^ERICA^ 



43d YEAR. 



CHICAGO, ILL, APRIL 2, 1903, 



No. 14, 



Improvement of Stock. — It may seem 

 like harping a good deal on one string, but 

 the matter is one of so much importance that 

 it warrants a good deal of repetition, and be- 

 sides there are some new members of the 

 American Bee Journal family that perhaps 

 need telling for the first time. Those who 

 have been working faithfully, perhaps for 

 years, in the direction of the best stock ob- 

 tainable, can skip this. 



No observing bee-keeper has failed to notice 

 the disparity of results often obtaining be- 

 tween two colonies sitting side by side. To 

 all appearance one colony is as strong as the 

 other, conditions are the same for each, yet 

 one stores twice as much as the other. The 

 only way to account for the difference is by 

 attributing it to the difference in stock, and 

 that is equivalent to saying that the difference 

 in results is caused by the difference in 

 queens, for the character of the stock depends 

 upon the character of the queen. 



If you have in any one of your colonies a 

 queen that is satisfactory, well and good. If 

 not, make up your mind here and now that 

 you will try to get from some source a queen 

 that will be likely to improve your stock. 

 The matter is the more hopeful because the 

 introduction of fresh blood will at least score 

 one point of gain. 



Having one good queen you will have one 

 good colony, and having one good colony the 

 road leading to improvement of other colo- 

 nies is neither long nor difficult. Of this, 

 more hereafter. 



Breeding from Freaks has been con- 

 demned by F, B. Simpson, those queens being 

 considered freaks whose workers make very 

 exceptional work in storing. Others, how- 

 ever, insist upon the rule, " Breed from the 

 best," whether those "best" be considered 

 freaks or not. The Rocky Mountain Bee 

 Journal, usually very reliable in giving ad- 

 vice, seems to take ground in the matter that 

 is a little ditHcult to understand. A corres- 

 pondent writes: 



I had one new swarm that commenced work 

 in the brood-chamber and super at the same 

 time, and storsd 9.5 pounds of flrst-class sec- 

 tion honey. I contemplate rearing queens 

 from this colony. . 



To this the Rocky Mountain Pee Journal 

 replies: 



It would be better, perhaps, li' purchase a 

 teste<l queen of some reliable breeder to use 

 as a basis, rather than the freak colony you 



mention. As a rule, it is the experience of 

 breeders that freaks rarely reproduce them- 

 selves, but usually revert to the opposite ex- 

 treme. G. M. Doolittle, by carefully selecting 

 mother-queens that have made the best aver- 

 ages, during a period of over 80 years, has 

 very greatly increased the average yield per 

 colony in his apiary. 



But were those not precisely freaks that 

 Mr. Doolittle used? Unless he has been mis- 

 understood, he simply bred from those whose 

 workers gave largest yields. 



Cleaning Propolis Off the Hands. — 



One of the most convenient things to use is 

 butter ; not better than lard or other grease, 

 perhaps, but generally more conveniently at 

 band. Take just a little butter, rub it on the 

 glue till the glue scrapes off readily, then 

 wash with soap and water — preferably hot 

 water. 



Aikin's Bologna-Sausage Package 



for honey takes up no less than seven pages 

 of space in Gleanings in Bee-Culture, and a 

 strong plea is made in favor of putting up 

 honey in this form ; that is, in the granulated 

 condition in paper. Small cost is of course 

 one chief argument, the paper bags costing 

 about one tenth as much as tin lard-pails. The 

 other principal argument is the matter of 

 convenience. A penknife runs two or three 

 slits in the paper, and then the paper is easily 

 pealed oS, leaving the lump of granulated 

 honey on the plate like a brick of butter. 

 Then a slice can be taken and used just as a 

 slice of butler, and from this can be taken 

 individual portions just as with butter, the 

 individual being able easily to take what he 

 wants and to put it just where he wants it, 

 without the trouble of having the honey 

 stringing and daubing where it is not wanted. 

 With a certain class there is likely a future 

 for honey put up in this style, and if there is, 

 the credit for it should be given to Mr. Aikin. 



