(Entered as second-class matter at the Post-office at Hamilton, 111., under Act of March 3. IST'J.) 



Published Monthly at $1.00 a Year, by American Bee Journal, First National Bank Building 



C. p. DADANT. Editor. 



DR C. C. MILLER. Associate Editor. 



HAMILTON, ILL., FEBRUARY, 1915 



Vol. LV..— Ho. 2 



Editorial 



Comments 



Overprofluctiou 



Concerning the overproduction of 

 honey of which some people complained 

 a year or two ago, it appears that, some 

 20 years ago, there was already some 

 complaint to that effect. In the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal of May 24, 1894, Hon. 

 Eugene Secor, quoting United States 

 statistics, showed that less than 64,000,- 

 000 pounds was reported in the census, 

 and said : 



" It does not seem much like over- 

 production, when only one pound of 

 honey per capita is produced in the 

 United States." To this Editor York 

 replied : " No it is not overproduction, 

 but under distribution." 



Breeding-— ImliK'ing Queens to 

 Lay 



In an editorial, in Gleanings in Bee 

 Culture lately, E. R. Root speaks of 

 two carloads of bees that were sent to 

 Virginia Oct. 20 and Nov. 16, and says : 



" In both carload shipments it was 

 observable that the shaking up, loading 

 and unloading en routi- started the 

 queens to laying in all the hives. By 

 the time the shipments arrived there 

 were eggs and larvx to be seen in all 

 the hives." 



In a similar occurrence, with similar 

 results, the elder Dadant wrote : 

 " When colonies are disturbed, for any 

 reason, the bees fill themselves with 

 honey from their cells, in the anticipa- 

 tion of being compelled to abandon 

 their home. While they are thus laden, 

 they offer honey to their queen oftener 

 and in greater amount. The queen be- 

 ing thus induced to eat, the eggs de- 

 velop in her ovaries and the result is 



increased laying. A natural production 

 of honey, or artificial feeding, or 

 sciatching the cappings of sealed 

 combs by the apiarist, or co'itinuous 

 disturbances of well-supplied colonies 

 will produce similar effects." This 

 was written in 1872. 



The testimony above given of in- 

 creased laying from a simple continu- 

 ous disturbance at a time when queens 

 do not usually lay eggs at all, would 

 tend to confirm the given explanation. 

 We may add to this influence, however, 

 the increase of heat caused by the dis- 

 turbance of confined colonies. From 

 this valuable information the reader 

 will draw useful conclusions. 



Our Cover Picture 



The excellent photographs of Mr. 

 Mendleson's apiary, given in California 

 department of this number, brought 

 recollections of a picturesque Califor- 

 nia apiary printed as front cover on 

 the American Bee Journal in August, 

 1907. We have reproduced the photo- 

 graph on our front cover, this issue. 

 It represents a Los Angeles county 

 apiary. 



Is Sealed or Un.sealed Brood 

 Better to Hold a Swarm ? 



Referring to question of " Sub- 

 scriber," page 42.3, and the answer 

 thereto, my correspondent says he is 

 confident he has seen the statement 

 that bees will never desert uncapped 

 brood. I don'-t doubt it. Indeed it 

 has been, and I think is yet, the ortho- 

 dox thing to say that the best thin : to 

 hold a swarm after it has been hived is 



to give it a frame of unsealed brood. I 

 don't know for certain that this popu- 

 lar belief is wrong — at least wrong so 

 far as it teaches that unsealed is better 

 than sealed brood to hold a swarm — 

 but I suspect it is. I wish we could 

 know for certain, and it ought not to 

 be so very hard to decide. If there 

 should be put in one side of a hive a 

 comb containing sealed brood and no 

 unsealed brood, and on the other side 

 a comb containing sealed brood, and 

 then a nucleus or a small swarm should 

 be put into the hive, I think they 

 would be likely to cluster at one side 

 or the other, upon the comb having the 

 strongest attraction for them. 



In actual practice it may not be so 

 important to have the right answer to 

 the question, for generally when a 

 frame of brood is given it contains 

 both sealed brood and unsealed, and it 

 is quite possiblethat this is better than 

 to have either sealed or unsealed alone. 



According to the usual belief, it 

 would not be at all illogical to suppose 

 that an unsealed queen-cell would be 

 more respected by the bees than a 

 sealed one, but facts, as already inti- 

 mated, are against such belief. 



c. c. M. 



Sugar Syrup Crystallizing 



Those of our readers who took an 

 inlerest in the discussion of the pro- 

 portion of water and sugar for syrup 

 will be interested in reading the fol- 

 lowing letter to Dr. Miller by Mr. Mc- 

 Kinnon. We will be glad to have the 

 matter sifted to a satisfactory solution. 

 See what Prof. Bartholomew said on 

 this subject at the Minnesota meeting : 



" I am enclosing in this letter a sam- 

 ple of candied sugar stores that I took 

 from the entrance of a hive in the cel- 

 lar. There are about a dozen others 

 that show the same signs of candied 

 stores. 



"These colonies were fed a sugar 



