(Entered as second-class matter July 30, 1907, at the Post-Offlce at Chicago, III., under Act of March 3, 1879.) 



Published Monthly at $1.00 a Year, by George W. York & Company, 146 West Superior Street, 



GEORGE W. YORK. Editor. 



DR. C. C, MILLER. Associate Editor. 



CHICAGO, ILL, MAY, 1910 



Vol. L -No. 5 



Editorial Notes and Comments 



Ke<l-Clover Bees ! 



Occasionally some beginner reads or 

 hears about red-clover queens or red- 

 clover bees, and understands that there 

 is a race of bees distinct from all 

 others, just as Italians are distinct, and 

 that if he gets one of the red-clover 

 queens he will be able to red-cloverize 

 his apiary, just as he might Italianize 

 it, and have his bees work on red 

 clover just as freely as they do on 

 white clover. Disappointment may 

 await him. 



There are differences in bees in 

 many respects. In the same apiary 

 colonies having the same origin may 

 show quite a difference in temper. 

 More commonly than perhaps some 

 may think, ordinary bees work at times 

 at least a little on red clover. At such 

 times Smith notes by careful observa- 

 tion that one colony excels the rest in 

 the amount of red-clover honey ob- 

 tained. Naturally he calls that colony 

 a red-clover colony, and queens ob- 

 tained from it red-clover queens. But 

 Smith has no monopoly of the busi- 

 ness. Jones makes the same discovery 

 among his bees, and he, too, has red- 

 clover queens. Others likewise. Neither 

 is there anything wrong in any one of 

 them selling red-clover queens. The 

 iinfortunate part is that the trait is not 

 fixed, and the beginner who expects to 

 red-cloverize his whole apiary finds 

 that after a generation or two he is 

 just where he was before getting the 

 new stock. 



Prevention ofSwarniiug 



The plan given on another page by 

 C. L. Grigsby is a variation of the 

 Demaree plan, given to the public some 

 years ago by G. W. Demaree, of Ken- 

 tucky. Mr. Grigsby operates just be- 

 fore it is time for queen-cells to be 

 started. It is not always easy to guess 

 at this time correctly, and the usual 

 way is to operate just a bit later, and if 



some or most of the colonies have 

 started queen-cells, they are destroyed. 

 Mr. Grigsby says nothing about ex- 

 cluders, but the probability is that a 

 queen-excluder is put over the lower 

 story, otherwise the queen would be 

 likely to go up at once into the story 

 having the brood. In his case queen- 

 cells were started in the brood above, 

 and the bees afterward destroyed these 

 cells. Bees do nothing invariably, and 

 it may be possible that another year 

 the bees may not be so obliging, and it 

 may be necessary for the bee-keeper 

 to intervene. Many who work for ex- 

 tracted honey have found the Demaree 

 plan excellent. Pity it will not work 

 so well for comb honev. 



Illinois Board of Agriculture and 

 Bee- Keeping 



This office is in receipt of the Statis- 

 tical Report of the Illinois State Board 

 of Agriculture, dated Dec. 1, 1909, 

 Springfield, 111., J. K. Dickerson, Secre- 

 tary. Naturally, the first object of in- 

 terest is the report on Bees and Honey. 



On page 25, the report gives -54,985 

 colonies of bees, which yielded 324,333 

 pounds of honey, the average price of 

 which was 15 cents a pound. Some 

 bee-keeper, upon reading that will say, 

 "My honey was of the best quality, 

 and all I could get for it was 8 cents. 

 I wonder who the fellow was who got 

 such a high price as to bring the aver- 

 age up to 15 cents." Of course, his 

 honey was extracted, although equally 

 of course the report includes both 

 comb and extracted. Market quota- 

 tions for Chicago up to the close of 

 1909, show ly cents as the highest for 

 best comb, and 8 cents for best ex- 

 tracted. That certainly would not aver- 

 age 15 cents. But some of the honey 

 was sold in home markets, and may 

 have brought a much higher figure. 



A table shows bees, honev, and price 

 for 1891 to 1909, inclusive. In 1891 



there were 120,2.52 colonies in the State, 

 dropping to 81,928(1892) ; since then the 

 number has averaged somewhere in the 

 neighborhood of 55,000, except in 1890, 

 when it was 43,411. The smallest yield 

 of honev was 31(),701 pounds in lOOO; 

 the largest was 821,(578 in 1891. 



Comparing the crop of 1909 with that 

 of the preceding year, we find that the 

 number of pounds of honey produced 

 in 1908 was not quite 6 percent more 

 than in 1909. As 1908 was a bumper 

 year, and 1909 was generally voted a 

 failure, it is hard to believe there is not 

 some mistake about this, especially as 

 there was little difference in the num- 

 ber of colonies. 



The figures show that in the bumper 

 year 19(t8, the average yield per colony 

 was a little less than tj'/i pounds. Surely 

 there must be something wrong about 

 that. 



At page 86 begins a report for each 

 separate county. Referring to a single 

 county, McHenry countv is reported 

 for 1908 with a crop of 230 pounds! As 

 a matter of fact, a single bee-keeper in 

 that county had more than 75 times as 

 much. If the reports of other counties 

 are no more reliable, little reliance can 

 be placed upon the whole affair. 



In the report of the Illinois State 

 Bee-Keepers' Association for 1908, we 

 find that only 128 members reported 

 their crops, but these 128 secured 471,- 

 429 pounds of honey, considerably more 

 than reported for all the bee-keepers of 

 the State in the figures before us. 



It may not be easy to say just where 

 the fault lies, but if nothing more reli- 

 able can be given, it might be better not 

 to undertake a report which only belit- 

 tles the business of bee-keeping. 



Disinfecting Foul-Broody Hives 



In the British Bee Journal. D. M. 

 Macdonald quotes the latest pronounce- 

 ment from the Bureau at Washington, 

 that " We can be sure of complete dis- 

 infection by burning out the hive," 

 immediately following it by this: 



" I am neither a prophet nor the son of a 

 prophet, but I am all but confident Dr. 

 .\Iiller will have a sad awakenint' when he 

 finds next season that lie has failed to kill, 

 and has not even scotched, the snake." 



Our good Scotch friend may be as- 

 sured that although there may be dis- 



