October, igir. 



American Vae Journal 



are rearing brood, and the celi-bnilding col- 

 onies are at work constructing cells." 



" But." we said. " haven't you found that 

 this outdoor feeding wears out your bees 

 unnecessarily." 



"N'ot if the feed is made //;;>/ enough. No- 

 tice that there is no excitement, no crowd- 

 ing, and no bees with the fuzz worn off their 

 bodies as when the feed is richer. See here." 



So saying he picked up a common galvan- 

 ized pail, poured in about lo Quarts of water, 

 then a quart of sugar. With a common dip- 

 per he stirred the mixture until it was all 

 dissolved. He next poured this over the 

 feeders and iw Ihe bees. Some of the bees, 

 during the pouring, were pushed into the 

 syrup, or what was in reality nothing more 

 than sap or sweetened water. They would 

 climb up the sides of the feeder, and take 

 wing as if nothing had happened. We then 

 tasted the sweetened water, and remarked. 

 " Mr. Hand, we can scarcely taste any sugar 

 at all." 



"That is true," he said: " but it is strong 

 enough to keep every thing booming here. ' 



Certainly it would seem that if one is 

 to keep bees at work by something in 

 the way of feeding, it will be more like 

 Nature to have the feed as thin as nec- 

 tar, and a half-and-half syrup is a long 

 way from being like nectar. The one 

 drawback in the case is that all neigh- 

 boring bees will come in for their 

 share of the goodies. Is it possible 

 that the bees could be trained to visit 

 the feeders when put out so late in the 

 day that neighboring bees would not 

 visit them ? 



Queens Not Going With Swariii.s 



As a rule, a queen ceases laying 

 about the time of swarming, so as to 

 be in light flying order. But accord- 

 ing to NIr. Dobbratz, in Bienen-Vater, 

 exceptions are not uncommon, and he 

 has had several cases himself in which 

 the queens were so heavy that they 

 could not go with the swarms. He 

 mentions one case. Several times the 

 queen was crowded to the entrance by 

 the rush of bees, but plainly did not 

 dare to venture to fly, as she always 

 went back into the hive. Finally, when 

 the swarm had nearly all left he suc- 

 ceeded in catching her. He carried 

 her in the hollow of his hand to join 

 the settling bees, and as he opened his 

 hand he noticed 3 eggs that she had 

 laid while being carried. Plainly such 

 a queen was too heavy to fly with a 

 swarm, and this may often be the an- 

 swer to the question, "VVhy did the 

 swarm return to the hive .'" 



Queen.s anti Their Work 



Wesley Foster says in Gleanings in 

 Bee Culture : 



The eggs of queens vary more in propor- 

 tion to their size than those of the different 

 breeds of hens. 1 have a Caucasian queen 

 that is laying eggs twice as large as the aver- 

 age egg of a queen. What percent of a 

 queen's eggs are fertile, and what percent 

 hatch is obtained among the best queens? 

 We should know more of the ability of our 

 queens if they confined their energy for just 

 one day to one side of an empty comb. I 

 have several (lueens that have laid over 3000 

 eggs on one side of a comb, and not over 20 

 ceils filled with honey or pollen. Were these 

 cells tilled with honey or pollen before the 

 queen could lay in them, or did the eggs 

 prove unfertile, and. after they were re- 

 moved, did honey and pollen occupy the 

 cells •" 



I have a few queens that show great egg- 

 laying abilitv. but many of their eggs never 

 hatch, and the hives do not hll up with bees 

 as do others whose queens have no more 

 combs with eggs in them. Sometliing is 

 wrong when a hive will always have eggs, 

 but never any commensurate amount of 

 larva: and capijed brood. 



The idea that part of the eggs laid 



by a queen are incapable of hatching is 

 perhaps new. Yet it is not impossible. 

 It is certain that in very rare cases a 

 queen is found, not one of whose eggs 

 ever hatches. If all of one queen's 

 eggs are bad, why may not part of an- 

 other queen's eggs be bad ? Yet one 

 may be excused for some skepticism 

 as to there being any bad eggs laid by 

 the majority of good queens. Lift a 

 frame out of a hive when a good queen 

 is at the height of her laying, and an 

 area of about l.j by 7 inches, compris- 

 ing nearly 30iH) cells on one side, will 

 be found filled with sealed brood, not a 

 cell missing. That shows pretty clearly 

 that not one egg in SiK'll in that case 

 was bad, and there may be some ques- 

 tion whether such a queen ever lays a 

 bad egg. 



keeping them strong, and they may b ^ 

 trusted to keep properly in check this 

 re-discovered pest. 



Nosenia Apis 



Not long ago considerable interest 

 was aroused by the report that Dr. 

