January, 1916. 



American Hee Journal j 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT 



1st Nat'I Bank Bldg. Hamilton, Illinois 



Entered as second class matter at the 



Hamilton, Illinois. Post-office. 

 C. P. Dadant, Editor. 

 Dr. C. C. Miller. Associate Editor. 



IMPORTANT NOTICE. 



THE SUBSCRIPTION PRICE of this 

 Journal is $1.00 a year in the United States 

 o( America and Mexico; i years. $2 25. 5 

 years. $3 oa; in Canada. lu cents extra, and in 

 all other countries in the Postal Union. 25 

 cents a year extra tor postage Sample 

 copy tree. 



THE WRAPPER-LABEL DATE indi- 

 cates the end of the month to which sub- 

 scription is paid. For instance. " deci'}" on 

 your label shows that it is paid to the end 

 of December. 1016. 



SUBSCRIPTION RECEIPTS.— We do not 

 send a receipt for money sent us topay sub- 

 scription, but change the date on your ad 

 dress, which shows that the money has been 

 received and credited. In case of errors, 

 please write us. 



Copyright 1016 by C. P. Dadant 



and at once goes into the requirements 

 of successful management on a large 

 scale. Both comb and extracted honey 

 production are considered, with the 

 best and latest methods. In fact, he 

 gives, in 320 pages, as much condensed 

 information as may well be crowded in 

 such a space. The book is well gotten 

 up and the numerous cuts clear. The 

 cut of worker-bees surrounding the 

 queen is the best one we have seen. 



The book can be had from this office 

 on receipt of price, or with the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal one year,both for $2.00. 



THE EDITOR'S VIEWPOINT 



Oiir Cover Pictures 



The cover pictures this month show 

 Dr. C. C. Miller and his family at home 

 at Marengo, 111. The first installment 

 of Dr. Miller's life story will be found 

 in this number. Note especially the 

 row of basswood trees planted by Dr. 

 Miller many years ago. They are the 

 only linn trees in the vicinity of 

 Marengo. 



Food Value ol' Honey 



The article on Food Value of Honey 

 in the December number met with so 

 much favor that we have arranged to 

 issue a 16-page booklet containing this 

 and similar matter. As soon as they 

 are ready we will send samples to all 

 who ask for them. The article is so 

 popular that we have decided to 

 issue 100,000 of these booklets which 

 will enable us to sell them to bee- 

 keepers at a very low price. We 

 hope to be able to make the price as 

 low as $1.00 per hundred, postage ex- 

 tra. At this low price we feel very 

 sure the beekeepers will find it profit- 

 able to distribute them in large num- 

 bers. 



Productive Beekeeping'^Another 

 New Book 



"Productive Beekeeping," by Frank 

 C. Pellett. (Lippincott's Farm Man- 

 uals, $1.50.) 



It is hardly necessary to introduce 

 this author to our readers. Mr. Pellett 

 is known as a naturalist, lecturer and 

 beekeepei who came into the lime light 

 only a few years ago, in Iowa, and 

 has "made good." Valuable articles 

 from his pen have been published by 

 some of the leading agricultural mag- 

 azines, and our readers know him most 

 especially through the course of honey- 

 plant descriptions contained in the 

 American Bee Journal for the year 

 past and still continuing. Mr. Pellett 

 has been president of the Iowa State 



Beekeepers' Association and is still 

 State Inspector. 



Although the title of the book is very 

 similar to that of Dr. Phillips' work, 

 " Beekeeping," the contents are quite 

 different. The study of bees and honey 

 production covers so fertile a field that 

 it is almost ine.xhaustible. Of course, 

 in its main lines, each bee-book con- 

 tains similar statements. But for an 

 instance of the possibility of variation, 

 although one or two bee-books men- 

 tion laws on beekeeping, none other 

 gives suggestions of the requirements 

 of a good bee inspector and the neces- 

 sity of securing a man who is already a 

 good beekeeper and can impart what 

 he knows to uninformed people. He 

 impresses upon us the absolute neces- 

 sity, if we are to get rid of bee-diseases, 

 of informing every man who keeps 

 bees, concerning the need of being 

 able to treat disease himself. He in- 

 sists that " we must make every man 

 who keeps bees an up-to-date bee- 

 man." In view of the seriousness of 

 the question, this ideal condition 

 should be strived for, even if we never 

 entirely reach it. 



His advice is sound. He does not 

 launch into new, untried matters. For 

 instance, after considering the races of 

 bees and describing the leading kinds, 

 he writes : " It is a pretty safe rule in 

 the average American locality to de- 

 pend upon the Italian, unless some 

 other race has been successfully tried 

 in the neighborhood. It is only fair to 

 say, however, that no other race has 

 been tried under such widely different 

 conditions as has the Italian. It is 

 possible that with an equal opportunity 

 to demonstrate their good qualities, 

 either the Caucasian or the Carniolan 

 race may rival them for popular favor." 



Pellett does not make any attempt at 

 giving his reader elaborate anatomical 

 descriptions of the honeybee. He treats 

 rather of the " business of beekeeping 



Egg Develojjment 



" The Embryology of the Honeybee " 

 is the title of a new work, of about 300 

 pages, by James Allen Nelson, Ph. D., 

 expert in bee-culture investigations at 

 the Bureau of Entomology of Wash- 

 ington, D. C. The book has an intro- 

 duction by our well-known friend, E. 

 F. Phillips, and is published by the 

 Princeton University Press. 



A work of this kind is out of the 

 range of the education of the average 

 apiarist. So it is likely that only a few 

 of our subscribers, were they to read 

 this book, could grasp its full value 

 and understand its descriptions. But 

 even the uninitiated in the study of 

 embryology can appreciate the amount 

 of work involved in such a treatise. 



That Nature follows similar methods 

 in the development of all living beings 

 may be readily seen when comparing 

 this description of the transformations 

 of the eggs of bees with the descrip- 

 tions given by Haeckel and others of 

 the transformations of all life, from 

 the lowest grades to the highest, from 

 fishes to man, by the development of 

 the single original cell into compound 

 cells and "cleavage," until the most 

 elementary forms have gradually 

 changed into more or less intricate 

 bodies. It is " variety in uniformity." 

 We see how, by steady modifications, 

 the outer layer of cells changes to ex- 

 terior organs, while the inner layers of 

 similar cells form the digestive and 

 other inner organs. 



The text of this work is accompa- 

 nied by nearly 100 cuts and six plates. 

 The latter were to us the most inter- 

 esting part of the work, because they 

 show, on a much enlarged scale (4'4 

 inches), the outer appearance of the 

 gradually changing egg, from the mo- 

 ment it is laid in the cell until it hatches 

 into a grub or larva. 



We knew already that the big end of 

 the egg becomes the head of the larva 

 when it hatches, that the egg is not 

 straight, but slighly curved, that it is 

 laid in the cell with the small end 