Time to Ctjt Alfalfa. — Some anxiety 

 on the part of bee-keepers has been felt be- 

 cause there was a fear that it would become 

 the general practice to cut alfalfa in first 

 bloom, giving little opportunity for bees to 

 work upon it. This anxiety was by no means 

 allayed by the fact that experiments at the 

 Kansas experiment station seemed to favor 

 early cutting. Not, however, the experiment 

 station of Colorado, a State par exeellenfe an 

 alfalfa State, makes a very different decision. 

 Bringing the question down to the very prac- 

 tical form, ■' At what stage should alfalfa be 

 cut to get the greatest feeding value per 

 acref' the rej^ly is, that when cut in full 

 bloom an acre will produce 11 percent more 

 beef than when cut in first bloom, and 58 per- 



cent more than when cut in half bloom. The 

 following is from the report : 



If we cut enough alfalfa in bud to make 

 100 pounds of hay, the same alfalfa would 

 make 12(1 pounds if allowed to stand till in 

 half bloom, and Xih pounds if allowed to 

 stand till in full bloom. If allowed to stand 

 longer it would decrease. If the question 

 were, " When shall we cut alfalfa in order to 

 make the most hay?" the answer would be, 

 "When it is in full bloom." The question 

 as presented to us is, " When is the he!<t tirnf 

 to cut alfalfa'" This time is evidently that 

 at which we shall have, not the largest yield 

 of hay, nor of the best quality, but the largest 

 yield of digestible food ingredients. This an- 

 swer considers two factors — composition and 

 digestibility. Every feeder will mentally 

 add, " But there are other things to be con- 

 sidered," which is true, but it is assumed 

 that the animals will eat the hay of which we 

 are writing, and will relish it. 



We have given the amounts of hay which 

 the same quantity of alfalfa would give when 

 in bud, in half bloom, and in full Ijloom, 

 using the figures obtained for our Colorado 

 alfalfa. The 100 pounds of early-cut hay will 

 contain 1.5 pounds of albuminoids and 1.5 

 pounds of amids; the 126 pounds of hay, 

 alfalfa cut in half bloom, will contain 15.8 

 pounds of albuminoids and 2.9 pounds of 

 amids; the 145 pounds of hay cut in full 

 bloom will, contain 19 pounds of albuminoids 

 and 2 pounds of amids. Leaving the value 

 of the amids out of the question, for they are 

 assumed to have only a small value as com- 

 pared with albuminoids, and reducing these 

 figures to the basis of a pound, we find the 

 relative values to be 1.16 for the early cut- 

 ting, 1.00 for that cut in half bloom, and 1 OS 

 for that cut in full bloom. Or, stated other- 

 wise. St). 2 pounds of alfalfa hay cut in bud, 

 or 92.6 pounds cut in full bloom are equal in 

 value, using the aluminolds as the criterion, 

 to 100 pounds of alfalfa hay cut in half bloom, 

 so that alfalfa hay cut in half bloom is in- 

 ferior to that cut in bud. In this statement 

 we assume that the albuminoids are equally 

 digestible at the three different stages of 

 development here specified. If this be true, 

 the largest amount of digestible proteids 

 would be obtained by cutting in full bloom; 

 for while the relative values of the hay cut in 

 bud to that cut in full bloom is as 100 to 107, 

 the yield is about 100 to 145, leaving an ad- 

 vantage of ;:iS pounds of hay on each 145 

 pounds of hay cut in full bloom. These 



figures refer to the first cutting 



The feeding experiments are decidedly in 

 favor of the early cutting, calculating the 

 value on pound for pound of hay produced. 

 But if we calculate its value in terms of beef 

 produced per acre, we come to the same con- 

 clusion at which we arrived from the consid- 

 eration of its chemical composition and the 

 relative crops produced at the respective 

 periods. Mr. Mills summarized the results of 

 his three seasons' feeding as follows: That 

 to produce one pound of gain. beef, it re- 

 quires is 21 pounds of hay of the early cut; 

 Xi a pounds of the medium cut (page 11, 

 Bulletin 44). But we have seen that the 

 relative iiuantities of the early, medium, and 

 late cut are 100, 120, and 145. Accordingly 

 we would obtain for the values of the re- 

 spective cuts in terms of beef, 5.4 pounds for 

 the early, H.s pounds for the medium, and 6.0 

 for the late cut. We would, therefore, an- 

 swer the question la so far as it pertains to 

 the first cutting, that the best time to cut 



