a Medicine; Honey 

 and Wine ; Recognition of Honey by 

 Authorities; Bee-Poison as a Remedy. 



The little work seems to be ably pre- 

 pared by its author. Prof. Reinhold 

 Michaelis, and is published at Leipzig 

 at the price of 40 pfennigs, by Alfred 

 Michaelis. That the work is appre- 

 ciated in Germany is shown by the fact 

 that this is the 4th edition. 



HI the spring wagon, and took them to the 

 new stands. This was done before 4 p.m., 

 and at abont that hour (which was about one 

 hour before sunset) we began driimmifis 

 them and smoking them alternately for 

 nearly half an hour, then we removed the 

 entrance-closers as speedily as possible and 

 gave the bees a few momefits' flight before 

 dark. 



The following day I made it my business 

 to visit the old stands several times and see 

 if it was necessary to place hives there for 

 the returning bees to save the loss, but it 

 was quite unnecessary, for I think I could 

 have carried them all in a Benton cage; and 

 I have reason to believe that the few that 

 were remaining had slept out of doors the 

 night before they were moved. 



Old vs. New Section Foundation. — 



Frequently the question is asked 

 whether it is advisable to use comb 

 foundation in sections that has been 

 left over from a previous year. Such 

 foundation may be readily accepted by 

 the bees, and it may be utterly rejected. 

 G. M. Doolittle puts the matter very 

 nicely in the following words in Glean- 

 ings: 



"The experiments I have made during the 

 years which have passed since I began to 

 use thin foundation in the sections have 

 convinced me that foundation 5 or even 10 

 years old is just as good as when it first came 

 from the mill, if it has not been on the hives 

 during the latter part of the season through 

 a period of scarcity. If sections are left on 

 the hives after the harvest, and propolis 

 enough IS gathered so that the unused foun- 

 dation is varnished over, this propolis- 

 painted foundation should be cut out of the 

 sections, melted, and replaced by fresh." 



Shipments of Nexican Honey. — The 



exports of honey from Tampico to the 

 United States during 1910 amounted to 

 43,57.5 gallons, valued at $21,380 gold, 

 an increase of about CO percent over 

 1900, says Consul Clarence A. Miller. 



The greater part of the honey is the 

 wild product, and is brought in from 

 the Huasteca section and Tuxpam. 

 Among the flowers that are abundant 

 are the century-plant and the "lion's 

 tooth," which are much sought after by 

 the bees. A species of mesquite known 

 as algorroba furnishes an abundance 

 of blossoms and a sweet sap, and the 

 bees frequently hive in the hollow trees 

 of this variety. The bees of this sec- 

 tion are of the large yellow variety. 

 The seasons for gathering honey are 

 from May to July, and from September 

 to November. — American Food Journal 

 for February, 1911. 



Moving Bees Short Distances Until 



recently it has been considered an un- 

 safe thing to move bees in warm 

 weather unless they could be moved a 

 mile or more. But by fastening the 

 bees in the hive and then giving the 

 right kind of disturbance long enough, 

 it seems bees can be moved any time of 

 year. Clint F. Pulsifer, in Arizona, 

 had 40 colonies to move about 25 rods 

 in warm weather. He says in Glean- 

 ings : 



I closed the entrances early in the morning 

 before the beeswereflying; placed the hives 



Bee-Keeping in Florida E. G. Bald- 

 win says in Gleanings that in Florida 

 the summer temperature is seldom 

 higher than 94 degrees, and in winter 

 seldom lower than 30 degrees. " Four- 

 fifths of all the surplus honey produced 

 in the State comes from the blossoms 

 of nectar-producing trees or shrubs, 

 not flowering plants." 



Bee-Keeping in Texas.— The following 

 account of the doings of bees and bee- 

 keepers in Texas, written by Wm. E. 

 Curtis, is taken from the daily Chicago 

 Record-Herald : 



With other distinctions Texas is the great 

 bee-State of the Union, and produced more 

 than 15.000.000 pounds of honey last year. val- 

 ued at 83.500.000. While it is impossible to 

 obtain definite figures, it is estimated that 

 there are ioo.ooo colonies of bees in the State 

 valued at S5.5oo,ooo. and it is known that they 

 are increasingvery rapidly. They are mostly 

 Spanish bees, descendants of colonies that 

 were brought over by early immigrants, and 

 at first were kept in a primitive manner. 

 Square board hives were used and colonies 

 were often sacrificed in securing the honey. 

 But, like cows and steers, the bees have 

 been bred up and improvements suggested 

 by scientific investigation, have elevated 

 apiculture to a high plane and a profitable 

 basis. Bee-keeping is so profitable that or- 

 dinary farmers have become specialists, and 

 colonies are counted by the hundreds where 

 there were only dozens before. 



