August, 1910. 



American ^ee'Jonrnal 



/?= 



Southern Beedom 



Conducted by Louis H. Scholl. New Braunfels, Tex. 



The Texas Bee-Keepers' Association 



I have received the following pro- 

 gram which will be taken up at the 

 next meeting of the Texas State Bee- 

 Keepers' Association, which will be 

 held at College Station, Tex., during 

 the meeting of the Texas Farmers' 

 Cpngress, July 26, 27 and 28, 1910. This 

 will be a big event at the College, and 

 it is hoped that there will be a large 

 attendance from all parts of the State. 

 The program is as follows : 



Roll call. 



Prayer— Rev. W. A. Sampey. 



Appointment of committees. 



Reception of members. 



President's Address. 



■' Systematizing the Membership of the 

 Association"— W. T.Childress and Louis H. 

 Scholl. 



"The Necessary Qualifications of the Be- 

 ginner in the Bee-Business "— F. L. Aten and 

 D. C. Milam. 



" Queens. Honey, or Bees— Which Pays 

 the Best ?■— W. H. Laws and W. O. Victor. 



" The General Habits of the Honey-Bee " 

 — C. B. Bankston and Ernest E. Scholl. 



•'The Hive Best Adapted for .\ll Pur- 

 poses"— Willie Atchley and Jno. W. Pharr. 



"The Progress of Bee-Keeping in Our 

 State as Compared with Other States"— 

 Louis H. Scholl and L. R. Dockery. 



" How to Create and Maintain a Uniform 

 Honey Market"— O. P. Hyde and W. W. 

 Mayfield. 



"Supplies for the .\piary— What I Recom- 

 mend and Why?" — Udo Toepperwein and 

 W. H. White. 



" Is it Profitable for the Honey-Producer 

 to Rear His Own Queens ?"— Grant Ander- 

 son and J. W. Taylor. 



" Out-.Apiaries and their Management "— 

 J. B. King and W. C. Collier. 



" The Comparative Merits of the Deep and 

 Shallow, and the 8 and 10 Frame Hives"— J. 

 M. Hagood and W. C. Conrads. 



" The Best Methods of Artificial Increase" 

 — T- P. Robinson and W. H. Laws. 



■ Does a Man Have to Know How to Rear 

 Good Queens to Be a Successful Honey-Pro- 

 ducer?"— W. O. Victor and F. L. Aten. 



Reports of committees. 



Election of officers. 



.Adjournment. 



Note.— The Question-Box at close of each 

 session. 



Honey-Dew — Laying Workers, Etc. 



We have had the heaviest "honey- 

 dew " flow ever known in this part of 

 the State. We have tons of the stuff. 

 What are we to do with the black stutt ? 



L.-vviNG Workers ! 



So Mr. Latham thinks that laying 

 workers are not so common as some 

 would have us think. He seems to be- 

 lieve much of the work done by sup- 

 posed laying workers is done by un- 

 dersized queens. " Allen," you are 

 wrong. (See Gleanings, page 34-5.) 



Much Sw.\rming. 



This has been a great year for 

 swarming in this part of the State. 

 Bees have swarmed and re-swarmed, 

 and kept up swarming with the result 

 that those of us who have out-apiaries 

 have lost more swarms than usual. 



Introducing Queens. 

 This mav not be new, but I will state 



it for the benefit of those that are in- 

 terested. I hnd that queens that have 

 been laying for only 2 or 3 days are 

 very much harder to introduce than 

 those that have been laying for some 

 time. 



When Bees G.vaw Combs. 



I don't like to hold opposite views in 

 apiculture with such men as J. E. Crane, 

 of Vermont, but it he believes the bees 

 in Vermont gnaw combs "just because 

 they want to," and rebuild it with drone- 

 comb, I am almost A' -••'''/'/;■<■ he is mis- 

 taken. Bees gnaw down combs from 

 two causes, and rebuild with drone- 



One of Scholl's Assistants Ready to 

 Take Supers Off.— See page 254. 



comb : Defective combs, and want of 

 wax when no honey is being gathered. 

 No, Mr. Crane, bees don't gnaw down 

 combs in Texas "just because they 

 want to,'" and rebuild with drone-comb. 

 (Gleanings, page 378.) 



Delays of Goods Ordered. 



I wish there was some way to com- 

 pel bee-supply dealers not to accept 

 orders for supplies unless they could, 

 or would, fill them in a reasonable 

 length of time. I have had heavy losses 

 for two years in succession because I 

 could not get my honey cans ordered 

 from 2 to 3 months before needed each 

 year. This was not caused from delay 

 in transit, but because they were not 

 shipped. 



The Drouth ano Honey-Dew. 



We are in the midst of another seri- 

 ous drouth in our portion of the " Lone 

 Star" State, and if we don't have rain 

 imtnediately our crop of light honey 

 will be very short. The drouth, though, 

 is favorable for the honey-dew, of 

 which we already have a large crop — 

 very much more than we want. If any 

 one knows where we could find a mar- 

 ket for the stuff I would be pleased to 

 hear from him. It's almost as black as 

 ink. and the flavor is anything but 

 good. Such is honey-dew in Texas. 



"Real" and "Insect" Honey-Dew. 



D. M. Macdonald, of Banff, Scotland, 

 seems to favor the belief that there is 

 a icai honey-dew (June 1.5th, Glean- 

 ings, page 388). The subject is a rather 

 deep one for an uneducated person to 

 deal with, like the writer, but it would 

 take more evidence than has been yet 

 furnished to convince me that the so- 

 called honey-dew is anything but the 

 excretion of insects, and never a secre- 

 t/on of the leaves of trees. Of course, 

 we have some plants that have nectar- 

 glands, such as the cotton-plant, cow- 

 peas, etc., that secrete nectar ; but 

 could this be called "honey-dew?" I 

 think not. L. B. Smith. 



Rescue, Tex., June 23. 



Bulk-Comb Honey Production 



We have already produced, up to this 

 time, 18,000 to 20,000 pounds of bulk- 

 comb honey for our spring and early 

 summer crop. This was unusual, as, 

 in the localities where our apiaries 

 are, we do not usually " figure " on a 

 spring crop, but depend upon our main 

 crop from cotton and other sources 

 later in the summer and fall. We have 

 a spring crop every few years, how- 

 ever, and when we do it is just that 

 much in addition to the main crop, 

 since one does not depend upon an- 

 other. That is to say, we can more 

 safely figure on our summer and fall 

 crop, no matter whether we have a 

 spring crop or not. If our crop yet to 

 come equals our average we have ob- 

 tained year after year, we may safely 

 figure on more than twice as much 

 more of bulk-comb honey than we 

 have already obtained. 



Now, it must be explained that nearly 

 all of the above has been comb honey 

 only, without the extracted honey 

 added to itto make " bulk-comb honey." 

 Since we have produced, comparatively, 

 only a very small amount of e.xtracted 

 honey, we have had to resort to buying 

 this with which to pack the comb 

 honey. Consequently we have bought 

 over 2.5,000 pounds of e.xtracted honey, 

 of which the greater portion has al- 

 ready been used for the above purpose. 

 This brings our output (not entirely 

 our own production altogether) up to 

 quite a large figure. 



The bees are in fine condition and 

 are at work mainly in cotton-fields 

 now. The prospects from this source 

 are very favorable. It must be con- 

 sidered, however, that our bees have 

 not been managed entirely for a honey 

 crop, in which case a much better 

 showing would have resulted. Instead, 

 most of our apiaries were run for in- 

 crease, the majority having been in- 



