3IO 



October, 1910. 



American Hee Journal 



sues, leaving to the bees to decide how 

 much swarming they shall do. Then 

 as to the young queens reared. With 

 all the effort at improvement that has 

 been made in rearing queens by other 

 means, no one claims that a better 

 queen can be reared than the same col- 

 ony with the same materials will rear 

 in connection witli natural swarming. 

 The most that can be claimed is that it 

 is "just as good," and it nmy be a good 

 deal poorer. 



But natural swarming has its draw- 

 backs. Bees may swarm at inconven- 

 ient times. They may not swarm as 

 much as desired, and they may swarm 

 more than desired. A very serious ob- 

 jection is that the best colonies are 

 generally least inclined to swarm, and 

 most of the increase will be from the 

 poorer colonies, thus tending constantly 

 to deterioration, commonly expressed 

 by saying, ''The bees have run out." 



All things considered, the bee-keeper 

 who is too negligent to give his bees 

 proper attention may do well to allow 

 natural swarming; if he means to be 

 an up-to-date bee-keeper, he will take 

 the matter of increase into his own 

 hands. 



Extracted vs. Coiiib-Houey Pro- 

 cluctiou 



" There is plenty of evidence," says 

 Gleanings, "going to show a tendency 

 on the part of comb-honey producers 

 to go into the business of producing 

 extracted." It reasons that the effect 

 of the pure-food laws has been to give 

 the public more confidence in extracted 

 honey, thereby increasing the demand 

 for it and increasing its price, while 

 the price of comb honey has remained 

 stationary. The greater difficulty in 

 contending with swarming in the pro- 

 duction of comb honey is also credited 

 with its influence in- helping to give 

 the production of extracted honey the 

 preference. 



Taking the broad view of "the great- 

 est good to the greatest number," one 

 can but rejoice at this tendency. At 

 the present time, according to Govern- 

 ment reports, the average annual con- 

 sumption of sugar in the United States 

 is 82 pounds for every man, woman an4 

 child. Physicians tell us this is more 

 than is good for the digestive organs. 

 But if this average is bad, what is to 

 be said of those who go beyond the 

 average ? It is reasonable to believe 

 that some consume twice as much 

 sugar as others, and if the consump- 

 tion of 82 pounds is bad, the consump- 

 tion of more than 82 pounds must be 

 very bad. As honey does not make the 

 same demand upon the digestive or- 

 gans as sugar, but is directly assimi- 

 lated without change, every pound of 

 sugar that is displaced by a pound of 

 lioney means just so much toward the 

 health and strength of the nation. 



Anything, then, that increases the 

 consumption of honey is a public bene- 

 fit. If the public be convinced that ex- 

 tracted honey is just as really honey as 

 that in the comb, there can be little 

 question that much more extracted 

 than comb will be consumed, so long 

 as there is a difference of several cents 

 a pound between the two. In the 

 homes of the wealthy few, the price 

 makes little difference. In the homes 

 of the few very poor it may make little 



difference; there either is barred out 

 as an unattainable luxury. But leaving 

 out these two classes, in the great ma- 

 jority of homes we may find at least 

 some honey eaten in the course of the 

 year, either as something for occasional 

 indulgence or as a profitable article for 

 daily consumption. Many a man who 

 would consider a section of honey at 

 2.5 cents as something to be indulged 

 in as an occasional luxury, would snap 

 it up as a bargain if he should see it 

 offered at l.j cents. Indeed, it is a very 

 safe guess to say that if honey were 

 offered only in the comb, there would 

 be five times as much of it used in the 

 average home at 15 cents as there 

 would be if it could be had only at 25 

 cents. Now suppose it comes to be 

 the general belief that extracted honey 

 is just as genuine as the comb, why 

 should not as much extracted be used 

 at IT) cents as would be used of comb 

 at the same price ? 



Let us rejoice, therefore, in the turn- 

 ing from the production of comb honey 

 to that of extracted, because that means 

 on the whole the proiluction of just so 

 much more honey, and that means its 

 greater consumption, and that means a 

 gain in the health and strength of the 

 nation. 



Wliy Bee.s Fear Smoke 



P. Neumann quotes in Leipz. Bztg. 

 an editorial upon this subject, and sug- 

 gets that the effect of the smoke on the 

 breathing organs of the bees is enough 

 to make them want to get out of the 

 way. A good suggestion. 



