300 



Keptember, 1916. 



American Hee Journal 



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PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT 



1st Nat'l Bank BIdg. Hamilton, Illinois 



Entered as second-class matter at the 



Hamilton, Illinois, Post-office. 

 C. P. Dadant, Editor 

 Dr. C. C. Miller. Associate Editor. 

 Frank C. Pellett, Staff Correspondent. 



IMPORTANT NOTICE. 



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 Journal is $1.00 a year in ttie United States 

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Copyright: IQ16. by C. P. Dadant 



THE EDITOR^S VIEWPOINT 



Instructions to Beekeepers 



The Agricultural Extension service 

 of the University of Minnesota is pub- 

 lishing a monthly letter of advice to 

 the beekeepers of the State, under the 

 management of Prof. Francis Jager. 

 It is a good thing. Other States would 

 do well to follow this method. 



that a queen should generally be laying 

 wlien 8 or 9 days old. At first, how- 

 ever, eggs are so few as not to be 

 easily found, so in ordinary cases it is 

 as well not to make an examination 

 until the queen is 12 days old or older. 

 It must be remembered, however, that 

 the weather is not always favorable, so 

 there may be delay. 



Fertilization of Queens 



H. Mulct, having in the course of 

 years had more than a thousand oppor- 

 tunities for observation as to the ferti- 

 lization of young queens, reports some 

 of his findings in Leipziger Bienen- 

 Zeitung, page 115. 



He says that fertilization usually 

 occurs between 12:00 m. and 5:00 p.m., 

 with still weather and a temperature of 

 at least 65 degrees Fahr., mostly be- 

 tween 1 :00 and 3:00 o'clock p.m., and 

 quite rarely before 12:00 or after 5:00 

 p.m., or at a lower temperature than 

 65 degrees. If the weather is favorable, 

 most queens are fertilized at the age of 

 6 or 7 days. 



"Several years ago." he writes, " vir- 

 gins emerged from their cells on the 

 same day in about 20 of my colonies 

 and nuclei. To determine at what age 

 they were fecundated I exajnined each 

 day after 5:00 o'clock p.m., to see 

 whether fertilization had taken place, 

 as every experienced beekeeper knows 

 the signs of fertilization are easily 

 seen; besides one may know from the 

 beginning of egg laying, which usually 

 occurs 42 to 48 hours after fertilization. 

 One queen mated at 4 days of age ; 3 at 

 5 days; 8 at 6 days; 6 at 7 days; and 

 the remaining two at a later age; the 

 weather during this time having been 

 favorable throughout." 



It may be recalled that Henry Alley 

 said no virgin ever mated under 5 days 

 of age, which very nearly agrees with 

 the foregoing. 



It would appear from Mulct's figures 



Sectional Hives 



The question of sectional hives hav- 

 ing been raised lately, we have secured 

 for the Bee Journal a very interesting 

 thesis covering the entire subject by an 

 enthusiastic Canadiin student, Mr. W. 

 F. Geddes. This thesis was approved 

 by the able Canadian professor, Morley 

 Pettit, of Guelph, Ont. 



Heatlingr Off Swarmiug 



A Pennsylvania correspondent asks 

 my comment on J. P. Blunk's way of 

 heading ofi swaiming, as given in 

 Gleanings for July 15, page 610, which 

 is as follows: 



" Prepare a hive with an empty comb 

 to catch the pollen, a comb of suitable 

 brood from which queens can be reared, 

 and fill up the rest of the space with 

 dummies. Put this hive on the stand 

 of any strong colony that is preparing 

 to swarm, with a couple of supers on 

 top. Put on a good wire escape-board, 

 and on top of all set the strong colony 

 without its bottom-board. The flying 

 force will all go downstairs in 24 

 hours, and so few bees will be left in 

 the original hive that they will tear 

 down all queen-cells, which might be 

 on the combs; the queen, of course, 

 being left in the old brood-chamber 

 on top. 



" The queen will keep right on with 

 her laying. In 14 days take the old 

 hive off, remove the queen, or leave 

 her, as desired. Put one of the queen- 

 cells built in the lower story in the old 

 hive and set it on a new stand. Con- 

 tract the entrance and remove all cells 

 except one from the new colony. Sup- 

 ply frames of foundation, put on more 

 supers, and the job is done. 



"If no increase is desired put the 

 combs in the prepared hive below back 

 in the old brood nest, after removing 

 the queen from the latter. This will 

 not take long, as the bees are scarce, 

 as above mentioned. It is necessary 

 to remove all queen-cells but one on 

 the frame of brood in question." 



I am not certain whether I fully un- 

 derstand the whole proceeding, but on 

 the face of it it looks as though the old 

 brood-nest with the queen is left for 14 

 days in the story on top, with nothing 

 coming into it, with a ticket-of-leave 

 for any bee that might want to go be- 

 low, and never a bee returning, and 

 with such a dearth of two weeks dura- 

 tion one would hardly expect the 

 brood-nest to be in the most flourish- 

 ing condition. But Mr. Blunk is a bee- 

 keeper of experience, and no doubt 

 makes it work all right. Possibly he 

 makes an opening from without to this 

 story above, through which the younger 

 bees establish an entrance. 



My correspondent says: "Bees 

 might, with the arrangement directed, 

 not go through the escape in 24 hours; 

 I have just now three cases in which I 

 had three comb-supers on that many 

 colonies, and in 24 hours the bees did 

 not get out, while they did wherever 

 there were but two or one super." 

 Well, if they were very much longer 

 than 24 hours, it wouldn't matter, the 

 important thing is that nothing would 

 be going in, and that would discourage 

 the bees so as to insure the destruction 

 of all queen-cells. But it must be noted 

 that the two cases are very different- 

 When we put an escape under surplus 

 honey, we want all the bees to get out, 

 and the sooner the better. In the cise 

 in hand we do not want all the bees to 

 get out ; it would be a disaster if they 

 should, and Mr. Blunk expressly says 

 thTii the /lyhiff force \)i\\ go downstairs 

 in 24 hours, leaving the younger bees 

 to do duty as nurses. c. c. m. 



United Effort 



The following item appeared in a 

 recent issue of the Breeders' Gazette: 



NATIONAL ADVERTISING OF DAIRY PRODUCTS 



A fund of $50,000 has been subscribed 

 by men prominent in the dairy indus- 

 try for the preliminary work of the big 

 national advertising campaign to in- 

 crease the production and consumption 

 of milk, butter, buttermilk, cheese atid 

 ice cream. Advertisements are in 

 preparation and will shortly appear in 

 weeklies and monthlies of national cir- 

 culation and in leading dailies. 



It is proposed to raise a total fund of 

 at least $750,000 to cover a complete 

 campaign of three years and to expend 

 in advertising, general publicity and 

 organization work approximately $20,- 

 000 a month for 36 months. 



There has been no more remarkable 



