^j^ERIC^]^ 



43d YEAR. 



CHICAGO, ILL, MARCH 12, 1903, 



Nail. 



An Illinois Foul Brood Law is what 

 the bee-keepers of this State are eodeavoring 

 to have passed during the present session of 

 the Legislature. Referring to the matter, 

 Secretary Moore, of the Chicago-Northwestern 

 Bee-Keepers' Association, has this to say : 



Park Ridge, III., Feh. IG, 1903. 

 Dear Bee Keeper; — 



The time has arrived when we can reach our 

 represeiiliitii'is at Springfleld and get a Foul 

 liruod Law enacted. The Secretary of the 

 Chicago-Northwestern Bee-Keepers' Associa- 

 tion is in personal touch with more than half 

 a dozen of the members, of the Legislature 

 now in session. About TO of the members are 

 from the city of Chicago and Cook County, 

 andean be personally reached. It will be nec- 

 essary to raise some money to pay postage and 

 other necessary expenses. Every bee-keeper 

 in Illinois (several thousand) must be reached 

 Ijy mail. The matter must be argued before 

 committees of Senate and House. About .S:WO 

 may be needed to cover necessary expenses. 

 Subscriptions so far are ; 



George W. York, S2o; Herman F. Moore, 

 «10; H. M. Arnd, .¥.5; Peter N. Duff, ?10; Mr. 

 and Mrs. Frank Brown, 85; Dr. C. C. Miller, 

 .«o; J. A. Highet, -SI ; Mrs. N. L. Stow, ?5; C. 

 F. Kannenberg, S;5; G. E. Purple, *5. The 

 subscriptions will be used only to pay neces- 

 sary expenses. The money will be expended 

 by the executive committee of the Chicago- 

 Northwestern Bee-Keepers' Association. The 

 Association shall be custodian of the funds, 

 and any surplus over what is needed to get 

 the pas"sage of the law will be placed in the 

 treasury of the Association. 



Now, send in your names and money, for 

 we must have a f'ml brood Inw in Illinois, 

 and now is our opportunity. The writer has 

 had the honor of the friendship of the Hon. 

 Henry W. Austin, of Oak Park— a member of 

 the present Illinois House— for some years, 

 and he is personally interested in the passage 

 of this law. 



Any one knowing of a member of either 

 Senate or House who is interested in bees, 

 will confer a favor by notifying the under- 

 signed. 



It will be well to have a number of the 

 prominent bee-keepers all over this great 

 State present when our Bill comes before the 

 committees of the Senate and House. If only 

 one or two were present they might think we 

 did not amount to much. Watch the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, and we will keep you in- 

 formed. 



The Bill will go before the Legislature as a 

 petition from the Illinois State and the Chi- 

 cago-Northwestern Associations jointly. We 

 ask an annual appropriation of .*1000 in our 

 Bill. 



Let all the bee-keepers in Illinois rally, and 

 «•(■ s/iiil! loir: thr liiiK we 50 much need. Xolli- 

 ;„,/ ,„„ jo-rnol it but the iwVffn-rnn- of Ihosr 

 moyi InUri'^trit. Remember, you must act 

 promptly, as the Legislature i£ now in session, 

 and committees have been appointed. 



has been to Springfield and addressed both the 

 Senateand House Appropriations Committees, 

 to which our Bills were referred. Both com- 

 mittees gave us a very respectful hearing, and 

 the House committee carried a motion to re- 

 port it favorably to the House, and recom- 

 mend that it do pass. The Senate committee 

 had yet to act at the time the writer left 

 Springfield, but it seems certain that they are 

 favorably disposed to our Bill. 



Now, any of the Illinois readers of the 

 American Bee Journal, who can reach a mem- 

 ber of either House or Senate before our Bill 

 comes to a vote, please do so, as we need all 

 the help we can get. 



Pres. Smith, Sec. Stone, and Treas. Becker, 

 of the Illinois State Bee-Keepers' Association, 

 did some hard work before the committees. 

 Mr. Stone had a hive, and Mr. Smith a frame 

 of foul brood comb. 



Herman F. Moore, 

 i'haifttuin of Foul Brood Vo/niidttee^ 

 < '/uroijo-Xortlnuesterii Bee-Keepers^ Association. 



March (5, 1003. 



