1917 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



51 



powerful tiatiotial orffunhalion mod- 

 eled after " Des Vereins Schweizer- 

 ischer Bienenfreunde " (Swiss Bee- 

 keepers' Association), and when the 

 National meets at Madison in Febru- 

 ary, it might be well for us to incor- 

 porate some of their principles with 

 ours. 

 Madison, Wis. 



No. 4.— Among Eastern Bee- 

 keepers 



BY THE EIUTOR. 



LEAVING Altamont, late in the 

 afternoon of Aug. 11, by way of 

 Albany, we traveled 75 miles to 

 Glens Falls, on the upper Hudson, at 

 the foot of the Adirondacks. The 

 road was by way of Saratoga. It is 

 the best automobile road that I have 

 ever traveled, not excepting European 

 roads, for it is made of Tarvia or 

 asphaltum and has no dust whatever. 

 The meeting was called by the 

 Adirondack Beekeepers' Association 

 for the next day, at the home of Mr. 

 H. E. Gray, one mile from the old 



The Roads of New England are 

 Excellent 



historic spot of Fort Edward. A pret- 

 ty country, in full view of the Adiron- 

 dacks, with the Hudson winding 

 around in the woods. 



At the meeting, there were as 

 many ladies as men. The attendance 

 was small, not over 35, but all prac- 

 tical people. They were all owners 

 of large apiaries, none of them under 

 50 colonies. The crop was reported 

 good and some anxiety was shown as 

 to the probable price of honey. 



Here, Dr. Gates left me to return 

 to Amherst. I was to go alone by rail 

 to the Vermont meeting. I remained 

 over Sunday with the Gray family 

 who had invited me and proposed to 

 take me to Lake George. This trip 

 was made with Mr. Geo. L. Gary, 



president of the Association, in his 

 Ford. 



Lake George was called "Horicon" 

 by the Indians; "Lac St. Sacrement" 

 by the French. Many of the terrible 

 deeds of the French-Indian wars 

 were perpetrated along Its shores. 

 Its beauty is nevertheless beyond de- 

 scription, despite its history. It is 

 often said that Americans should 

 visit America first. This is right. 

 The resorts of Switzerland arc not 

 more beautiful than this one which 

 compares favorably with the Lake of 

 Thnn. When our summer resorts are 

 as old in civilization as those of 

 Europe, there will he notliing for us 

 to envy, in Europe. The main ad- 

 vantage of Switzerland is that its 

 beauties are gathered together in a 

 very small compass, while our coun- 

 try is immense and its beauties much 

 scattered. 



On Monday the 14th. I bade good- 

 bye to my pleasant hosts, Mr. and 

 Mrs. Gray, and left for Middlebury, 

 Vermont. Before leaving I saw the 

 immense paper mills of Hudson Falls, 

 where mountains of cord wood are 

 crushed into wood pulp for paper. 

 Train loads after train loads of it 

 are brought there from Canada and 

 thousands of tons of paper produced. 

 It seems as if we might eventually 

 exhaust the forests, even of Canada. 



On the way to Middlebury, the road 

 passes Rutland, noted for its marble. 

 In spots, the railroad embankments 

 are filled with broken marble. This 

 reminded me of Carrara, in Italy, 

 whose marble is shipped all over the 

 world, and through which we passed 

 on our trip of 1913. Vermont marble 

 does not seem inferior to it. 



At Brandon, one of the passengers 

 walked up to me and said: "Isn't this 

 Mr. Dadant?" It was Mr. G. F. Hen- 

 dee of Pittsford. He had recognized 

 me from photos, though we had never 

 met before. He was going to the 

 Middlebury meeting. 



Middlebury is located in a fine, 

 broad valley, sloping towards Lake 

 (,'hamplain, between the Adirondacks 

 and the Green Mountains of Vermont. 

 It is a good region for bees, for I 

 met many practical beekeepers and 

 their crop of white honey was fine. 

 Our readers know that it Is at this 

 point th.at one of the oldest contribu- 

 tors of the American Bee Journal, 

 Mr. J. E. Crane, lives. He and his 

 son Phillip manage something like 

 1100 colonies, all in chaff hives. 



The meeting was held at the Ad- 

 dison House, about 40 beekeepers be- 

 ing present. Mr. P. D. Manchester, 

 the secretary of the Vermont As- 

 sociation, had kindly invited me to 

 stop with him. 



At the meeting, the main subject 

 discussed was "Swarm prevention" 

 and I spoke on this myself, since it 

 is one of my hobbies. One of the 

 points I raised was the prevention of 

 drone production, as the presence of 

 drones incites bees to swarm. Mr. 

 Crane made the remark that he had 

 found bees to build drone comb on 

 worker foundation and called upon 

 his foreman to make a statement on 

 this. About a dozen sheets of foun- 

 dation, out of some 2,000. used by 

 them during the season, were changed 

 in this way. This was a surprise to 

 me, although Mr. Latham had al- 

 ready exhibited to me about 2 square 

 inches of comb which the bees had 

 also built on foundation and which 

 was worker on one side and drone on 

 the other. Dr. Miller had pronounced 

 this an impossibility, but it was a 

 fact, just the same. My explanation 

 is that at times in the laminating of 

 the foundation it becomes slightly 

 stretched when sticking to the cylin- 

 ders. The least stretching the other 

 way, or up and down, when given to 

 the bees, causes the forming of larger 

 cells than common which are then 

 used for drone breeding although 

 hardly large enough. The founda- 

 tion which is drone on one side and 



H. E. GRAY IN HIS APIARY AT FORT EDWARD, N. Y. 



