August, 1910. 



American Hee Journal 



country. If correct, I believe Albany 

 is somewhere near where the " buck- 

 wheaters '" live, that we used to read 

 about in the bee-papers a few vears 

 ago. Not being partial to buckwheat, 

 it is consoling to know that the dis- 

 tance is not so far from Toronto but 

 that we can take a lunch with us if we 

 should decide to make the trip. Seri- 

 ously, though, a lot of us would like to 

 have had the meeting in Toronto this 

 year; but instead of being discouraged 

 we will keep a-doing for future favors, 

 although this fall we will be sure to 

 hear, "It's in the East this year; send 

 it West next." 



Since writing the foregoing I have 

 had the .American Bee Journal in front 

 of rne, and happen to notice that it is 

 the intention of our genial secretary, 

 Mr. Scholl, to be at the Albany meet- 

 ing. That settles it as to the lunch 

 question, as he will be sure to have 

 some Texas " chunk honey " with him, 

 and I will impose on his hospitality for 

 the refreshing of the inner man, if it 

 should be my good fortune to be able 

 to attend the meeting. 



Steam-Heated Uncapping-Knife Best 



Today we finished extracting our 

 clover honey— all being left on the 

 hives till the season was over. There 

 IS just enough basswood honey coming 

 in to keep the bees from robbing, and 

 to make the work pleasant. Five days 

 steady going, handling combs all the 

 time, has made my finger ends so sore 

 that I can hardly strike the keys of the 

 tj'pe-writer, yet I suppose we would not 

 object if the work lasted another 5 days. 

 ,We have used a steam-heated uncap- 

 ping-knife for the first time, and Mrs. 

 Byer (who is " uncapper-in-chief " in 

 o^r honey establishment) says no more 

 cold knives for her. As another user 

 has said, it is a " slick shaver," all right, 

 and saves a lot of muscle. It has the 

 fault of sealing over a few cells of 

 honey with wax now and then, but not 

 as many cells are closed as is often 

 done with a cold knife in thick honey, 

 as the best of operators will occasion- 

 ally do a little "gumming." The steam- 

 heated knife has come to stay, and my 

 half dozen other honey-knive's will not 

 be used much in the future. 



Rapid Loss of Old Bees 



In speaking of the very backward 

 weather we had the past spring, I am 

 made to say that the cold unseasonable 

 weather lasted right up to May 12th 

 (page 219), while, of course, it should 

 be June ]2th. 



In the same item the writer promised 

 to say more next month about the bees 

 being in none too good condition at 

 the opening of the flow— said flow of 

 honey being heavy only a few days at 

 the start of bloom and then very indif- 

 ferent afterwards. I have already said 

 that the bees were not ready for the 

 flow at the start, so it is needless to 

 say that our crop from clover is very 

 light— about 35 pounds per colony, 

 whereas last year it was over lot), and 

 nearly all of it gathered in about 10 

 days. 



Now the interesting and unsolved 

 roblem about the matter, in so far as 



pts scribe is concerned, is as tohiu 



what caused our old bees to drop out 

 of sight just at such a critical time 

 after they had been so very populous 

 all spring. Numerous writers have 

 been saying that during the cold 

 weather their bees stopped brood-rear- 

 ing, but this was not the case with us, 

 as nearly all colonies were jammed 

 with brood with the opening of the 

 flow, but there was not enough old 

 bees to care for this brood and still 

 have a big field-force to spare. The 

 scarcity of field-bees was only for 

 about 10 days, but after that the clover 

 yielded very poorly. 



While we have had many theories 

 advanced as to the loss of the bees, the 

 only one I accept is the fact of the 

 bees being bare of honey from early 

 spring, as was the case with 75 percent 

 of the bees in Ontario this past season. 

 Against my will I had to feed sugar 

 syrup to most of the colonies, and 

 while they never were short of unsealed 

 stores, yet all colonies so treated were 

 in poor shape at the opening of the 

 flow, while some 40 that had enough 

 honey, and were not fed a drop of 

 syrup, came up to the harvest in rous- 

 ing shape, and stored more honey in 

 the same apiary than twice their num- 

 ber of sister colonies that had been fed 

 sugar syrup all spring. For winter 

 food, sugar is all right, but for spring — 

 well, that is a different story, and I 

 would rather have 20 pounds of honey 

 in the hives on May 1st than -10 pound's 

 of syrup to be fed regularly with no 

 honey present in the hives. 