Carpet-Grass (Lippia n.udlfoni) islanded 

 in Gleanings in Bee-Culture as a honey-plant 

 of great value. Its name is suggestive of its 

 appearance, and it flourishes where without 

 it the ground would be bare. Stock eat it. 

 It flourishes in nearly all parts of the West 

 Indies. It has been lately introduced in the 

 Bahamas, and is now the leading honey-plant 

 there. W. K. Morrison thinks that sufficient 

 perseverance would succeed in establishing it 

 on the vast sandy wastes known as the piney 

 woods of Florida, and Editor Root waxes 

 eloquent after the following fashion : 



If the sandy wastes in Florida could be 

 covered with such a mass of green verdure, 

 with its tiny little flowers so redolent of pre- 

 cious sweetness, what a transformation would 

 be made! Verily, the desert would become 

 a garden of Eden; and the happy hum of 

 bees would gladden the hearts of many thou- 

 sands of bee- keepers. 



Since the writing of the above the chairman 



Giving Bees a Cleansing Flight is 



advocated by G. A. Deadman in the Canadian 

 Bee Journal. He favors taking them out of 

 the cellar and giving them a flight, say for 

 this locality about the flrst fine day between 

 the 5th and 10th of April, or possibly before 

 if any prospects of early spring, and then put- 

 ting them back again for perhaps two weeks 

 or so. One object of this is to start brood- 

 rearing, for liees do little at brood-rearing so 

 long as they remain in the cellar. To be sure, 

 they will start brood-rearing just as early if 

 taken out at the time he suggests and left 

 out; but he argues that during that two 

 weeks' time many bees will be lost by flying 

 when too cold for the bees to get back safely 

 to the hives. 



An item that Mr. Deadman does not men- 

 tion, althou".,'h no doubt well aware of it, is 

 that the evil." of conflnement increase toward 

 spring in sumething like a geometrical ratio. 



and bees will suffer more during the last two 

 weeks than perhaps during the first two 

 months. If they can be relieved by a cleans- 

 ing flight, and then do as well in the cellar 

 afterward without any evil effects from that 

 flight, there will be a gain. 



But it has been pretty generally believed 

 that bees thus returned to the cellar would be 

 so uneasy that the evil effeot of this would 

 overbalance all the good results. If a large 

 number of bee-keepers who cellar their bees 

 will this spring try the experiment of taking 

 out and returning a certain number of colo- 

 nies, and then comparing their after welfare 

 with that of the colonies remaining in the 

 cellar till later, it will go a long way toward 

 settling the question. 



Testing Honej-Barrels. — To test hon- 

 ey-barrels before waxing, a bicycle-pump is 

 recommended in Gleanings in Bee-Culture in- 

 stead of blowing into the barrel with the 



breath. 



■♦ 



Remedy for Laying Workers.— C. 



M. Aarons, in Gleanings in Bee-Culture, rec- 

 ommends that the larva be removed from one 

 of the queen-cells started, and a worker- 

 larva from a fertile queen put in its place. 

 From this a queen will be reared. It is 

 claimed by some that a virgin queen, when 

 first hatched, is kindly received in any colony, 

 even where a laying queen is present, and 

 only when the virgin becomes a day or so old 

 does jealousy arise between her and the 

 reigning queen. If that be true, a good deal 

 of time would be saved by giving the laying- 

 worker colony a just-hatched virgin — if you 



have one. 



. .« 



Bee-Keepers Need the Scientist, 



says Arthur C. Miller in the Bee-Keepers' 

 Review. It is too often the case that a bee- 

 keeper of very limited experience puts that 

 limited experience against the conclusions of 

 the ablest scientist, rating the investigations 

 of the scientist as something misty and un- 

 real. To such a person the following wise 

 words of Mr. Miller may be commended ; 



The scientist differs from the ordinary ob- 

 server and student in degree rather than in 

 method. The former proceeds with caution ; 

 testing, trying and weighing each step of his 

 experiments; makes his observations as abuD- 

 dau I as possible; compares the results of his 

 work with those of others, when possible; 

 and thus deduces from these what he believes 

 to he " laws." The ordinary observer, on 

 the contrary, proceeds less methodically; is 

 content with less exhaustive experiments, 

 and decides ott-hand. But between the two 

 extremes there are so many shades that he is 

 a reckless individual who will say, '• Here is 

 the dividing line." So, let the scoffer be- 

 ware, for he, himself, may be a truer scientist 

 than the man at whom he scoffs. 



