12^ 



THE BEE-KEEPERS" REVIEW 



unite splendidly ? If you are at a Iobs as to 

 what to do winters, read this book. The 

 price is .50 cts. and it can be furnished from 

 this office. It can be clubbed with the 

 Review for $1 00. 



KEEPING LAYING QUEENS BEADY FOB THE 



It is an expensive proceeding for a queen 

 breeder to keep a strong nucleus standing 

 idle two or three weeks with a laying queen 

 while he is waiting for a customer. I have 

 often kept such queens in a small nucleus 

 made of three ordinary 41^4 x 4I4 sections, a 

 piece of queen-excluding metal over the 

 entrance preventing the queen from leading 

 off the bees, or following them off. I think 

 that I have mentioned this plan before in 

 the Review, and I not long ago wrote an 

 article for the American Bee .Journal in 

 which I described the plan in detail. Mr. 

 F. L. Thompson now writes me that Mr. 

 H. Rauchfnss of Colo, has been using the 

 same arrangement for the past six years, 

 with this variation, he has the bottoms of 

 his nuclei covered with wire cloth and sets 

 them over strong colonies of bees, thus in- 

 suring an abu'idance of warmth, even with 

 a smaller number of bees. He has six 

 nuclei over each colony, and one year 

 he averaged four fertilized queens from 

 each nucleus. The cost of queen rearing 

 is in getting them fertilized and laying 

 and keeping them until they are wanted, 

 and this plan greatly reduces the cost. 



GENUINE PBAISE, 



There was one little incident happened 

 when I was away at the fairs last fall that I 

 have several times been tempted to tell, but 

 have not done so for fear that some of my 

 readers would think that the telling was 

 prompted by egotism, but I have decided to 

 tell you that that isn^t the motive, and then 

 tell the story, so that you may enjoy the 

 situation. 



One afternoon, toward? evening, as most 

 of the sight-seers had left the building, I 

 was leaning against a pillar a little in front 

 of my exhibit, looking at the show in a sort 

 of admiring, speculative mood, when a 

 young man came along and began talking 

 with me about bees and bee-keeping, evi- 

 dently taking me for a visitor. After talk- 



ing awhile he said : " I see that you are 

 somewhat interested in bees, and I'll tell 

 you of an article that you ought to read. It 

 was in the Cosmopolitan a year or so ago. 

 It was illustrated, and ran through two num- 

 bers, and the man that wrote it not only 

 knew something about bees but he knew 

 how to tell it so that other folks could un- 

 derstand it. Of course, I have read and 

 heard a great deal about bees, but there 

 were lots of things that I never really un- 

 derstood until I read that article and looked 

 at those pictures." And then he went on to 

 tell me of some of the wonderful things 

 that he had read there. By holding my 

 tongue, except to thank him, I prevented us 

 both from feeling very foolish and uncom- 

 fortable, but I considered it the most 

 genuine and disinterested compliment I 

 ever received. 



don't BE HASTY. 



During my life I have received quite a 

 number of letters the writers of which were 

 evidently angry when they wrote them. I 

 think that most of the hard things that 

 these letters contained were wholly unde- 

 served — perhaps all of them. I know that in 

 many instances the writers have apologized 

 after becoming fully conversant with all of 

 the circumstances. I presume that nearly 

 every business man sometimes gets a letter 

 " blowing him up, " and in most of the in- 

 stances he does not deserve it. The trouble 

 is that the ones who write such letters are 

 too hasty. They assume too much. They 

 don't wait for an explanation, nor so much 

 as ask for one. 



To illustrate : Last -Tan. I received a pro- 

 position from a magazine to insert a small 

 ad. in the Review and receive the magazine 

 in return. As a rule, such offers are tossed 

 into the waste basket, but I was pleased 

 with the sample of the paper, and the offer 

 came at the time of the year when advertis- 

 ing in a bee journal is at its lowest, and I 

 accepted the offer, put in an ad., sent a mark- 

 ed copy of the Review and wrote asking 

 that the magazine be sent for the year. In 

 a few days I received a letter thanking me 

 for my courtesy but regretting their inabil- 

 ity to comply with my request to send the 

 magazine. It's not often that I " get mad, " 

 but when I read that letter I was " hot. " 

 It was not the amount involved, V)ut it was 

 the principle of the thing. I wrote a letter 



