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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



June 4, 1903. 





Hasty's Afterthoughts 





The " Old Reliable " seeo through New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. Hasty, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



SHADE OF MUI,BERRY-TREBS. 



Crossed his mulberry-trees with squash-vines — 'pears 

 like I They reach out in every direction and shade a whole 

 apiary with two trees. No use for the rest of us to hanker 

 after them, seeing we have not California's stimulating 

 climate to make them grow. The miniature forest of props 

 needed to hold them up is an item on the undesirable side — 

 but can be endured I reckon. In fact, we are not reasonable 

 to ask for a shade that shall encumber the ground not at all, 

 like the cloud over the Tabernacle. Page 258. 



CLEANING OUT UNFINISHED SECTIONS. 



It's quite true that bees show surprising contempt for 

 honey in granular form — kick it around here and there, and 

 oft leave in the cells, for the time being, whatever granules 

 gravity and inertia may keep there. While a cell is in that 

 condition they don't put nectar in it, I reckon. What I 

 would like to know is. What measure of cleaning and pol- 

 ishing do average bees on an average occasion give to their 

 store-comb ? Not the exquisite work they put on brood- 

 comb, I fear. The rogues won't do such work in advance 

 much. Whatever they do they do off-hand — in goes the 

 honey, and then we cannot see, as we can in the cases where 

 an egg is put in. I think they usually rub over all the ter- 

 ritory at least once and remove debris. To a bee a honey 

 granule is a small brickbat. Don't believe it is their habit 

 to leave brickbats in their storage-space. Still, I'd give 

 a yoke of my six-legged oxen to be sure of it. When 

 every bee is loaded with nectar and nowhere to put it, and 

 just then a super of baits is put on, perhaps, under the 

 pressure, there may be much less cleaning done than usual. 

 Wish I knew. More or less small debris is often worked 

 into wax, and some fine granules may go the same way. 

 How much harm would they do ? My theory, you see, is in- 

 clining dangerously toward spring cleaning. My practice 

 is worse yet — no cleaning at all. I have very few of these 

 sections, comparatively. One or two to a hive is usually all 

 I can muster when it comes time to put on sections. To 

 that small extent I deliberately put them on, honey, granules 

 and all. My June flow is very fickle ; and I figure it that 

 more than half the time they will be cleaned out in the best 

 style of the art before any honey is put into them. Think 

 it a good thing to familiarize the bees with the new space 

 just given them. And in the cases where the baits are not 

 entirely emptied they are worked upon considerably and at 

 once. This is anent the Doolittle- Wilson talk, on pages 

 262 and 312. 



QUILTING SWARMS DOWN. 



Yes, when the bees have actually swarmed, and you 

 have stopped them for once by quilting them down, then's a 

 good time to make your shaken swarm. 'Spects my bees 

 would get out and into a tree, somehow, unless those quilts 

 were manipulated with great vigor and adroitness. Page 

 264. 



THE TELEPHONE, CHRISTINA AND THE COOK. 



"It don't vas perfect yet" — the telephone where they 

 gave him the colored cook when he asked for his Christina. 

 Should say so. And bee-keeping, it's just that way, too, in 

 forty different corners. We anticipate Christina, and the 

 •colored cook turns up. And that is where the genius of the 

 thing comes in, in making the best of the cook, and letting 

 Christina go. Order ham and eggs. Page 267. 



A RARE " BEER " AND HIS BEES. 



Here's a rare kind of Beer (wish the other kind was as 

 rare) — a man 13 miles from any other bees. His bees, seen 

 two miles from home, and three miles from home, add new 

 evidence to the old that bees don't mind a little distance. I 

 note that it was, in one case, nothing more phenomenal 

 than garden gooseberries that they were after. Page 270. 



" THE FOOT-PATH TO PEACH." 



Thanks for the display paragraph that opens No. 18. 

