[American ^ec Journal 



December, 191 1. 



that " if the winters are extremely cold, 

 if freezing weather prevails all through 

 December, January, and February, it is 

 best to cellar the bees," but there may 

 be a question about the correctness of 

 the further statement that for the be- 

 ginner it is best to lea\e them out- 

 doors. 



" A fairly well populated hive to be 

 wintered out-of-doors will need about 

 25 pounds of honey to carry it over, 

 while a little more than half these 

 stores will suffice for cellaring." Would 

 it not be safer to add about 5 pounds 

 to that estimate ? especially as any 

 amount not absolutely necessary would 

 not be wasted. 



We are told that for heating bee-cel- 

 lars on specially cold days and nights, 

 "many use a small coal-oil or gasolene 

 heater." No word is said about any 

 danger from poisoning the air with the 

 fumes from such a heater, and the be- 

 ginner who takes such a method of 

 heating his cellar without provision for 

 carrying off the gases may find the bet- 

 ter temperature more than balanced by 

 the poorer quality of the air. 



New York Bee-Keepers Adver- 

 tising 



From Hon. W. F. Marks, Chairman 

 Publicity Committee New York State 

 Association Bee - Keepers' Societies, 

 comes something that shows initiative. 

 A pad of good writing paper has printed 

 on the first page of its cover a queen- 

 bee 6 inches in length, together with a 

 queen, worker, and drone on a smaller 

 scale. On the inside of the same cover 

 are given interesting facts regarding 

 the honey-bee and honey. 



This method of awakening interest 

 is to be commended. A pad of paper, 

 whether used by school children in 

 their work or by adults for correspond- 

 ence, will remain on hand for some 

 time. The printed matter will present 

 itself under such conditions that it will 

 likely be read more than once. The 

 manufacturers of paper pads will no 

 doubt be glad to use these printed cov- 

 ers for a slight consideration, and thus 

 a little money will go a long way. 



When Buckwheat Yield.s Nectar 



It is perhaps the general belief that 

 buckwheat yields nectar only in the 

 forenoon. Gleanings in Bee Culture 

 seems to dissent from this belief, and 

 says: 



" Buckwheat yields nectar just as fast at 

 one time of the day as another. At niBht it 

 continues secreting nectar, and continues 

 until morning. The bees rush on it as soon 

 as it is warm enough, clean up all the nec- 

 tar, and. of course, as the buckwheat can 

 not secrete fast enough to keep them going 

 all day. there is usually nothing doing in the 

 field from 10 or 11 o'clock on until toward 

 evening, and generally not until the next 

 morning, when the buckwheat has had a 

 chance to catch up. If, on the other hand, 

 there is a very large acreage of buckwheat 

 compared with the number of bees to gather 

 the nectar from it. bees might be busy on it 

 all day. No. the honey probably does not 

 come any faster at night than in the day- 

 time; but it may be secreted faster when 

 weather conditions are favorable than when 

 they are not." 



This is such a radical departure from 

 the common belief that it would be in- 

 teresting to have testimony from those 

 who live in buckwheat regions. Glean- 



ings in Bee Culture says that the bees 

 clean up the nectar by 10 or 11 o'clock. 

 If they stop then because the nectar is 

 all cleaned up, and if it secretes regu- 

 larly throughout the day, ought there 

 not to be enough secreted within 2 or 

 3 hours to warrant the bees in going 

 to work again ? In regions where 

 buckwheat is plenty and bees scarce. 

 Gleanings in Bee Culture thinks "bees 

 might be busy on it all day." But the 

 question is, do they keep busy all day 

 in such places ? There must be places 

 where buckwheat is plentier than bees. 

 Can any one tell us whether in such 

 places bees actually continue working 

 on buckwheat all day ? If bees are 

 plenty and buckwheat very scarce, do 

 the bees in such places get the nectar 

 cleaned up earlier in the day than in 

 other places ? 



This is not saying by any means that 

 Gleanings in Bee Culture is wrong. 

 Sometimes the popular belief is very 

 much out of the way. Only before 

 taking an opposite view we ought to 

 know, you know. 



Knowing Foul Brood 



In a previous number of this Journal 

 the thought was expressed that the 

 Bee-Keepers' Review was a little severe 

 in judgment upon those who did not 

 recognize foul brood. Referring to 

 this, the Bee-Keepers' Review quotes 

 the sentence : 



" One who has never seen the disease be- 

 fore may be excused if he does not recognize 

 it at first sight." 



Then Editor Tyrrell goes on to say 

 this: 



"But that's not the point. Brother York. 

