1917 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



419 



cording to sonic authorities, spray- 

 ing when the l)hissoms are open in- 

 jures the fruit as well as killing the 

 bees. 



In States where (here is no law for- 

 bidding, if tile fruit grower persists 

 in spraying while the trees are in 

 bloom about the only thing which the 

 beekeeper can do is to move his bees 

 away during the period of danger. 

 This involves much labor and ex- 

 pense, but many beekeepers find 

 themselves forced to do it. 



Ordinance Against Bees 



"There is a deterinitieil efTort to get the city 

 council to pass an anli-l)eckeeping ordinance. 

 The agitation seems to he tlie result of some 

 personal grievances The council has been re- 

 luctant to pass the law, but the complaints are 

 persistent. They are not after me, but in get- 

 ting others they niay get rae." 



INDIANA. 



In this case we have communicated 

 with the city officials of the place 

 mentioned and have called their at- 

 tention to court decisions which have 

 declared an ordinance of this kind to 

 be invalid. 



The keeping of bees in cities and 

 towns is a source of much annoyance, 

 and attempts to prohibit the keeping 

 of bees within the limits of the cor- 

 poration are frequent. The beekeeper 

 should bear in mind that the public 

 has rights which he is bound to re- 



spect as much as his rights must be 

 respected. If bees are so situated 

 that they persistently annoy neigh- 

 bors or passersby they thereby be- 

 come a nuisance and there is ample 

 authority of law to abate a nuisance. 



If the bees are so placed as to en- 

 danger others, the beekeeper may be 

 held liable for damages that result. 

 For instance, in a case upheld by the 

 Iowa Supreme Court, the hives were 

 so placed that the only unobstructed 

 passageway for the, bees was toward 

 the road. A man hitched some horses 

 to a post in the road and the horses 

 were stung to death by the angry 

 bees. In this case the beekeeper was 

 held for the damages, since his bees 

 should not have been so placed in a 

 situation where it was necessary for 

 them to fly directly from the hive 

 into the public road. 



While there is authority of law for 

 declaring bees a nuisance when they 

 in fact become so, ordinances declar- 

 ing all bees a nuisance within the 

 limits of the town have not been up- 

 held by the courts. 



The subject of "Bees as a Nuisance" 

 is fully covered in "Productive Bee- 

 keeping," in the chapter on laws that 

 concern the beekeeper. It will be 

 well for persons interested to refer to 

 this book for further information on 

 this subject. 



Bee-I^eping ^ FbR Women 



Conducted by Miss Emma ^I. Wilson. Marenco. III. 



A Good Harvest for a Beginner 



I am going to give you the history, 

 so far, of the first swarm of bees that 

 I ever saw, and will appreciate the fa- 

 vor if you will let me know if I am 

 getting the average amount of honey 

 from the colony. 



I got the swarm June 12, 1916. In 

 the fall I took ofif 48 boxes of honey, 

 leaving brood-chamber as it was. 



Above bees swarmed June 29, 1917. 



On July 7, 1917, I took from original 

 hive 92 full boxes (or sections), of 

 honey, and on examining the hive 

 September 22, 1917, find by middle ot 

 week I will be able to take off three 

 full supers of honey, or 84 boxes. 



This has been a poor honey season, 

 so they tell me. My new swarm has 

 just commenced to build in first su- 

 per. 



MRS. W. C. BARTHOLOMEW. 



Illinois. 



You are to be heartily congratu- 

 lated. A harvest of 176 sections from 

 a colony, with 100 per cent increase, 

 is something a veteran would hardly 

 feel like complaining about, even in 

 a good season, and the season of 1917 

 has been unusually poor throughout 

 the State, and no doubt in your lo- 

 cality. It seems almost a pity at this 

 particular time that you did not have 

 extracted honey instead of sections, 

 considering the loud call from the 

 government for the largest possible 

 production of honey. The yield of 

 extracted honey as compared with 

 sections is variously estimated. A 



few say they can produce as much in 

 sections as they can of extracted; a 

 larger number say they can produce 

 twice as much of extracted as of sec- 

 tions ; but most agree that 50 per cent 

 more extracted can be sucured. Fig- 

 uring at this last rate, instead of 176 

 you might have had 264 pounds of ex- 

 tracted honey. In many places one 

 kind of honey can be sold at as high 

 a price as the other, at least this year, 

 so you would have been fifty per cent 

 better off if you had run for extract- 

 ed. 



