October, 191 1. 



[American ^ee JoarnaQ 



be very large. The officials in charge of the 

 course kindly provided a comfortable class- 

 room for the business meeting and program 

 for the bee-keepers, and gave them a place 

 on the general program. 



Prof. C. E. Sanborn, the entomologist at 

 the College and Experiment Station, has 

 had quite extensive experience with bees 

 and their diseases, and is an enthusiastic 

 member of the .Association. He has charge 

 of the bees of the Station. If Oklahoma 

 bee-keepers will rally to the support of 

 Prof. Sanborn and the -Association, much 

 can be done toward "getting in on the 

 ground floor " in controlling disease, etc.. in 

 Oklahoma. The Association is thoroughly 

 organized, has drafted a bee-law-, and is only 

 waiting for the opportune time for its in- 

 troduction. In the meantime the support 

 of every bee-keeper in the State is needed, 

 and that support can best be given by send- 

 ing in the membership to Secretary Arthur 

 Rhoads. 



The present officers are: N. Fred Gardi- 

 ner, Geary, Okla. president; Geo. H. Coul- 

 son. Cherokee. Okla. vice-president; Arthur 

 Rhoads. Coyle. Okla.. secretary; and G. E. 

 Lemon. Nashville. Okla.. treasurer. 



N. Fred Gardiner. 



No. 4. — Apiary of J. F. Diemer in Winter 



The picture I send is of my home yard, and 

 I take pleasure in keeping it strictly up to 

 tlate in every respect. There are 101 colo- 

 nies in lo-frame hives. The bottom-boards 

 and hive-bodies are the same length, and for 

 winter the alighting-boards are removed so 

 the snow can not lodge on them and close 

 the entrance. 



The honey-house has 5 rooms, but only 

 about half of it shows in the picture. It is 

 on the east side of the yard. The hives face 

 south, and are well protected on the west, 

 north and east. I run for extracted honey 

 altogether. J. F. Diemer. 



Liberty. Mo. 



No. 6 Apiary of A. A. Augenstein 



I am sending a photograph of part of my 

 hee-yard. showing myself enjoying the sweet 

 music of the busy bee. 



Four years ago my bees were mostly hy- 

 brids, so at the suggestion of the late W. Z. 

 Hutchinson, I purchased one colony of his 

 famous "Superior" stock, and began to 

 supersede all old and worthless queens with 

 young queens from the Superior stock. The 

 result was a wonderful improvement in both 

 vigor and honey-gathering qualities, I shall 

 always feel thankful for the late W. Z. 

 Hutchinson's good and kindly advice. 



I enjoy the first page of the American Bee 

 Journal greatly. It is almost like making 

 short visits to bee-keepers all over the 

 world. Success to the old American Bee 

 Journal! .A. A. Augenstein. 



Dakota. 111. 



No. 5. — Mr. Pashek's Girls and Gentle 

 Bees 



The picture shows how easy Italian bees 

 can be handled. Those are my own chil- 

 dren and my own bees. I am a bee-man. 

 photographer and orchardist. That picture 

 helps to sell nearly all the journals. Nearly 

 everybody is afraid of the bees, and when I 

 show any one the picture, he has no more 

 excuse: and if he is very stubborn. I have 

 some other remedy which will cure him. 



The Dalles, Oreg. John Pashek. 



No. 2 Apiary of F. A. Jackson 



My apiary is situated on the De Robly 

 ranch in the northern part of Santa Barbara 

 Co.. Cal.. 20 miles east of Santa Maria. The 

 enclosed picture shows it, consisting of go 

 colonies of bees, with myself standing in the 

 foreground among the live oak trees. 



We have no trouble with wintering our 

 bees, as they winter on the summer stands. 

 The bee-pasturage is principally the sage, 

 which yields the water-white honey. The 

 bees are mostly hybrids, but I have 20 colo- 

 nies of the 5-banded golden Italian bees, 

 which I find the strongest and best pro- 

 ducers for this part of the State. 



Santa Maria. Cal. F. A. J.^^ckson. 



No. 3 Apiary of W. P. Keefer 



The photograph shows a part of my bee- 

 yard. My business is growing small fruits, 

 and I keep bees primarily as allies in the 

 business, for I find that all the small fruits, 

 as well as melons, cantaloupes, cucumbers 

 squash, etc.. need the help of the bees in 

 the matter of pollenization; but I have be- 

 come so interested in the busy little workers 

 that I contemplate giving more of my time 



and attention to them, and increasing the 

 number of colonies as fast as I can. 



In the picture, from left to right, are Henry 

 Schnell, the writer (W. P. Keefer), and Paul 

 Keefer. my n-year-old son. who is taking 

 much interest in bees. 



Mr. Schnell is also a bee-keeper of consid- 

 erable note, and is an authority on bee-lore 

 in his district. He is of direct German de- 

 scent, and gives his bees that careful atten- 

 tion to details characteristic of the race, 

 and which insures him eminent success in 

 that line. 



Mr Schnell is also a grower of fancy 

 strawberries, and is no less successful in 

 that line than in bee-keeping. He puts out 

 an article in the strawberry line that sur- 

 prises the natives. It is a rare treat for me 

 to get with Mr. Schnell and discuss bees 

 and big berries, as seen in photograph. 



Summerville, Pa. W. P. Keeper. 



Chickens Eating Bees. — Louis H. 

