Tune, 1912. 





American Hee Journal 



well be done by a small number; yet 

 there are two sides to the question. If 

 the amount of business be so small 

 that it can be done outside the regular 

 times of the sessions without over- 

 burdening those who have the business 

 in charge, well and good. But if the 

 business must be done at the regular 

 time of the meetings, then there are 

 two dangers ; one is tliat the business 

 committee may be in haste to get to 

 the bee-disciissions, and so slight the 

 business on hand. The other is that 

 the withdrawal of some of the most 

 efticient members will detract from the 

 interest of the general sessions. Of 

 course, it is easier to find fault than to 

 suggest the remedy. 



Timely Hiut.s tor June 



When the bees whiten the upper edge 

 of their combs, unless it is in a short 

 flow like fruit-bloom, put on your su- 

 pers or get ready to harvest swarms. 



Always have some empty hives with 

 frames fastened in proper position, and 

 with either starters or sheets of foun- 

 dation, ready for swarms. It is poor 

 policy to wait until the swarm is hang- 

 ing to the limb. 



If you have plenty of old combs from 

 dead colonies, this is the time to use 

 them. Better make divisions with 

 them, for if you furnish them to strong 

 swarms they may fill them full of honey 

 and leave no room for their queen to 

 lay. In this way they do more damage 

 than good. There is, however, one 

 way to furnish them to natural swarms 

 in a profitable way, it is to supply them 

 in sufficient quantities — say two full 

 stories — that the bees may have room 

 for both a large crop of honey and 

 breeding cells. It is then that you will 

 find how much more honey may be 

 produced with combs already built. 



Do not give natural swarms part 

 built combs and part empty space, for 

 they will then te induced to build a 

 large amount of drone comb. Either 

 give them all empty space or all built 

 combs or foundation. 



When strong colonies cluster on the 

 outside, they are either crowded for 

 room or too hot. Give them more 

 room, more shade, or more ventilation, 

 or perhaps some of each. 



Ants often make their nest over the 

 brood-chamber, in a warm place above 

 the bees and out of their reach. You 

 can effectually get rid of them by put- 

 ting in that space a little powdered 

 sulphur, or a little fine salt, or a little 

 dry, wood ashes. A sheet of newspaper 

 stained with coal oil or with carbolic 

 acid will also frighten them aw?y, but 

 these substances must not be used any- 

 where near a super of honey, for they 

 will taint it. Ants do no harm, outside 

 of the annoyance they give the bee- 

 keeper when opening hives. 



When you insert a queen into a 

 queen-cage, let her cnncl uf into it. 

 You will rarely get a queen to cru;cl 

 dmiii out of your hand into a cage. 



When a swarm has emerged and is 

 sporting in the air preparatory to set- 

 tling, you may be unable to know from 

 which hive it has issued, unless you 



look closely in front of each suspected 

 colony. Very young bees, which are 

 yet unable to fly, are always carried 

 out by the rush, and you will find a 

 number of them almost invariably in 

 front of the parent colony, crawling 

 back home with difficulty. 



Empty hives, properly prepared be- 

 forehand, are often pre-empted by nat- 

 ural swarms, especially if placed in 

 some elevated position. A friend in 

 southern California caught so many 

 in this way, in one season, that he will 

 not let us tell how many, for fear of 

 disbelief. 



Oracling: Kule.s for Comb Honey 



The Bee-Keepers' Review has tackled 

 the subject of the grading of comb 

 honey with the idea of having a uni- 

 form system of grading throughout the 

 whole country. Over its honey quota- 

 tions it has been printing pictures of 3 

 sections. The first shows the poorest 

 that should be admitted in the fancy 

 grade, the second the same as to No. 1 

 grade, and the third as to No. 2 grade. 

 EditorTyrrell has sent out inquiries to 

 leading buyers and producers as to 

 their views on the matter, and it turns 

 out as he had expected, that "there is 

 no uniform interpretation of even the 

 grading rules we have had." The buy- 

 ers were asked whether they would ac- 

 cept shipments of honey with no sec- 

 tions poorer than the ones pictured in 

 their respective classes. Some of the 

 replies have been published. 