 The bee-keeper I referred to had colonies 

 rotten with the disease, claimed he had read 

 all about the disease, so he would be able to 

 recognize it. and then denied having it. Iff 

 am not mistaken. Inspector Sanders found 

 extensive bee-keepers — men who read the 

 bee-journals, and who must have had the 

 disease for years, either in their apiaries or 

 around them — and yet these men denied 

 having this disease. What was wrong ? 

 Didn't they know the disease, or didn't they 

 want to?" 



With that understanding of the mat- 

 ter, Mr. Tyrrell, you have permission 

 from this office to use your most savage 

 vocabulary to express your indigna- 

 tion. It would be hard to use language 

 too severe. 



Reciprocity Between B6es and 

 Plants 



On page 237, J. J. Wilder calls atten- 

 tion to the fact that his experience in 

 the past few years has shown that with 

 the increase of bees comes increase in 

 cotton-yields as well as nectar-yields. 

 Referring to this, A. L. McCray writes : 



"Is this not in keeping with experiments 

 made by our agriculturists, and is it not 

 also true that herein is applied the law of 

 giving and receiving, the same as in the 

 moderate expenditure of strength-energy 

 brings greater strength, and the moderate 

 expenditure of mind-energy brings greater 

 mentality, and the moderate expenditure of 

 soul-energy creates greater soul-energy, and 

 so on throughout all Nature? As Emerson 

 has put it. "There is an absolute balance 

 even to the law of give and take.' " 



A. L. McCray. 



Yes, there seems to be a universal 

 law that the proper exercise of a given 

 power increases that power, and also 

 that there is a mutual give and take, as 



Mr. McCray puts it. As Paul says : 

 " For none of us liveth to hiinself." 

 The man who thinks he can go through 

 life without being in any way beholden 

 to his fellow-man will have a hard time 

 of it, and in the best sense a still harder 

 time will any man have who thinks he 

 can go through life without ever doing 

 anything for his fellow-man. And this 

 give-and-take business extends down 

 through the lower forms of creation, 

 the particular part of interest to bee- 

 keepers being the mutual relation be- 

 tween plants and bees. 



Not so much that it is important that 

 the bee-keeper should understand this, 

 but that the farmer should, and espe- 

 cially that the fruit-grower should. 

 Too much it has been in the past, espe- 

 cially in some localities, that the farmer 

 and the fruit-grower have looked with 

 an evil eye upon the bee-keeper. That 

 is a result of ignorance — just that. Bees 

 can not do without plants; plants can 

 not do without bees. Between the two 

 there is no doubt a balance, the reci- 

 procity is equal. But so far as the 

 benefit to man is concerned, according 

 to Cheshire and other good authorities, 

 there is not an equal balance, the farmer 

 and the fruit-grower having the best of 

 the bargain as against the bee-keeper. 

 In other words, the work of the bee as 

 a fertilizer is of more importance than 

 its work as a honey-gatherer. Of 

 course, it is of great importance that 

 farmers and fruit-grovcers should un- 

 derstand this, both for their own ad- 

 vantage and the advantage of the bee- 

 keeper. 



Selling Honey— the Best Way 



Editor Tyrrell gives in the Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Review some advice about selling 

 honey, that seems to be based upon ex- 

 perience. In general, he thinks it bet- 

 ter for the bee-keeper to sell direct to 

 his customers than to sell through 

 grocers. One reason for this is that 

 no matter how much honey you may 

 have sold a grocer, a competitor may 

 any day take the trade from you by a 

 little cutting in price, while an estab- 

 lished trade direct to consumers is 

 more secure. 



As a package for extracted honey to 

 be sold to the consumer, he prefers a 

 10-pound friction-top tin-pail, as being 

 neither too large nor too small. Here 

 is an interesting paragraph from his 

 experience: 



" 'When I first came to Detroit, my time 

 was fully occupied in an office, and I had no 

 time to make a personal canvass, so I hired 

 a high-school boy to begin a house-to-house 

 canvass. This canvass was started the last 

 of June, and was for deliveries to be made 

 in August and September. You can see by 

 this that I had the field to myself, for no one 

 was canvassing for honey at that time. I 

 paid this young man $5.00 per week, and he 

 took an average of 10 orders a day. At first 

 he carried a sample, but it did not take long 

 to learn that was not the best plan. No mat- 

 ter how nice your sample looked when you 

 started out in the morning, it soon became a 

 mussy-looking bottle by the continual open- 

 ing and sampling. So the sample was dis- 

 continued and orders were taken by verbal 

 explanation. It would surprise many to 

 know that when we discarded the sample 

 the orders increased." 



If you advertise in the local press, be 

 sure, says Mr. Tyrrell, to give your tele- 

 phone number. Many people will step 

 to the 'phone and call you up who 

 would not take the trouble to write. 



