(Entered as second-class matter July 30, 1907, at the Post-office at Chicago, III., nnder Act of Marcb 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, SEPTEWBER, 1910 



Vol. L-No. 9 



Editorial Notes and Comments 



Keeplufj Honey 



All are not agreed as to some of the 

 points about keeping honey, but prob- 

 ably all are agreed that it is a good 

 thing to keep it warm. Some would 

 say hot. If a cool, damp time comes, 

 artificial heat may well be used. At 

 other times the heat of the sun may 

 serve, with dark walls and roof to ab- 

 sorb the heat of the sun. 



What about ventilation ? S. D. House, 

 a man whose word deserves considera- 

 tion, says in the Bee-Keepers' Review: 



"Comb honey needs a high temperature, 

 with no ventilation, to cure it properly : the 

 least it is exposed to the atmosphere the 

 better, unless it could be in a direct current 

 of air." 



Perhaps something depends upon 

 the comparative heat of the inside and 

 the outside air. Suppose a door or 

 window on each of two opposite sides 

 of the honey-room, each opening fur- 

 nished with a screen. Without doubt 

 it will be better to keep everything 

 closed tight at night, as the admission 

 of the cool night air could only do 

 harm. In the morningtheclosed room 

 will be much warmer than the outside 

 air. But it has cooled off to some ex- 

 tent throughout the night, and in the 

 course of the forenoon the outside air 

 will warm up until it is warmer than 

 the air of the closed room. Will it not 

 be well then to open up and let in the 

 outside warmer air ? Then after the 

 middle of the day all may be again 

 closed. 



Iiiiproveiiient of Bees 



From time to time the advice is 

 given to breed from the best so as to 

 increase the average per colony, yet 

 probably only a small number of bee- 

 keepers act upon the advice. In the 

 average apiary it will likely be found 

 that some colony produces double the 

 average yield, while another does not 

 produce half as much as the average. 



Indeed there may be found a colony 

 which in an ordinary year produces 

 nothing. And yet that non-producer 

 is allowed to continue, because it does 

 not enter the head of the owner that it 

 is a loss to him. It is a loss in two 

 ways. It consumes just as much stores 

 as his best storing colony, provided 

 the colonies are equally populous, thus 

 using up what might be stored as sur- 

 plus by other colonies. That is bad 

 enough, but perhaps the greater loss 

 occurs from the fact that the drones 

 from this poor colony meet the young 

 queens of the better colonies, thus 

 bringing down the average yield for 

 the future. So it might be a profitable 

 thing to brimstone such a colony 

 rather than to let it continue on its 

 own way. 



A little figuring may do no harm. 

 Suppose an apiary of 100 colonies 

 which average, one year with another, 

 7.") pounds of honey per colony, which 

 is sold at 8 cents per pound. Suppose 

 the best colony in the apiary yields 

 double the average, or 1.50 pounds. 

 Now if the owner requeen his apiary 

 with young queens of that best stock, 

 and if each colony in the apiary then 

 yields l.JO pounds each ; or, in other 

 words, if he increases the average yield 

 75 pounds per colony, that 7-5 pounds 

 at 8 cents a pound will be $6, and that 

 will amount to an increase of $IJ00 a 

 year for the whole apiary. Would not 

 $600 a year pay him pretty big wages 

 for the work of requeening ? 



But that " if " in the case is to be 

 reckoned with, and it may as well be 

 said at once that no such result would 

 follow. For future storing depends 

 not only upon the young queens that 

 are reared, but also upon the drones 

 with which they are mated. If the 

 bee-keeper rears all his queens from 

 that 1.50-pound colony, and if all his 

 young queens meet drones from his 

 own apiary, these drones being of 

 average 7o-pound stock, then the re- 



sultant will be an average of 150 and 

 75, or 112>i. That would make an aver- 

 age increase of 37>^ pounds, or an in- 

 crease of 3750 pounds for the whole 

 apiary. At 8 cents a pound that comes 

 to just $300. Even that would be good 

 pay. 



But again there is an " if." " If " his 

 queens meet drones from his own 

 apiary. They may meet drones from 

 surrounding apiaries. Possibly these 

 may be better than his own drones ", 

 probably worse. The larger his own 

 apiary, and the fewer surrounding bees, 

 the better his chances. If his apiarj' is 

 of considerable size, he may improve 

 his chances by encouraging drones 

 only in his best colonies. 



Although it may not be practical to 

 reduce the matter to e.xact figures, 

 enough is clear to show that the bee- 

 keeper who has colonies of varying 

 degrees of excellence (and that takes 

 in nearly all bee-keepers), may make a 

 tidy sum by giving attention to the 

 rearing of queens from its best stock. 



In many cases, however, the best 

 colony in an apiary is nothing to boast 

 of, and as a preliminary step one or 

 several good queens should be pur- 

 chased from some reliable dealer. 



Longevity in Bees 



Occasionally some one gives expres- 

 sion to the thought that longevity is an 

 important factor in the bee-keeping 

 world. Certainly a worker which lives 

 a few days longer than the average 

 would be expected to gather more than 

 the average, provided the few addi- 

 tional days of its life be added to the 

 length of time it spends as a fielder. 

 But how are we to determine which 

 bees have the longest lives ? F. Dun- 

 das Todd, writing in the Bee-Keepers' 

 Review, takes the number of dead bees 

 found on the bottom-board in winter 

 as an index, and says : 



"This summer, therefore. I am going to 

 rear my new queens from the colony that 

 showed the fewest dead on the bottom- 

 board, and permit drones to fiy from the 

 hives tlnat approached the nearest to the 

 best." 



As a general principle this may be 

 accepted as correct, but there are 

 things that make exceptions, and these 

 things must be considered in making 

 any decision. The colonies must be of 