Blake-Lee Co. would accept such 

 shipments as satisfactory. R. A. Bur- 

 nett & Co. would want something bet- 

 ter in all three cases. C. C. Clemons 

 Produce Co. are not in favor of having 

 a fancy grade; "the opportunities are 

 too great for rejecting a car if the mar- 

 ket was not just right, and after mak- 

 ing a fancy grade you have left only an 

 ordinary grade of No. 1 and a very poor 

 grade of No. 2." They would include 

 the first two under No. 1, with some 

 question as to whetherthe No. 2 should 

 not be classed as No. 3. Apparently, 

 however, they are considering the pic- 



tures as representing the average in- 

 stead of the poorest in each class, for 

 they say, "The third is not a very good 

 No. 2, and a carload all like that would 

 hardly pass for No. 2." 



Hildreth & Segelken stijiuUte that 24 

 combs of fancy should average 23 

 pounds net, No. 1 from 21 to 23 pounds, 

 and No. 2 not less than from III to 20 

 pounds. So far from rejecting the 

 sample of fancy as too poor for the 

 very poorest in that class, as do Bur- 

 nett & Co., they say they would be only 

 too glad to receive all combs as good. 



However laudable may be the under- 

 taking, the evident desire of Editor 

 Tyrrell to bring about such a uniform 

 understanding about grading as to es- 

 tablish a National market is a desire 

 not to be consummated without diffi- 

 culty. One can but wish him well 

 while watching further developments. 



Stinmlative Feetling- iu Spring- 



What is called stimulative feeding is 

 not always stimulative. It is sometimes 

 destructive. There seems to be a grow- 

 ing belief that when a colony has abun- 

 dance of stores in the hive, additional 

 feeding by no means always results in 

 increased brood-rearing. J. L. Byer 

 says in the Bee-Keepers' Review: 



"Given a sood, prolific queen in tlie hive, 

 abundance of good stores, and the colony 

 having wintered in good condition, wiial can 

 stimulating by feeding do to better the con- 

 dition of said colony during tfie latter part 

 of March and all of April, owing to the very 

 uncertain weather changing from cold to 

 warm, and vice vcrsa~\\\\s kind of weather 

 often continuing during the first week of 

 May ? Is it not the general experience that 

 colonies at that time do not suffer for want 

 of hrooil, but rather from want of bees to take 

 care of the brood there may be in the hives ?" 



Price of Honey iu South Africa 



Complaint is made in the South .Afri- 

 can Bee-Keepers' Journal of the market 

 being deluged with honey, good honey 

 being sold for 25 cents a pound, and 

 some reported even down to 16 cents. 

 They seem to be harder to satisfy in 

 the matter of prices in South Africa 

 than in this country. 



Miscellaneous ^ News Items 



A Case ol Grit John F. Otto is a 



successful Wisconsin bee-keeper, who, 

 for the past 10 or 12 years, has wintered 

 each winter about 300 colonies, reduc- 

 ing the number to 175 or 200 to get 

 them strong for the honey-flow. In 

 the Bee-Keepers' Review he tells about 

 some of the struggles in the earlier 

 part of his career. An indoor life did 

 not agree with him, so he sold out, in- 

 tending to devote himself to bee-keep- 

 ing. To the 25 colonies on hand he 

 added 12 more by purchase, putting 

 into the cellar 37 colonies. The follow- 

 ing spring the original 25 were all in 

 good condition, while the purchased 12 

 were all dead. Nothing daunted, he 

 bought 25 more colonies, and started 

 the season with 50 colonies. He says : 



" The next fall I had 114 colonies rotten 

 with foul brood, as rotten as they could 

 be; some had only a handful of bees. 

 I noticed during all the summer that 

 there was something wrong with my 

 bees, but did not know what, until in 

 the fall, when I subscribed for the 

 American Bee Journal, and reading an 

 item on foul brood, I knew what was 

 the matter with my bees. The next 

 spring I got two books on foul brood, 

 and in the latter part of May I began 

 to cure them. In the fall of that year I 

 had .5f) colonies in good condition, but 

 3 of them still had a few foul cells. I 

 left them until next year. 



" It took me just 5 years before I had 

 the disease completely rooted out. It 

 was not due to my carelessness in cur- 



