American IBce Journaiij 



gan Agricultural College, was assisting 

 Prof. Pettit as were some of the prac- 

 tical beemen of the Province. Presi- 

 dent Krouse, of the Ontario associa- 

 tion, J. F. Uiinn, of Ridgeway, and Jas. 

 Arrnstrong, vice-president of the asso- 

 ciation, were among the number who 

 gave lectures during the course. 



Altogether it was a most interesting 

 and enjoyable trip and did a westerner 

 a lot of good to learn something of 

 the way the East do things. 



Frank C. Pellett. 



A. W. Yates to Give a Course ol Lec- 

 tures on Beekeeping — The trustees of 

 the Connecticut Agricultural College 

 have engaged A. W. Yates, of Hartford, 

 to give a course of lectures on bee- 

 keeping accompanied by demonstra- 

 tions. The lectures will be given on 

 Saturdays during the months of April 

 and May, and will be open to the at- 

 tendance of students and others who 

 may be interested in this subject. The 

 topics of the lectures are as follows : 



1. Establishing an apiary — natural 

 history, hives and location, adaptability 

 of the person. 



2. Comb and wax — the mystery and 

 origin of wax, its relation to honey, 

 commercial value. 



3. Spring management — the early 

 necessity of a force of young bees to 

 care for the queen, spring dwindling, 

 stimulative feeding. 



4. Diseases of bees — causes, how to 

 detect, treat and prevent. 



5. Increase and queen-rearing — the 

 importance of good queens, easy meth- 

 ods of rearing and making increase. 



6. Wintering— providing the colonies 

 with sufficient stores in a compact 

 brood-nest, packing, ventilation and 

 feeding. C. L. Beach, Fres. 



Notes from New York State Meeting. 



— Among the topics that came up for 

 discussion at Syracuse Dec. 7 and 8, 

 1915, none seemed of greater impor- 

 tance than increasing the demand for 

 honey. 



The subject of advertising, thereby 

 interesting the public in our product, 

 had been assigned to a special commit- 

 tee at the 1914 meeting, and this pub- 

 licity committee reported on the work 

 done. The association voted that cer- 

 tain funds might be used by this com- 

 mittee. The committee favored the 

 scheme of getting up postal cards with 

 attractive cartoons pointing to the use 

 of honey, such cards to be placed in 

 the stores, beekeepers to be instrumen- 

 tal in the distribution. The committee 

 was authorized to offer prizes for 

 snappy, comic, captivating sketches 

 suitable for this purpose. 



It was emphasized by Mr. Geo. B. 

 Howe that a proper label would attract 

 the attention of the public, thus serving 

 as an advertising medium. The colors 

 of the label should harmonize with the 

 color of the honey; blue was hardly 

 considered admissible. 



As to the wording on the label, the 

 less of reading matter the better, the 

 word "honey" most prominent. The 

 general opinion was that it is not ad- 

 visable to use thhftt extracted or fure 

 in connection with honey. We should 

 have a well gotten up label and stick 

 to It. It will become our trade mark. 



Mr. Howe uses a stamp in two colors 

 on his section honey. Mr. Arthur C. 

 Miller and Dr. Schamu prefer a small 

 neat label, and say that a section of 

 honey with such a label pasted on the 

 top looks very tasty. Only honev of 

 good quality should be put out under 

 our label or trade mark. 



Some previously accepted practices 

 received a black eye in a quodlibet in 

 which Mr. Arthur C.Miller summed up 

 his experiences of years of beekeeping. 

 He said: 1. It ischeaper for the honey 

 producer to rear his own queens than 

 to buy them; their cost is only In 

 cents. 2. It is easier to introduce 

 queens by the direct method (smoke 

 method) than by any other. 3. One 

 can produce as much chunk honey as 

 extracted. 4. Requeening each year 

 gives best results, insures greatest uni- 

 formity in yields. 5. Honey judiciously 

 given away makes many sales. 6. The 

 least fussing the least swarming. 7. 

 Spring feeding pays when done six 

 months in advance. 8. When feeding 

 unripe honey the bees involuntarily 

 produce wax, not so when feeding 

 ripened honey (a fact of value when 

 feeding back honey to have section 

 honey finished up). 



Mr. Miller explained his system of 

 queen-rearing, exhibiting his small 

 nucleus hive and the frame, which is 

 larger than the Swarthmore. During 

 the absence of a honey flow Mr. Miller 

 feeds soft sugar in a little feeder hang- 

 ing like the brood-frame on the rab- 

 bets of the hive ; he does not advise to 

 feed honey or even sugar syrup to 

 small nucleus colonies. He rears his 

 queens in third stories; a colony may 

 thus rear queens all through the sea- 

 son ; he uses the same wooden cell- 

 cups season after season, grafts his 

 larvs into these after priming them. 

