358 



December, 1912. 



American T^ee Journal 



travel to get together. Make an effort, 

 dear reader, and attend this meeting. 

 We know you will never regret it. 

 There ought to be 300 Iowa bee-keep- 

 ers at this convention, for Iowa is one 

 of the leading States in the Union, and 

 if i,t has remained in the background it 

 is not owing to lack of information, 

 but lack of centralization of effort. 



"(^eeii-Kearing Poiuter.s" 



The reader will find in this number 

 an article under the above heading, 

 from the pen of Mr. Frank F. France, 

 who has not only practiced bee-culture 

 with his father, but has also worked 

 in California with practical apiarists, 

 thus getting double drill, in addition 

 to his own ingenuity. 



We cannot better recommend his 

 method than by giving our testimony 

 of e.xperience in this line. During the 

 first of his queen-rearing practice, in 

 the 'OtVs, Grandfather Dadant had no- 

 ticed the desirableness of rearing 

 queens in strong colonies, and the bet- 

 ter quality of such queens. 



It was with us as with the Frances; 

 we did not like to rear queens in baby 

 nuclei. A compact brood-nest of some 

 size was needed. Two to four short 

 frames, proved better than one to two 

 long, ones, especially as the Langstroth 

 and Quinby frames are of much greater 

 length than height. A frame of either 

 kind, divided into two parts, placed 

 side by side made a much more com- 

 pact brood-nest than in full length. 

 But the handling of an odd frame is 

 undesirable unless it can be originally 

 taken from and afterwards returned to 

 the full-frame hive. 



The first divisible frames that we 

 used were as cut below. The frame 



provided with dummies, etc. But after 

 making the exchanges and shifting of 

 frames common in queen-rearing dur- 

 ing an entire summer, we often found 

 ourselves in the fall with a number of 

 tongue half-frames without the corres- 

 ponding parts in the same nucleus, and 

 vice 7'ersa. It is usually necessary to 

 break up a nucleus in the fall — even if 

 it is quite strong — and unite it with a 

 full colony. For this purpose all those 

 half frames should be interchangeable 

 in order to double them back to origi- 

 nal size. This gave rise to a slightly 

 different style of divisble frame, the in- 

 vention of David & Guillet, of Savoie, 

 shown herewith. These frames having 



only with some such method as the 

 France method. 



In mentioning all these points, the 

 writer is speaking from an extended 

 experience backed by good results. 



Spanish - Needles an Incorrect 

 Name 



A short time ago we received from 

 Mr. E. R. Root an enquiry concerning 

 the plant popularly known in the Miss- 

 issippi Valley as "Spanish-needles," 

 which yields great quantities of honey 

 of as golden color as the blossom it- 

 self. Mr. Root quotes Prof. Lovell, of 

 Maine, and A. C. Miller in support of 

 the statement that this name is a mis- 



The Improved Style of Divisible Frame. 



right and left shoulders, and hooks and 

 eyes on both sides are interchangeable, 

 so that any two of them can make a 

 full frame. When the season is over 

 any 4-frame nucleus in the yard may 

 be easily inserted into a full colony, or 

 several nuclei may be built into one in 

 full frame shape. The little hives 

 which have contained these nuclei are 

 put away for another season. 



On the other hand, one may happen 

 to rtar a number of good queens and 



nomer. Close examination at this late 

 date, when the plants are almost en- 

 tirely dry, tends to indicate that the 

 true Spanish-needle is the taller kind, 

 Bideiis bipiitnala, devoid of yellow rays 

 in the blossom, and supplied regularly 

 with two awns or burs on the seed, 

 while the real honey-producer is a 

 short plant, not usually much over a 

 a foot in height, bearing bright yellow 

 blossoms, and producing seeds with 

 three awns or burs on a wedge-shaped 

 seed. Those of our readers who live 

 near the lowlands producing this 

 honey-plant are requested to send us 

 what information they have. We wil 

 later publish the decision of the east- 

 ern botanists concerning this plant. If 

 their criticism is well taken, the plant 

 should be popularly known as " liur- 

 marigold." 



was in two halves, one-half bearing 

 a tongue in the top-bar and a staple 

 in the side-bar, the other half had a 

 notch at both top and side bar. We 

 placed a number of these in our best 

 breeding colonies early in spring, and 

 we thus had combs with brood from 

 our best queens to make our nuclei as 

 early as desirable, in half-length hives 



TuK P'iRST Divisible Frame. 



not need them all. These good queens 

 in a good season may build up their 

 nucleus into a strong colony. A (3- 

 frame nucleus, well stocked with bees 

 and brood, at the opening of the Au- 

 gust flow, may be transferred into a 

 large hive by doubling up the frames, 

 and with a little help a good colony for 

 winter will result. This can be done 



lutroduclnfi a Queen to a Stub- 

 born Colony 



When a colony has been queenless 

 for a considerable time, it sometimes 

 happens that the bees of such a colony 

 will not only reject any queen given 

 them, but will destroy any queen-cell 

 given, and refuse to start queen-cells 

 from young brood furnished them. A 

 case of this kind is reported in Bienen- 

 Vater. The colony was yet strong in 

 bees, and there was no weak colony 

 with which to unite it. The queen was 



