December, 191 1. 



359 



American Vee Joarnal 



Miscellaneous ^ News Items 



Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 



we wish to every one of the readers of 

 the American Bee Journal. 



The Annual Index for 1911 appears in 

 the back part of this number of the 

 American Bee Journal. To any one 

 who preserves his copies from month 

 to month this index will be very val- 

 uable. It shows what a multitude of 

 topics have been considered during 

 this year. It requires a great deal of 

 labor to prepare such an index, but 

 doubtless it will be appreciated by those 

 who have occasion to look up impor- 

 tant matters. 



The Honey Season ol 1911 For a very 



large number of bee-keepers it may be 

 briefly characterized as "the worst 

 ever." That to be considered literally, 

 too, as the worst in their bee-keeping 

 lifetime. It may not be far out of the 

 way to say that the output of the bees 

 for 1911, the world over, has not been 

 so small in any previous year for 3.5 

 years or more. But bee-keepers — the 

 genuine kind — are an optimistic lot, 

 and will be looking forward to the next 

 season hopefully. '" Better luck next 

 time." 



■•- 



Increase Without Natural Swarming. 



— In Gleanings in Bee Culture is given 

 the plan of increase practised by G. C. 

 Chase. Although there may be noth- 

 ing specially original in it, the plan is 

 well worth considering by those who 

 do not wish to be troubled with natural 

 swarming, but who do want a certain 

 amount of increase. He says : 



I build up my colonies as fast as possible; 

 and when they are strong In bees, and I have 

 from 7 to Q frames of brood. I treat each as 

 follows: 



Bet-'innine with the first colony I set the 

 hive off the stand, replacing it with a hive 

 filled with frames having full sheets of 

 foundation. Then I look up the queen of 

 the colony just taken from the stand and 

 take the frame of brood she is on with all 

 adhering bees, and put it into the center of 

 the new hives, fiaving first taken out one or 

 two frames of foundation to make room for 

 the easy introduction of the frame of brood, 

 bees, and queen. After replacing the frames 

 of foundation. I put on a queen-excluder. 

 and set the old colony on top. Kive days 

 later I set the old (or top) hive on a new 

 stand, and examine it for any queen-cells 

 forming. These I at once cut out. and two 

 days later I give them a laying queen. These 

 colonies so divided and managed for in- 

 crease, with proper feeding will, when the 

 the harvest time comes, be ready in count- 

 less numbers to enter the field of sweets. 



Sweet Clover and Farmers. — We take 

 the following from that excellent agri- 

 cultural publication, F'arm and Fire- 

 side, for Nov. II, lUll : 



Sweet Clover Boomino. 



There seems to be a boom on in sweet 

 clover. We were among the earliest of 

 farm papers to call attention to the value of 

 this long-despised cousin of alfalfa, and are 

 elad to have our judgment verified. But 

 booms are unsafe things, and a word of 

 caution may well be dropped. 



Sweet clover is a moneymaker to the 

 farmer who can grow it successfully. But 



because it is a wayside weed it must not be 

 assumed that it will grow successfully of its 

 own accord. There is a trick to sweet- 

 clover growing which must be learned, or 

 failure will be met with. It has about the 

 same feeding value as alfalfa. It will grow 

 in localities where alfalfa fails. It prepares 

 the way for alfalfa on the same ground. It 

 maks good hay and furnishes good pasture. 

 It renovates the soil. But it is not as good a 

 a plant as alfafa for the purpose for which 

 alfalfa is grown— that is. we don't think it is. 

 One of these days we shall present to our 

 readers a study of one successful sweet- 

 clover grower's experience in making a 

 weed into his chief pasture and hay crop. 



It seems that the regular farmers are 

 finally beginning to understand the 

 value of sweet clover. It has always 

 had a "hard row to hoe " in order to 

 secure its rightful position among the 

 various farm crops. We have con- 

 tended for years that if sweet clover 

 were really understood by farmers 

 they would practically all be in its favor 

 rather than against it. We will watch 

 with interest the account of "a study 

 of one successful sweet clover grow- 

 er's experience in making a weed into 

 his chief pasture and hay crop," as 

 mentioned in the above clipping, which 

 will doubtless appear later on in the 

 Farm and Fireside, 



Automatic Uncapping-Nachines. — The 



following correction we are very glad 

 to give a place here : 



Mr. Editor:— In the report of the Na- 

 tional Convention for 1911. page loi. is an in- 

 correct statement which was either made 

 by me through a slip of memory or was due 

 to a misunderstanding. I am reported as 

 saying, on the subject of the Ferguson un- 

 capping machine, that Mr. Ferguson failed 

 to send us one of his machines for trial, 

 although he had offered to do so. NIr. Fer- 

 guson did send us one of the machines and 

 it was given trial. 