 By dequeening a nucleus he obtains all 

 the royal jelly needed for this purpose. 

 A little wire nail driven into a stick 

 serves for priming, and for transferring 

 larva; a toothpick or sliver of wood an- 

 swers well. 



Incidentally Mr. Miller mentioned 

 that quite a saving could be made by 

 using section foundation in the brood- 

 chamber, saying that a sheet of section 

 foundation cost much less than of 

 brood-foundation ; and by painting the 

 sheets with melted wax after being 

 secured in the brood-frames, sagging 

 is prevented. The process is like put- 

 ting a coat of cast-iron upon a base of 

 wrought-iron. He also stated that 

 honeydew is a welcome visitor with 

 him. When abundant he has it stored 

 in nucleus frames for which he has a 

 special super constructed which holds a 

 large number of them. When he gets 

 them filled he preserves them for future 

 use in the nuclei. 



Mr. F. W. Lesser, of East Syracuse, 

 gave a very interesting address on 

 comb-honey production and control- 

 ling swarming. Said he formerly prac- 

 ticed the Doolittle method, but it did 

 not give him best results. He pre- 

 ferred shaking swarms on a full set of 

 frames with only starters, reducing or 

 contracting after the third day to six 

 Langstroth frames. The honey thus 

 obtained was better, and more of it, 

 expenses less. He summarized his 

 method as follows : Clip all queens 

 early, equalize brood, give set of empty 



comb on top to catch early undesirable 

 honey. When clover flow is on give 

 sections instead, baits if possible, put 

 on shade-board and ventilate; visit 

 each yard every week, make examina- 

 tions by tipping hives back and look 

 for queen-cells. He finds cutting out 

 cells to prevent swarming useless. 

 When necessary he shakes. Re-en- 

 forces shaken swarm with bees from 

 old hive about two weeks later, taking 

 about half of the bees, gives plenty of 

 room when bees require it. 



Mr. Byer, from Canada, talked about 

 wintering bees in their cold clime' 

 where — 45 degrees Fahr. is not uncom- 

 mon. Some years his bees are con- 

 fined to the hive for five months; still 

 he has wintered them well usually. A 

 good queen is essential, he said, next 

 plenty of good stores. Wants his liives 

 just crammed with honey, provides no 

 empty comb (winter nest). Lots of 

 stores is the best asset to be turned 

 into later; he uses winter cases, taking 

 two hives each. No alighting-board 

 should project where snow might col- 

 lect and clog entrance. Packing is 

 used on all sides except bottom, finds 

 packing later unnecessary. A combi- 

 nation of leaves and sawdust is used 

 generally and answers well. 



The rendering of old comb into wax 

 is very distasteful to the writer; it is a 

 thing he has not yet learned to do suc- 

 cessfully and profitably, and he had 

 hoped at this meeting to be enlight- 

 ened on the subject, but he has to ac- 

 knowledge that he has brought nothing 

 home that will be a help to him. Mr. 

 Looks was not there.and his paper was 

 read by the secretary. The writer 

 urged to save all bits of comb and bur- 

 combs, scrapings, etc., said that the 

 heat ought not to be applied direct to 

 the wax but to the water only. 



From cappings practically all wa.x is 

 easily obtained even by the simplest 

 method — the solar machine doing good 

 work, but with old comb it is a differ- 

 ent proposition. Many beekeepers pre- 

 fer to send their old combs to the pro- 

 fessional wax makers and pay from 5 

 to 8 cents for the making of it, than do 

 it themselves. 



The question : What does it cost to 

 produce a pound of honey ? has often 

 been asked. Arthur C. Miller attempted 

 to answer it as follows: The two fac- 

 tors entering into the cost of any arti- 

 cle are capital and lab ir. We may take 

 a hive of bees, fixtures, appliances, 

 comb foundation, etc., at $10. The in- 

 terest thereon will be 6 percent; depre- 

 ciation, 10 percent; labor, $1.00 per 

 hive or 10 percent; insurance and 

 taxes, 2% percent ; making a total of 

 27;^ percent. This represents the cost 

 of the crop, which, according to the 

 United States census is 55 pounds. 

 Therefore, the 55 pounds cost the pro- 

 ducer $2.75 or 5 cents per pound. 



[The writer does not know whether 

 Mr. Miller took into account the build- 

 ings necessary, the wagons, horses, 

 automobiles and other equipments, but 

 believes that few professionals produce 

 as low as he figures.] 



Officers elected for the year are as 

 follows : President, C. B. Howard, 

 Geneva; Vice-President, S. D. House ; 

 Secretary-Treasurer, F. Greiner, Na- 

 ples. F. Greiner. 