The most favorable locality is along the 

 Nueces River, where are vast areas of flow- 

 ering plants and trees that are loaded with 

 sweetness, and naturally the center of the 

 industry is at the town of Beeville. Bee 

 County, down in the corner of the State 

 where the railroads from Houston and San 

 Antonio meet, perhaps 30 miles northwest of 

 Corpus Christi. The greatest apiary in the 

 world is there, with 8000 hives of bees owned 

 and managed by the same man. Beeville is 

 the only town and Bee County is the only 

 county. I suppose, that were ever named 

 after the busy bee. The former has a popu- 

 lation of about 3500, and the county of about 

 8000. More than 1.000,000 pounds of honey are 

 shipped every year. 



It is a curious fact that bees insure large 

 fruit crops. This is not a boom story, but a 

 scientific phenomenon, and is due to the in- 

 dustry of the bee which, flitting from blos- 

 som to blossom in its work of gathering 

 honey, distributes the pollen, fertilizing the 

 blossom, thus assisting in the production of 

 the fruit. That task is usually left to the 

 breeze, which is never as reliable as the 

 bee. 



There are large manufactories engaged 

 exclusively in making hives, honey-frames, 

 boxes for shipping honey, and other sup- 

 plies for bee-culture which are not found in 

 any other .State, and bee-ranches are in- 

 creasing so rapidly that it is difficult for 

 them to supply the demand. 



Mr. Curtis is one of the ablest, most 

 experienced, and most reliable news- 

 paper correspondents in the whole 

 world. Yet, somehow, when it comes 

 to the matter of bees, the general 

 writer, be he ever so reliable, is likely 

 to make slips, and while the foregoing 

 is more reliable than one might expect 

 to find from a writer not an expert in 

 the matter of bees, still there is left 



room for question as to one or more 

 of the statements made. 



Take that last statement: "large 

 manufactories engaged exclusively in 



making hives which are not 



found in any other State." It is hard 

 to understand that as meaning any- 

 thing else than that outside of Texas 

 there can be found no large manufac- 

 tory engaged exclusively in manufac- 

 turing things for bee-keepers. It looks 

 asif some of those Texans had been 

 stuffing Mr. Curtis, showing up the big 

 amount of bee-supplies made in Texas 

 without hinting as to the bigger 

 amounts made elsewhere. Well, one 

 can hardly blame them for telling all 

 of the truth about Texas, but one can 

 hardly hold guiltless so experienced a 

 newspaper man as Mr. Curtis for not 

 informing himself as to matters outside 

 of Texas. 



Mr. Curtis lays aside his usual 

 shrewdness at careful investigation, 

 and supposes that Beeville is the only 

 town and Bee County the only county 

 ever named after the busy bee. How 

 far wrong that supposition is from the 

 truth may be seen in part by reference 

 to the United States Postal Guide, 

 without looking up all the rest of the 

 world. It may not be far out of the 

 way to suppose that when a post-office 

 is found having a certain name, as a 

 rule a town of the same name will also 

 be found. Besides Beeville, no less 

 than 23 other post-offices are named 

 presumably after the bee. Nine differ- 

 ent States have each a post-office 

 named Bee; 2 post-offices have the 

 name Beehive; 2 are named Beecreek; 

 and the following 10 post-offices may 

 also be found : Beeranch, Beecamp, 

 Beecaves, Beegum, Beehouse, Beelick, 

 Beelog, Beespring, Beesville, and Bee- 

 town. 



Evidently Texas has no monopoly of 

 towns named after the bee ; but it does 

 have the distinction of being the only 

 State having a Bee county. 



Is not this the first time that the 

 statement has appeared that the great- 

 est apiary in the world is to be found 

 at Beeville ? Perhaps some one will 

 tell us more about it, and will also tell 

 us whether reliance is to be placed on 

 the statement that every year more 

 than 1,000,000 pounds of honey are 

 shipped from Bee County. 



Pecos Valley Convention The an- 

 nual meeting of the Pecos Valley Bee- 

 Keepers' Association, of New Mexico, 

 will be held at Rosswell, N. M., at 9 

 a.m., Wednesday, June 9, 1911. Business 

 of importance will come before the 

 convention. All lovers of the honey- 

 bee are invited to meet with us. 



R. B. Slease, Pres. 



H. C. Barron, Sec. 



The Seven County Convention. — The 



Seven County Bee and Poultry Keepers' 

 hold their semi-annual convention at 

 Brookville, Pa., June 7, 1911, and they 

 will be glad to have the readers of the 

 American Bee Journal meet with them. 

 A. M. Applegate, Sec-Treas. 



P'rom following the instructive reading in 

 the American Bee Journal for the year loio, 

 I have saved $25 on my bees. 



Mrs. a. a. Good. 



Arlington. Wash.. Dec. 17, loio. 