Foul Brood in New Zealand 



Largely by the efforts of I. Hopkins, 

 late Chief Government Apiarist of New 

 Zealand, a foul-brood law was passed 

 in that land, one provision of which 

 made it obligatory to have all bees in 

 movable-frame hives. As to the eft'ect 

 of the law, Mr. Hopkins reports in the 

 British Bee Journal : 



Some districts that were absolutely rotten 

 with foul brood less tlian 3 years ago are 

 now clean; box-hives, together witli tlie 

 careless bee-keepers, are fast disappearing; 

 the industry is expanding at an enormous 

 rate, and satisfaction is expressed generally. 

 We have practically had no bother or 

 trouble in carrying out the provisions of the 

 Act. although in some districts wc have 

 been compelled to burn 25 percent of the 

 bees and hives. No compensation is allowed, 

 and rightly so. I think; for why should a 

 person be compensatt-d for being conu)clled 

 to give up being a nuisance and a danger 

 to his neighbor? It is estimated that the 

 output of honey and beeswax has more than 

 doubled in 4 years. 



When the Ba.s.swood Fails 



Not when it fails to bloom, but when 

 it fails, to be sufficiently plenty to be 

 used as lumber from which to make 

 sections. Now and again soinething is 

 said about the great danger that bass- 

 wood will become so scarce that it will 

 no longer be possible to use it for mak- 

 ing sections. It is used for so many 

 different purposes for which it is es- 

 pecially adapted that we are told that 

 there is danger that in the not very 

 distant future basswood honey may be- 

 come a thing of the past. For honey- 

 producers in the basswood regions that 

 will be a calamity. But that does not 

 apply to all producers of honey, nor 



even to all producers of comb honey. 

 Thousands of bee-keepers have not a 

 basswood tree within range of their 

 bees. So far as the yield of honey is 

 concerned, they will not suffer if bass- 

 wood be suddenly cut off from the face 

 of the earth. Indeed, they will be the 

 gainers, for they will no longer have 

 basswood honey to compete with. 



But when it comes to the matter of 

 using basswood lumber for making 

 sections, that touches all producers of 

 section honey. No, not all, but prob- 

 ably nearly all. We are told that bass- 

 wood lumber has already greatly ad- 

 vanced in price; and that we may ex- 

 pect that it will not be long until the 

 price again doubles, and doubling the 

 present price of sections will make 

 them so expensive that it will be pro- 

 hibitory, and that sooner or later — per- 

 haps very soon — producers of section 

 Jioney must consider what they will do 

 when they will no longer have any 

 sections; whether they shall turn their 

 attention to producing bulk - comb 

 honey or extracted. 



In all this talk there is a good bit of 

 foolishness, notwithstanding the indis- 

 putable fact that there is a growing 

 scarcity of basswood lumber. It may 

 be worth while to look matters over, 

 and see if the fears of the producer of 

 section honey may not be so far allayed 

 that he need not feel that he will be 

 compelled to turn to some other line of 

 production than section honey. 



First, does doubling the price of 

 basswood lumber double the cost of 

 sections ? How much lumber is used 

 in a section ? Take the section most 

 in use, the 4'4x4'4xl% bee-way, which 

 takes more lumber than the plain sec- 

 tion of the same capacity. In the flat 

 it iTieasures about I7xlzix'/s, which 

 amounts to nearly 4 cubic inches of 

 lumber. Allow abundant amount for 

 waste, and take 8 cubic inches for each 

 section, and we find that for 1000 sec- 

 tions it will take .Vi.o feet of lumber, 

 board measure. That means an ad- 

 vance of $18 a thousand on basswood 

 lumber for every dollar advance on 

 1000 sections. If sections are now 

 rated at $0 a thousand, before they 

 double in price lumber must be $!K) per 

 thousand feet higher than it now is. 

 That will be a good deal more than 

 double the present price of lumber, for 

 it must be remembered that the price 

 of $5 a thousand for sections includes 

 not only the cost of the lumber, but 

 also the cost of manufacturing, and the 

 cost of manufacturing does not double 

 with the doubling of the price of lum- 

 ber, but remains about the same with- 

 out regard to cost of lumber. 



We hardly need worry about bass- 

 wood lumber advancing $90 a thou- 

 sand right away. Even if it should, 

 that would mean an advance of only 

 yi cent a pound on honey, and an in- 

 crease to that extent is not likely to 

 throw section honey out of business. 



Even if all the basswood lumber in 

 the world should be wiped out of ex- 

 istence, that does not by any means 

 mean that no more section honey 

 would be produced. It only means 

 that we should go back to the same 

 kind of sections we first used — the 4- 

 piece. Even at present there are those 

 who think 4-piece sections are prefer- 

 able. For one-piece sections there is 