 Scholl reports in Gleanings in Bee Cul- 

 ture that he was the proud possessor 

 of more than 100 pure-bred chickens, 

 but he decided they had rather expen- 

 sive tastes when 20 or 30 of the young 

 birds were catching bees at a time, and 

 by watching he found that " a dozen 

 bees seemed not to appease the appe- 

 tite of a single bird." It has been said 

 that chickens would eat only drones, 

 but Mr. Scholl says no drones were 

 present, the swarming season having 

 been over for a long time. 



Value of Bees in Michigan Accord- 

 ing to the United States census depart- 

 ment, bees in Michigan were valued at 

 $446,500 in 1910, and $3o'2,.j00 in 1900, 

 the increase amounting to $94,000, or 

 26.7 percent. In the same 10 years the 

 increase in the value of domestic ani- 

 mals was 73.4 percent, nearly 3 times 

 as great as the percent of increase in 

 the value of bees. The increase in the 

 value of poultry was 108..5 percent, more 

 than 4 times as much as the percent of 

 increase in the value of bees. Accord- 

 ing to the tigures given, for every dol- 

 lar invested in Michigan in bees, $12.57 

 are invested in poultry. 



Bees Do Not Puncture Fruit A cor- 

 respondent of the Connecticut Farmer 

 having said that bees puncture plums, 

 as the perforations " were quite too 

 small and delicate to have been made 

 by the tiniest beak of a bird," Glean- 

 ings in Bee Culture says : 



In this he shows his woeful ignorance. The 

 facts are. there are several birds that make 

 very small perforations. One of them in 

 particular, the Cape May warbler [Dcudroica 

 tiffrifhi). makes an incision no larger than 

 would be madeby a common darning-needle. 

 Some of the holes are no larger than would 

 be made by a common pin. We have caught 

 Cape May warblers in the very act of mak- 

 ing perforations on grapes, and immediately 

 examined the fruit after the bird had flown, 

 and before any bees were on the job. Of 

 course, the bees later on. if it be during a 

 dearth of honey, visit the damaged fruit and 

 suck the juices out until it shrivels up into a 

 withered mass. 



The Matzke Hive-Scraper. — Separa- 

 tors become so daubed with propolis 

 that they can hardly be used the second 

 time without being cleaned ofif. To 

 scrape them with a knife or a hatchet 

 is such slow work that it has been 

 thought cheaper, in the case of wooden 

 separators, to throw them away after 

 being once used and buy new ones. F. 

 E. Matzke, of Wisconsin, has devised 

 an implement by the use of which the 

 work is so shortened that it is cheaper 



to clean the separators that have been 

 used than to buy new ones. Upon a 

 block are fastened 4 knives that stand 

 vertically, thus allowing to do at one 

 stroke what might approximately be 

 done at 4 strokes of a single knife. 

 Two years' trial of this tool has proved 

 it to be a good thing. 



Queen-Catcher. — In Prak. Wegweiser 

 is described a new device for catching 

 a queen without touching her with the 

 fingers. A short glass cylinder has a 

 diameter suflicient to allow one end to 

 be placed over a queen on the comb. 

 To the other end is attached a small 

 rubber tube a few inches long. The 

 glass cylinder is placed over the queen, 

 and a vigorous suck at the outer end 

 of the tube draws the queen into the 

 cylinder, which is then immediately 

 closed with a plug. Most bee-keepers 

 will prefer to use the fingers, but to 

 some who are inexperienced and timid, 

 or who through any means are in dan- 

 ger of crushing a queen, such an in- 

 strument may be very desirable. 



Bee-Supplies and Seedsmen. — At a 



meeting of the American Seed Trade 

 Association held June 2(», 1911, Mr. W. 

 D. Ross, of Massachusetts, read a paper 

 entitled, "Seedsmen's Side-Lines. " 

 Among the several lines of goods he 

 mentioned that seedstores could profit- 

 ably and conveniently handle were 

 those for the bee-keeper. His words 

 were as follows, as reported in the 

 Florists' Review of June 22: 



" The bee-industry is also on the increase, 

 and we are going to have a greater demand 

 in the future for bee-keepers' supplies. 

 While there is a lot of detail to this branch, 

 we have found that in a short time our man 

 has become so familiar with it that every- 

 thing goes along smoothly, and we have 

 added several hundred new customers to 

 our list, not only for bee-supplies but for 

 other goods which they saw while in the 

 store looking for bee-goods. This. I believe, 

 will be a profitable department when once 

 well established. The margin of profit com- 

 pares favorably with other departments." 



Names of Bee-Keepers Wanted We 



desire very much to have the names and 

 addresses of all the bee-keepers who 

 are in your locality who do not now 

 take the American Bee Journal. We 

 would like to get every one of them on 

 our list of regular readers. If you will 

 send to this office the names and ad- 

 dresses of such bee-keepers, we will be 

 pleased to mail each a sample copy of 

 the American Bee Journal. Perhaps 

 you could send in their subscriptions, 

 and thus earn some of the various pre- 

 miums that we offer from time to time 

 for getting new subscriptions. We feel 

 that every bee-keeper ought to read the 

 American Bee Journal regularly. He 

 would not only be more successful, 

 but would be less of a competitor of 

 his neighbor bee-keepers, if he were 

 more enlightened on the subject of 

 bees and honey. We would appreciate 

 it very much if all who can do so will 

 send us the names and addresses of 

 their bee-keeping neighbors who do 

 not at present receive the American 

 Bee Journal. 