 Zander had discovered a new bacillus 

 that he named Xosema apis. The rav- 

 ages caused by this microbe were said 

 to be disastrous; it was the cause of 

 malignant dysentery, and in some cases 

 the only proper treatment was to de- 

 stroy utterly the entire contents of the 

 hive. Dr. E. F. Phillips thought there 

 was no great cause for alarm lest the 

 plague sliould be introduced into this 

 country, since the same bacillus was 

 already here, present in many hives 

 with no very serious results. 



It now seems that others across the 

 water hold the same views. Dr. Walter 

 Hein, of Munich, has sent a paper pre- 

 pared for the convention of German, 

 Austrian, and Hungarian bee-keepers, 

 and in that he says that already in 1857 

 Dienhoft had discovered the same 

 bacillus, although it was not until now 

 named "Nosema apis." According to 

 this authority, the bacillus in question 

 is by no means the originator of ma- 

 lignant dysentery. In fact, it is to be 

 found in greater or less numbers in 

 most colonies, and a colony may flour- 

 ish in spite of its presence. All that is 

 needed is to give the best of care, 



Foundation - Splints and Split 

 Bottom-Bars 



E. M. Gibson uses foundation-splints, 

 and says this in Gleanings in Bee Cul- 

 ture ; 



This plan is a great improvement over 

 wiring, in my estimation. Since I followed 

 the Doctor's directions I have been relieved 

 of a trouble that always bothered me while 

 I was wiring frames; for. no matter how 

 well the frames were wired or how heavy 

 the foundation il have used, for experiment, 

 foundation that weighed only 4 sheets to 

 the pound*, it would sag and elongate the 

 cells near the top; and if I cut the sheets 

 wide enough for the bottom-bar to give them 

 support, they would buckle at the bottom. 



E)r. Miller states, in the American Bee 

 Journal for May, that some of his frames 

 have whole-piece bottom-bars, and he likes 

 them just as well. I prefer the divided ones 

 for various reasons, one of which is that it 

 saves a lot of fussy work sticking the foun- 

 dation to them to be pulled loose again by 

 the bees if set aside until cool weather 

 comes. The bees invariably did this for me, 

 and I stuck the sheets on with wax as hot as 

 the foundation would bear without melting. 

 The '-3 inch taken off the bottom-bar weak- 

 ens it somewhat; but. even so.it still con- 

 tains more wood than any other that I have 

 ever seen. After the bees get the divided 

 space filled with wax they seem as solid as 

 whole ones. 



It is only fair to say that I have had 

 but little experience with whole bot- 

 tom-bars in connection with splints. I 

 used a lot of Miller frames with whole 

 bottom-bars, but they were mostly used 

 for transferring into them combs from 

 other frames. So Mr. Gibson's expe- 

 rience may be the safer to go by. Cer- 

 tain it is that the split bottom-bar 

 makes it an easy thing to get an exact 

 fit at the bottom. But let no one de- 

 ceive himself by thinking that all one 

 has to do in any and all cases to get 

 combs built nicely down to the bottom- 

 bars is to have the bottom-bars split. 

 The frames must be given at a time 

 when there is a good flow of honey. If 

 bees have them when little or nothing 

 is doing, they will be pretty sure to 

 gnaw away the foundation at the bot- 

 tom in spite of the split bars. 



C. C. M. 



Miscellaneous W) News Items 



The Minneapolis Convention. — Last 

 month we said we would tell something 

 more this month about the last conven- 

 tion of the National Bee-Keepers' Asso- 

 ciation, which was held in Minneapolis, 

 Minn., Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 

 30 and 31, 1911. 



Among those who left on the special 

 car from Chicago at 6:4.5 p.m., Aug. 

 2!)th, were Dr. E. F, Phillips, of Wash- 

 ington, D. C. ; Dr. B. N. Gates, of Massa- 

 chusetts ; E. B. Tyrrell, of Detroit; M. 

 E. Darby, of Missouri, and Mr. and 

 Mrs. Fred W. Muth, of Cincinnati. At 

 Janesville, Wis., Jacob Huffman, Presi- 

 dent of the Wisconsin State Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Association, and G. E. Bacon, of 

 the G. B. Lewis Company, boarded the 

 car. It was a delightful trip all the 

 wav from Chicago to Minneapolis, and 



that part of the convention continued 

 until a late hour that night. 



On arriving at St. Paul, a delegation 

 of the Minnesota State Bee-Keepers' 

 Association met us, and accompanied 

 us to Minneapolis. Mr. N. E. France 

 was among the number. Each wore a 

 long white sash on which were printed 

 in large letters, "National Bee-Keepers' 

 Association." They caused quite a 

 commotion as they got on the train. 

 When arriving at Minneapolis, another 

 delegation met us and were "sashed" 

 in the same way. 



We all then went to the Vendome 

 Hotel, which had been selected as 

 head(|uarters. 



The special car arrived at Minneap- 

 olis about 8 a.m., Aug. 30th. After 

 breakfast, the bee-keepers gathered in 