I must say in justice to Mr. Ferguson and 

 his machine that the reason that it did not 

 give us entire satisfaction is. that it takes 

 even and regular combs to do good work 

 with his machine. Our extracting combs 

 are all old and more or less irregular. Some 

 of them date back to the time when there 

 was no such thing as comb foundation in 

 use. Whenever we happened to have a 

 comb without waves or irregularities, we 

 had no trouble in using the machine with 

 speed in results. 



Our boys are now planning to use a less 

 number of combs in the super— nine instead 

 of ten— which will give greater thickness 

 and insure more regular face to the extract- 

 ing-combs. This method, which I once 

 used, and which is used regularly by E. J. 

 Baxter, of Nauvoo. 111., also reduces by 

 about 10 percent in the amount of handling, 

 for the same weight of honey is contained 

 in a less number of combs. 



As we should render to Caesar what is 

 Cesar's. I feel that this correction is due to 

 Mr. I,. R. Ferguson, whose efforts in the line 

 of progress deserve success, and who is still 

 improving his invention. C. I'. Dadant. 



Honey Importations for 1910, into the 

 United States, are as follows : From 

 Cuba, 48,080 gallons, amounting to 

 $22,728; from Mexico, 30,.332 gallons, 

 amounting to $22,271 ; from all other 

 countries, 16,228 gallons, amounting to 

 $7969. This is a total of 10.3,604 gal- 

 lons, and $.'12,968 in value. Surely, this 

 is a small quantity of honey to be im- 

 ported, and it should not have affected 

 the price of native honey at all. 



The Michigan Convention The con 



vention of the Michigan Bee-Keepers 

 Association will be held in Saginaw 

 Dec. 13 and 14, 1911. The first session 

 will begin at 1 p.m. Wednesday the 

 13th, and the second at 7 p.m. The 

 third session will begin Thursday at 

 8:30 a.m., and the fourth at 1 p.m. 



The meetings will be held in the 

 Auditorium, centrally located, and the 

 hotel headquarters will be the Everett 

 House, rates $2.00 per day. Other 

 hotels in easy access are the Wesley 

 House, $1.25; Bancroft and Vincent, 

 $2.50. These are all American plan. 

 "There are several good European 

 hotels in the neighborhood, with mod- 

 erate rates. Among these are the 

 Wright and the Sherman. The pro- 

 gram is as follows : 



1. Secretary-Treasurer's Report. 



2. .-Appointment of new Committees. 



3. P.resident K. D. Townsend's Address. 



4. Adopting the Constitution. 



5. Questions of Business. 



6. Election of Officers. 



7. The Foul Brood Fight in Michigan— In- 

 spector G. E. Sanders. 



8. What Shall be Done to Prevent the 

 Spread of European Foul Brood ?— Editor E. 

 R. Root. 



g. Foul Brood Legislation— E. M. Hunt. 



10. 'What is the Next Best Move for the 

 Association to Make?— Jenner E. Morse. 



11. How to Run an Apiary to Control Best 

 the Spread of Foul Brood — A. H. Guernsey. 



12. Out-Apiaries— Ira D. Bartlett. 



13. The Future of Michigan Bee-Keeping— 

 E. D. Townsend. 



14. Production of Comb Honey — L. S. 

 Griggs. 



15. Production of Extracted Honey— Leon 

 C. Wheeler. 



16. Honey Exhibits at F"airs—C. M.Nichols. 



17. Bee-Keeping for Ladies— Mrs. S. Wil- 

 bur Frey. 



18. Resolutions. 

 IP. Question-Box. 



Prizes will be offered for the best 10 

 sections of comb honey, the best 10 

 jars of extracted honey, the best 3 sec- 

 tions of white comb honey, and the 

 cleanest sample of 10 pounds of bees- 

 wax. E. B. Tyrrell, Sec. 



230 Woodland Ave., Detroit, Mich. 



"No Time to Read Bee-Papers." — One 



of our subscribers from North Caro- 

 lina recently discontinued his subscrip- 

 tion to the American Bee Journal with 

 these few words: 



"I have not the time to read bee-papers. 

 Bees did fairly well this year. " 



We dare say that very few beginners 

 in bee-keeping will ever make a success 

 with bees until they just /nke time to 

 read the bee-papers. The fact is, they 

 can not afford to go blunderingly along 

 without the information that any one 

 of the bee-papers contains. 



Not to take time to read the bee- 

 papers is certainly very unwise. How 

 foolish it is for any one to attempt in 

 these days of competition in all lines, 

 to get along without knowing all they 

 can about the experience of others. 

 The bee-books and bee-papers contain 

 the results of many years of experience 

 of the most successful bee-keepers in 

 this country. There is no need of any 

 one iiozf forcing himself to go through 

 many of the experiments that others 

 have made and found useless. By read- 

 ing the bee-books and bee-papers any 

 one who wishes to begin with bees can 

 commence at the point where the suc- 

 cessful ones have arrived, without go- 

 ing through the discouraging years 