 No danger of our being too often reminded that neither 

 honey nor cash are exchangeable for peace. Without re- 



gard to " views " we all know that something to love, and 

 something to hope for, and quiet satisfaction of heart, are 

 what we want. However absurdly we may scramble away 

 from it we want it still. 



SIZE OF THE TWIST OF A TWISTING BOARD. 



On page 276 you're away off in your mathematics, dear 

 Boss — at least so it seems to me. Halving a twisting board 

 reduces the twist to much less than half. We see that the 

 clearer if we look in the other direction. Suppose a 14- 

 inch board twists one-quarter inch, how much should a 28- 

 inch board twist ? Correct answer should be one inch, not 

 one-half inch merely. The added 14 inches has its own 

 twist, and the benefit of the other one's also. 





Dr. Miller's Answers 





Send Questions either to the office of the American Bee Journal, 

 or to Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 



Farced Swarms— Separating Swarms. 



1. Is it a good time to make forced swarms when the bees begin to 

 hang out! 



2. Should supers be given bees before such swarms are made? If 

 so, which colony should have W. And about how soon, under favor- 

 able conditions, will the other colony need a super? 



3. When several swarms go together, how is the best way to sepa- 

 rate them so as to have a queen for each ! New York. 



Answers. — 1. You can't depend upon them hangingout. You can 

 tell belter by looking inside the strongest colonies to see whether they 

 have started queen-cells. 



2. Yes, give supers as soon as the harvest fairly commences, or a 

 little before; give the super of course to the old colony, as there is yet 

 no other; leave the supers with the swarm, and give the super to the 

 old colony when it becomes strong enough, if it becomes strong while 

 the harvest lasts. 



3. One way is to u6e a tin dipper to measure out enough for each 

 swarm. 



Perhaps Poisoning or Bee-Paralysis. 



Enclosed find a few bees. What do you thinli about them. I have 

 18 colonies of bees, and among them there are quite a number of colo- 

 nies that are, it seems to me, l\illing off lots of bees, as I can find a 

 handful of dead bees in front of the hives. These enclosed are some 

 that were strewn around. I have been watching them and trying to 

 tind out what was the trouble, but as yet cauuot find any cause. 

 Those enclosed have a red stripe around their body instead of a yellow 

 one. 



The bees seem to be at work carrying pollen, but all day I can find 

 a lot of them in the grass, crawling around and waiting for death to 

 corae. Illinois. 



Answer. — Nothing can be told from appearance of the bees, but 

 from what you say it is quite possible that it may be either a case of 

 poisoning or of bee-paralysis. If poisoning, of course there is nothing 

 to be done; and if paralysis, you will probably find the trouble disap- 

 pear of itself, although farther south paralysis is a very serious mat- 

 ter. Unfortunately no reliable remedy for paralysis can be offered. 



German Bee-Paper. 



What is the address of a German bee-paper that treats exclusively 

 of bees? Wasuington. 



Answer. — Praktischer Wegweiser, Oranienburg-Berlin, Germany. 



Bienenwirtschaftliches Centralblatt, 33 Georg strasse, Hannover, 

 Germany. 



Leipziger Bienenzeilung, Taubeohen weg I'.i, Leipzig, Germany. 



Bienenzucht, Thuringia, Germany. 



-♦-»-» 



Bees Lost in Winter and Spring. 



Being a beginner in the bee-business I take the liberty of submit- 

 ting the following facts for your consideration : 



Last fall 1 had T colonies of bees in box-hives. One colony died 

 early this spring, the bees being found dead on the bottom. Three 

 more of the hives have but a handful in each box and are getting less 

 every day. The hives contain plenty of honey and combs. The boxes 

 were single-walled with no protection from cold, which was severe last 

 winter. The top cover of the boxes was filled with chaff. Bee-keep- 

 ers in general around here have lost about T.5 percent of their bees dur- 

 ing last winter and this spring under similiar circumstances to those 