As I have said, previous to June 12th 

 the weather was very unseasonable, and 

 I have an idea that the old bees were 

 lost in a vain attempt to get pollen, as 

 sugar syrup, as we all know, is no good 

 alone for brood-rearing. I have always 

 been opposed to spring feeding, and it 

 is needless to say last spring did not 

 make me any more favorable to the 

 practice. It is common to hear about 

 sealed stores being in the hive, and the 

 bees failing to uncap and use it for 

 brood-rearing. However that may be 

 with others, it is not so with my bees — 

 probably because of a good deal of 

 Carniolan blood among them; but 

 whatever the reason, I know from 

 actual experience that if I have an 

 abundance of sealed stores in the hive 

 in early spring, my bees always come 

 into the harvest boiling over and ready 

 for the first honey that may come 

 along — and this without my having to 

 do a bit of feeding. 



Last spring the honey was absent, 

 and so now is a good part of the crop 

 of honey which should have been 

 secured from the clover this year. Bass- 

 wood has been yielding a bit the last 

 few days — the first in 8 years, so it is 

 indeed quite a novelty for us to get a 

 taste of the honey again. Prospects 

 are real good for buckwheat — the first 

 smell of which was noticed today (July 

 22). With a big acreage of this plant 

 this year, and with the bees in splendid 

 condition, we are thinking that perhaps 

 our main crop will be after Aug. 1st — 

 quite a change from only 5 or years 

 ago, when a field of buckwheat was 

 quite a curiosity in our neighborhood. 

 Fighting bad weeds explains this, as 

 the farmers can work the ground well 

 up till July, and then have a crop after- 

 wards. 



Drone-Comb for Extracting-Supers 



Every once in a while some one will 

 advocate the use of drone-combs for 

 extracting-supers. This advice is surely 

 a delusion and a snare, as the writer 

 has found out to his sorrow. The 

 most of my bees, through force of cir- 

 cumstances, have been bought from 

 others, and as a matter of course in 

 their original shape there was a lot of 

 drone-comb in the brood-chambers. 

 As long as this was the case, drone- 

 comb in the supers made little differ- 

 ence, but when I gradually got most 

 of the drone-comb out of the brood- 

 chambers, and then gave the drone- 

 comb supers, what a change was 

 noticed ! 



A few years ago I had our super- 

 combs badly filled with pollen in an off 

 season, and the following winter I cut 

 out semi-circles of the combs where 

 the pollen was, and allowed the bees 

 next spring to fill up these holes— with 

 tlrone-comb, of course. A foolish thing 

 to do, but then I didn't know any bet- 

 ter, and only got wise in the matter by 

 hard experience the following summer, 

 when the bees would absolutely refuse 

 to store honey in these drone semi- 

 circles, even when crowded for room — 

 they seemed to think that drones were 

 to be reared, and lacking accommoda- 

 tion in the brood-nest, they expected 

 the queen to come and occupy this nice 

 center of the extracting-super. 



This summer I have had a number of 

 cases like this, and when the drone- 

 comb was removed and substituted 

 with a worker-comb, the latter would 

 be filled with honey at once. I tested 

 the matter in a number of cases like 

 this, and every time the result was the 

 same. Practical demonstrations like 

 this are, in my judgment, worth a whole 

 lot of theories, and I certainly shall try 

 to get rid of a lot of my drone super- 

 combs as fast as possible. For the 

 buckwheat flow there is not much dif- 

 ference, if any, in the matter of drone 

 or worker combs, for at the time of the 

 year that the buckwheat blooms, drones 

 are a bit out of season, so to speak, 

 and the bees will then just as readily 

 store in drone-comb as they will in 

 worker-comb. 



"The Honey-Money Stories" 



This is a tU-page and cover booklet, 

 5^4 by 8)4 inches in size, and printed 

 on enameled paper. It contains a va- 

 riety of short, bright stories, mixed 

 with facts and interesting items about 

 honey and its use. It has 31 half- 

 tone pictures, mostly of apiaries or 

 apiarian scenes; also 3 bee-songs, 

 namely: "The Hum of the Bees in 

 the Apple-Tree Bloom," and "Buck- 

 wheat Cakes and Honey," and "The 

 Bee-Keeper's Lullaby." It ought to be 

 in the hands of every one not familiar 

 with the food-value of honey. Its ob- 

 ject is to create a larger demand for 

 honey. It is sent postpaid for 25 cents, 

 but we will mail a single copy as a 

 sample for 15 cents, 5 copies for 60 

 cents, or 10 copies by express for $1.00. 

 A copy with the ."Xmerican Bee Journal 

 one year— both for $1.10. Send all or- 

 ders to the American Bee Journal, 146 

 W. Superior St., Chicago, 111. 



