1917 



AMERICAN BFE JOURNAL 



161 



Of these 100 parties, 70 still have 

 bees, and 20 have over 10 colonies each ; 

 five recommend the keeping of a num- 

 ber of colonies; ten that from two to 

 five colonies are profitable on every 

 farm ; twenty that bees are for the spe- 

 cialist, and a nuisance for the common 

 man. About I! percent had heard of 

 bee disease, and one party had seen it. 



To sum up the causes of failure it 

 was becase the would-be beekeeper did 

 not know of the whys and hows of the 

 bee trade. One did not know how to 

 buy supplies, another how to handle 

 the swarms, another how to sell honey, 

 another where to place the hive, and so 

 forth. All were not inclined to study 

 the subject, for everybody has sense 

 enough to keep bees. All those that 

 have succeeded are men who have 

 studied the cause of former failure 

 and keep in tune with the bees and 

 other bee-men, are enjoying tlieir labor 

 and the sweets thereof. 



The lack of preparation was every- 

 where apparent. Those who were most 

 successful were the most forehanded, 

 and many a failure was caused by a 

 lack of preparedness. If the materials 

 are well cared for, the tools in their 

 places, no time will be lost, no stings 

 will have to be picked out; in fact, 

 preparedness is the key to success in 

 bee work. Let the slack time in win- 

 ter be filled with preparation for next 

 summer's work and not in theorizing 

 on what we could do if we had 100 

 colonies of purest Italians in an eternal 

 clover pasture or similar foolishness. 



Albany, Mo. 



Vaseline to Prevent Burr 

 Combs—An Old Idea 



BY ARTHUR C. MILLER. 



IN the Bee Journal for January, page 

 12, a Mr. Oettle is reported as sug- 

 gesting the use of vaseline to 

 prevent burr combs, and says that "all 

 exposed parts of supers, etc., should be 

 vaselined on the bottom edge." 



As far back as the early eighties, 

 James Heddon mentioned the use of 

 tallow for such purpose, and if memory 

 serves me truly the use of a grease of 

 some sort to prevent sticking by propo- 

 lis dates back over a hundred years, 

 though at the moment I cannot quote 

 the author and place. 



For a season I used tallow thus, 

 and particularly on the edges of the 

 end-bars of my closed-end frames, but 

 I early discovered that there were 

 worse evils than the sticking together 

 of hive parts. Today I stop and scrape 

 the edge of an end-bar at some time 

 greased or send into the shop for 

 cleaning, a super or other article at 

 some time treated to a dose of anti- 

 stick. 



It is exceedingly disconcerting to 

 have a previously decorous and well- 

 ordered super go sliding off onto the 

 ground at the slightest touch of hand 

 or breeze, as the greased ones will 

 sometimes do on a nice hot day. The 

 grease and the propolis mix and make 

 a very good lubricant when the tem- 

 perature is up. 



Another drawback to the use of 

 grease is the daubing of one's hands, 

 tools, smoker, etc., until nothing can 

 be held securely. There are some 

 things much worse than propolis and 



burr combs. An annual " clean up " 

 keeps the former within bounds, and a 

 change of queen will eliminate the 

 latter. 



One of the advantages of a library of 

 old bee books is the knowledge to be 

 gained of the practices of those who 

 preceded us, thus either saving us use- 

 less experiments or furnishing us with 

 some good or forgotten method or 

 telling us the true originator of some 

 " modern " usage. 



Providence, R. I. 



Queen-Rearing— Combination 

 Method 



BY J. E. HANn. 



rHE queen is the mainspring of the 

 existence of the colony, and the 

 pivotal point of successful l)ee- 

 keeping ; requeening to prevent swarm- 

 ing is rapidly gaining favor, therefore, 

 the knowledge how to rear good queens 

 is a necessary qualification of a com- 

 petent beekeeper, without which he is 

 not a complete master of his profes- 

 sion. The methods of queen-rearing 



from one side of said strips down to 

 the septum, fasten said strips to the cell 

 bars with melted wax. Crush the eggs 

 in altern.iting cells, leaving the cells 

 containing eggs alternating and zigzag- 

 ing in the rows, and place the bars in 

 position in the frames. 



This frame containing strips of pre- 

 pared worker-cells containing eggs, is 

 placed in position in the queenless col- 

 ony, between the two combs of honey, 

 after removing the frame of brood. 

 This sudden relief from hopeless queen- 

 lessness is hailed with great rejoicing, 

 and the queen-rearing impulse is devel- 

 oped to the highest pitch. The nurses 

 recently deprived of their numerous 

 nurselings, will have their stomachs 

 full of chyme, the cells containing 

 eggs will be enlarged and the tiny lar- 

 vae will be treated to a superabundance 

 of food as soon as they emerge from 

 the egg. If no nectar is available 

 queen-rearing colonies should be fed a 

 pint of syrup daily to rear these queens. 



There are good reasons, however, 

 why these queenless colonies should 

 not be allowed to finish the cells, (1) 

 there are too many for one colony to 

 finish if the best queens are wanted. 



THIS IS QUEEN-REARING TIME IN THE SOUTH 

 A batch of queen-cells ready for nuclei, in the apiary of Grant Anderson, of Texas 



in vogue today are largely modifica- 

 tions of methods introduced by G. M. 

 Doolittle and Henry Alley a quarter 

 century ago. Since space forbids a 

 specific definition of these methods, 

 suffice it to say, "in rearing queens for 

 home use when simplicity of equip- 

 ment and manipulation are important 

 factors, a combination of the two meth- 

 ods mentioned has its peculiar advan- 

 tages." 



The equipment consists of a brood- 

 frame in which removalile cell-bars are 

 fitted parallel with the top-bar, and \% 

 inches apart. Place a clean empty 

 comb in the colony having the breed- 

 ing queen and examine it daily. When 

 it is well filled with eggs remove the 

 queen and combs from a strong col- 

 ony, leaving two combs with honey 

 and one with brood. Cage the queen, 

 shake the bees onto the running-board, 

 place the caged queen and beeless 

 brood in the top story of a strong col- 

 ony, above a queen-excluder, and pro- 

 ceed as follows: Remove the comb 

 containing eggs from the breeding col- 

 ony, slice it into strips lengthwise, with 

 two rows on each strip. Shave the cells 



(2) The absence of nurselings will 

 cause a decrease in the secretion of 

 chyme by the nurses, and it is impera- 

 tive to get as many cells started as 

 possible before the secretion of chyme 

 reaches the minimum ; therefore, queen- 

 less colonies are employed to start cells 

 which are finished by queenright colo- 

 nies. As soon as a batch of prepared 

 cells have become well started and lib- 

 erally supplied with food the frame is 

 removed and another frame of pre- 

 pared cells given, never allowing a 

 queenless colony to start more than 

 three batches, for reasons just given. 

 The queen and brood are then returned, 

 and the short period of queenlessness 

 will not cripple the efficiency of the 

 colony 



Auxiliary queenright colonies are 

 prepared to finish embryo queen-cells 

 in the following manner: The strong- 

 est colonies are selected and the queen 

 limited to the lower story by a queen- 

 excluder, with the most of the brood in 

 the upper story. In the center of the 

 upper story we place a frame having a 

 bar with 15 embryo queen-cells attached. 

 When these are finished another batch 



