336 



October, 191E 



Americanize Journal 



mile away or light at the door. 



Considering the great area of flight 

 reached by the bees of an apiary, it will 

 be seen that the question as to what 

 honey plants should be planted on an 

 acre or two would be only a drop in 

 the bucket. Indeed, there is no plant 

 that can be profitably planted for the 

 honey alone. Instead of thinking to 

 plant for the bees, the thing is to find 

 a place where already there are honey 

 plants within a mile or so. Such places 

 are almost everywhere. White clover, 

 alsike, buckwheat, fruit trees and bass- 

 wood are a few of the many plants 

 from which nectar is obtained. Some- 

 times, however, something can be done 

 to encourage the planting of plants 

 that are profitable in other ways, and 

 at the same time yield honey. Some 

 beekeepers furnish alsike seed gratui- 

 tously, or at bargain rates, to be sown 

 within a given distance. Sweet clover 

 may be sown in waste places. 



Not every place, however, where 

 honey plants abound, is open to occu- 

 pation. For in most such places the 

 ground is already occupied. Although 

 no one has a legal right to any given 

 territory ot bee pasturage, it is gen- 

 erally considered among beekeepers 

 that one already on the field has a 

 moral priority right, and if the field 

 is fully occupied already, one who 

 should establish another apiary on the 

 same ground would be guilty of moral 

 wrong, as well as doing a foolish thing 

 on his own account. There are, how- 

 ever, many places where the precious 

 nectar is going to waste. 



There are probably not many places 

 where more than a hundred colonies 

 can be profitably kept in one apiary, 

 and at any rate the beginner should 

 hardly think of having more than two 

 or three colonies at the start, increas- 

 ing the number with increase of knowl- 

 edge. With as many as a hundred col- 

 onies one would liardly have time for 

 other business; but many a one keeps 

 half a dozen colonies in connection 

 with other business, hardly feeling the 

 time taken by the bees, while having a 

 bountiful supply of nature's choicest 

 sweet, and some pin money beside. 



For one who thinks of starting in 

 beekeeping, the first thing is to secure 

 a good text book on the subject, such 

 as Dadant's Langstroth, Root's A B C 

 and X Y 7. on Beekeeping, or Phillips' 

 Beekeeping. Afterward a periodical 

 will be helpful, and we have the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, Gleanings in Bee Cul- 

 ture, and Beekeepers' Review. Farmers' 

 Bulletins No. 447 and No. 503 can be 

 had free from the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, Washington, 

 D. C. Some of the States issue bulle- 

 tins on bee-culture. Bee conventions 

 offer opportunities not to be neglected. 

 The born lover of bees will find the 

 business fascinating and profitable. 

 Others will be likely to continue it not 

 for long. 



careful to cover them completely with 

 the chocolate. Set them aside on 

 brown paper to cool. 



Chocolate Honey Drops 



Melt one cake of sweet chocolate. 

 Take one pound of comb honey (one 

 box), and just before the chocolate is 

 ready to dip, cut the honey with a 

 sharp, hot knife into pieces about one- 

 half inch square. Pour the chocolate 

 into a deep dish, and dip the squares of 

 honey as quickly as possible, being 



How to Find a Queen 



" My neighbor and I rear 3-banded 

 Italian bees. He started two years ago 

 with a 2-frame nucleus and an untested 

 queen from Arkansas. He now has 

 nine colonies and I have two from the 

 same start. While we have both lost 

 some swarms by not watching them 

 closely, I think that is pretty good in- 

 crease. These are my first bees. 



" Last year my bees gathered but lit- 

 tle honey, so I fed them 2 to 1 syrup. I 

 put a double thickness of muslin (a 

 flour sack) over the hive-body with a 

 hole about 4 inches in diameter cut out 

 of the center, then I turned a tin can 

 of syrup upside down over the hole. I 

 tied two thicknesses of muslin over 

 the can first and put a super on. I 

 threw an old quilt over them and they 

 were fine this spring. 



" Will you tell me how to find the 

 queen ? I lost a fine large swarm not 

 long ago. It came out and went back 

 to the hive. The next day I watched 

 nearly all the time until dinner, when I 

 left long enough to eat. When I went 

 back they were gone. I was so dis- 

 gusted I thought I would experiment a 

 little and stop a second swarm com- 

 ing out, as I read they would do this. 

 This hive had been boiling over with 

 bees for some time; the super was 

 completely filled with them. Do you 

 think I should have given more room 

 or divided them before they swarmed ? 