Suppose you had obtained 264 

 pounds of extracted honey. You 

 ought to be able to get IS cents a 

 pound for it (some are predicting 

 that before spring it will be up to 20 

 cents a pound; but even if you got 

 but 13 cents a pound, 264 pounds 

 would amount to $34.32. The swarm 

 ought to be worth to you at least $6, 

 making the income from your one 

 colony a little more than $40. If you 

 should feel like complaining at that, 

 you must be hard to please. 



Of course, you may not average so 

 well as that when you increase the 

 number of your colonies, but the pos- 

 sibilities in the case are so promising 

 that tli.ere is strong inducement to 

 continue in the ranks of women bee- 

 keepers. 



Bees in Vermont 



The year 1917 has not been a very 

 decided success in bee culture in 

 Northern Vermont. It would be hard 



to say just why, for never did white 

 clover cover the pastures more fully 

 or the field clovers, red and alsikc, 

 look more enticing. Bees, in most 

 cases, wintered well and seemed 

 strong when put out, but we had a 

 great deal of wet weather, and while 

 it was ideal to make plants grow and 

 bloom, my own theory of the lack of 

 surplus is that they stayed in the hive 

 and consumed during the rainy days 

 much of the honey that they had 

 stored during the sunny days, and by 

 the time settled fair weather came 

 the best of the honey season was 

 over. 



Some of the small beekeepers have 

 liad swarms cleaned out by moths. 

 The bees were brown bees. Some 

 time ago they were Italianized, but as 

 the bulk of the northern bees are 

 llie common bees or a cross breed, 

 the introduction of an occasional 

 Italian queen does not hold them 

 long with any Italian blood. The 

 moths got into some of my hives, but 

 have done little or no damage, for I 

 open my hives often and if I find a 

 wax worm or a cocoon I destroy it. 



I lost two new swarms in unexpect- 

 ed ways this summer. The first was 

 made of two frames of honey and 

 brood and the old queen that I had 

 taken from a hive that I had re- 

 queened. They went to work at 

 once and had increased to nearly 

 double, had filled another frame with 

 brood and were coming fine, as I 

 thought. On the last pleasant day 

 they were going in and out lively as 

 crickets. Ihen came a rain of long 

 duration. When the weather cleareu 

 that hive was as silent as the grave. 

 Indeed it was the grave of all that 

 growing brood. Not a bee was in it 

 except those in the cells, and those, 

 of course, were dead. There were no 

 dead bees on the board. They did not 

 starve, for there was honey in the 

 tops of tlie combs. 



I had read and been told that bees 

 would never desert their brood. It 

 seemed to me that this swarm did 

 just that. The swarm next this 

 seemed to be much larger after this. 

 Why did they go from their own hive 

 to this? If the queen died they had 

 eggs to raise a new one. If she went 

 out with tliem why did the nurse bees 

 leave also. Why did they go, in, after 

 or just before a storm? I give it up. 

 As Josh Billings said, "It isn't so much 

 what folks don't know, as what they 

 know that ain't so." I feel sure that 

 the bee business is the worst possible 

 business for 'knowing things thaft 

 ain't so. The old proverb is that you 

 never can tell which way a toad will 

 jump, and I think apropos of bees, 

 that after you have seen him jump a 

 few times you still never can tell 

 what will happen next. 



The next little misfortune that 1 

 had was with a new Italian queen. I 

 introduced her to a frame of sealed 

 brood, gave a partial frame of honey, 

 and for a week everything went well; 

 then it began to rain, and for feai' 

 they would not have enough to eat, I 

 filled a pint Mason jar with syrup, 

 placed it in the feeder and put it in- 

 side beside the frame. It rained the 

 best part of a week, but secure in the 

 thought that they were well fed. I 

 forebore to open that hive until it 



