SKPTEMBER 15, 1915 



741 



ail apprupriiile time, and urges his readei'S 

 ;iud others to join with him in making' 

 'I'lianksgiving day also a liuuey day. 



Our friend has started out on a hig pro- 

 gram. Wliile we are a liltk' skeptical about 

 being able to accomplish very nuicli, be- 

 cause the bee papei-s and their subscribers 

 are only as a drop in the bucket as com- 

 pared to the great public, yet if we keep at 

 it long enough we may accomplish sonie- 

 lliing. We therefore urge our subscribers 

 to piepare for making No\. 25 a general 

 honey day in their respective localities. If 

 you are interested, write to Mr. Geo. W. 

 Williams, Kedkey, Ind., or, better, secure a 

 copy of his paper, The Booster. 



Bees and Fruit 



The experiment of placing ripe fruit in 

 a hive to see whether the bees can or will 

 puncture the skins, and thus suck out the 

 juices, as shown and described on page 766 

 of this issue by Mr. J. P. Lucas, lias been 

 tried over and over again, and always with 

 the same result. They will not work through 

 the skin of sound fruit — never have done it 

 and never will do it. But when fruit is 

 overripe, and the skin cracked, and when 

 other insects or birds, or when the spots of 

 skin-rot injure the surface of the fruit, the 

 bees will help themselves most royally. 



Just recently we had a pear-tree where 

 the pears ripened within a few days. The 

 skins took on a rosy hue, and this rendered 

 them attractive to the birds. They would 

 make a small hole where the softest part of 

 the pear was exposed; and after a hole was 

 made the bees would keep on sucking out 

 the juices until the skin was a mere shell in 

 some cases. 



Fruit with broken skins or holes, made 

 by insects or birds, independent of bees, is, 

 of course, ruined. It would be unfit for 

 market, even if there were no bees. The 

 work the bees do, therefore, does not result 

 in direct damage to the fruit-grower. If, 

 liowever, the bees " started " the trouble, 

 and then birds and insects helped them- 

 selves, the case against the bees would be 

 very different. 



Complaints of Queen Advertisers Again 



Ri:fki;kixg to our editorial on page 608, 

 August 1, Mr. Kennith Hawkins offers 

 some furtlier suggestions that are worthy of 

 consideration, and we believe that reliable 

 queen -breeders will be willing to subscribe 

 to them. Here they are: 



My dear Mr. Root: — I l^elieve every queen-breed- 

 er's, sruarantep should be something definite; that he 

 sfionld acTfe to arbitrate all complaints with tlie 



bee-journal as arbitrator if the customer was dissat- 

 isfied with the proposition iiKule, uni .shonld not be 

 allowed sjiace at any price unless he would do this. 

 You may be sure those of us who are trying to do 

 riglit apprccijitc the stand of your journal in such 

 iiKittf rs. 



I'lainficUl. 111. Kennith Hawkins. 



Wo wish to offer the further suggestion 

 that every queen-breeder agree to breed 

 only from sele«!t stock. We have been in- 

 formed that one prominent queen-breeder 

 has been in the habit of using queen-cells 

 from any source — natural cells, good, bad, 

 and indifferent. If a customer could know 

 that the breeder is furnishing him such 

 stock he would buy of the other fellow, 

 without question. 



It might not be out of place to suggest 

 that the queen-breeders get together and 

 agree on a set of conditions, not only to 

 raise first-class stock, but to stand by a 

 guarantee and arbitration. We suggest that 

 file gaiarantee cover reasonably prompt de- 

 livery or a statement explaining the delay, 

 nn offer to return money in case the cus- 

 tomer cannot wait to re^olace promptly, a 

 sworn statement that there is no bee disease 

 in the yard, and that all queens are reared 

 from the best stock. 



A Trick of the Trade in Introducing 

 Virgin Queens 



One of our subscribers who has been 

 buying some virgin queens writes as fol- 

 lows : 



If you will pardon the suggestion, I beg to submit 

 that we beginners should be cautioned more urgently 

 171 the matter of t-upplying a nucleus with a frame 

 of eggs and unsealed brood. I lost two of my last 

 six virgins on this account, I believe. Each nucleus 

 had three full frames of sealed brood and some 

 stores. I made the divisions in the dusk of the 

 evening, because of robbers (these pests give me the 

 nightmare) ; and while the ABC states very plain- 

 ly the need of eggs and unsealed brood, I seem to 

 liave overlooked it on these two nuclei. 



Pittsburgh, Pa., Aug. 3. Gko. W. Guthrie. 



While our old ABC book does state the 

 n(!ed of eggs and unsealed brood, we now 

 believe that it is not an essential factor 

 after all. As a general thing, unsealed 

 bi'ood and egg's help to put a colony in 

 normal condition. Bees that are otherwise 

 discouraged will seem to take on new life. 



AVe have just been talking with our Mr. 

 Mel Pritchard, who has raised some 20,(J()0 

 (jiieens. He is a very close observer, and 

 he says he does not attach very much im- 

 portance to the need of egg's and unsealed 

 brood in a nucleus that is about to be sup- 

 ])lied with a virg-in queen. He has intro- 

 duced thousands and thousands of them un- 

 der botli conditions, and he does not see 

 much difference if any. But he does say 