 They were in an 8-frame hive under a 

 tree facing south. The same day after 

 they swarmed I divided them. 



" I took out all the frames and looked 

 them over. I could see no queen but 

 lots of drones. Of course, I hardly ex- 

 pected to find a queen then. I found 

 several queen-cells sealed. I took out 

 three frames of brood with two queen- 

 cells and put them and their bees into 

 a new 8-frame hive, then I shook a lot 

 of bees off the other frames into this 

 hive, and filled both hives with empty 

 frames, as I had no starters. I set the 

 new hive about 2 feet from the old one. 

 All the field bees except a few went to 

 the old hive where I left five frames of 

 brood and comb and two queen-cells. 

 •There were very few field bees working 

 at the new hive, and I wondered if the 

 brood would starve, though there was 

 honey in the comb, too. 



■' I looked at it about the tenth day 

 and found things were fine. The old 

 hive had two empty queen-cells, and a 

 great many eggs just laid, apparently, 

 but I looked faithfully for a queen and 

 couldn't find any. There were lots of 

 drones. I have never seen a queen, but 

 I think I would know one by pictures 

 and descriptions, for I read a great 

 deal about them. I suppose she is as 

 likely to be on one comb as another. I 

 am afraid I might have let her fall oil 

 the frames, for I took them all out and 

 set most of them against the hive while 

 I was looking for her. Do you think 

 she would go back to her own hive 

 again if I changed them ? 



" I am very much interested in bees, 

 and I am going to try some of J. J. 

 Wilder's Caucasians, I think. I have a 

 small fruit farm, so have neighbors 



around me." 



[Mr.s.] Jennie E. Merritt. 

 Kewanee, 111. 



Your rate of increase was unusuplly 

 rapid. Too bad you lost those swarms. 

 Finding a queen is chiefly a matter 

 of patient looking. With practice you 

 will become proficient, but some liitle 

 things will help from the start. If pos- 

 sible, when looking for a queen, sit 

 with your back to the light. Use as 

 little smoke as possible. If you smoke 

 heavily, so as to get the bees running, 

 you may as well bid good by to the 

 queen until another time. Handle the 

 frames gently, without any jarring. If 

 there is no brood in the first frame or 

 two, it is hardly worth while to look 

 there for the queen; she will almost 

 certainly be on one of the frames hav- 

 ing brood. The queen is quite inclined 

 to get away from the light, so when 

 you lift out a comb you are to look 

 first at the side farthest from you, but 

 before this you had better glance at 

 the side of the next frame in the hive. 

 After first looking over the farther 

 side of the comb in your hand, examine 

 the other side, and thus proceed until 

 you have examined all the combs. 



Although it was not worth while to 

 look at the first comb if no brood was 

 in it, it is worth while to look at the 

 last frame, even with no brood in it, 

 for in fleeing from the light the queen 

 will go upon a comb without any 

 brood. If you don't find her with once 

 looking over, try it the second time. If 

 you don't find her then it is hardly 

 worth while to continue the search. To 

 be sure, you may find her the third 

 time, but in some way she is likely to 

 be hidden, hard to tell how, and you 

 may look an hour longer without find- 

 ing her. But if you close the hive until 

 the next day, or at least until an hour 

 later, you may then find her without 

 trouble. You will learn more about 

 finding queens by actual practice than 

 by all the instruction in the world. 



As to that swarm going off, of course 

 you would have saved it if you had 

 divided the co'ony before it swarmed; 

 but the thing you are not easily for- 

 given is that you did not clip the 

 queen, taking off both wings on one 

 side. Then the swarm could not have 

 gone off, and the worst that could have 

 happened would have been the loss of 

 the queen, yet there is not one chance 

 in five that that would have happened. 

 Replying to your question about los- 

 ing the queen when handling those 

 frames, it is not likely you lost her in 

 that way, although if you have a long 

 experience you will find that some- 

 times a queen will drop off a frame on 

 the ground or turn up in the most un- 

 expected place, even on top of your 

 hat — that last thing has happened sev- 

 eral times " in this locality." But if 

 she falls off on the ground she is prac- 

 tically certain to find her way back to 

 the hive, unless there is some other 

 hive nearer, and if she enters th it she 

 is a goner. If you set the first frame 

 on the ground, leaning it against the 

 hive, there is little danger of any mis- 

 hap; but if you take out more frames 

 it is better to set them in an empty 

 hive. 



It is not entirely clear what was your 

 proceeding, but after you made that 

 division, and a queen was laying in 



