500 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aug. 6, 1903. 



considerable pain. Examination showed that one of the stings was 

 right in one of the blood-veins, and another near one of the nerye-cen- 

 ters. The next day the arm seemed to be lame, and what was strange, 

 there were sympathetic pains in the other arm in exactly the same 

 place as in the other. Hereafter I shall wear tight-fitting sleeves, or, 

 better still, long sleeve gloves with the lingers cut off at the ends; and 

 this reminds me that they are used by a very large number of practical 

 bee-keepers. It behooves us all to be careful not t3 get any more 

 stings than is absolutely necessary, for the effect of the accumulated 

 poison may be serious in its effects in after years, as it was in the case 

 of Langstroth and some others. 



And, by the way, should these sleeves be treated with any prepara- 

 tion like linseed oil, paint, or any other substance to render them 

 more sting-proof * We have been sending out for a couple of years 

 special bee gloves that were soaked in linseed oil, but it always seemed 

 to me that the oil would make the sleeve warm, causing undue per- 

 spiration to the parts protected. My own notion is that a sleeve made 

 of heavy ducking, not treated at all, would be better than having 

 something that would make the fabric stiff' and unwieldy. We should 

 like to get the opinion of our subscribers, as we are thinking of get- 

 ting up a special bee glove, or sleeve, with the fingers cut off, for a 

 very large class of bee-keepers who are looking for something of just 

 this kind. 



The elder Root, unless he has changed his mind, rather scouts at 

 the idea of even wearing a veil. It may be a question whether our 

 good friend, the younger Root, would ever have gone so far away 

 from the traditions of his father as to contemplate the wearing of 

 gloves if he had not been so reckless as to wear such loose wristbands 

 as to allow the entrance of bees. There is no need of that for any pur- 

 pose, and the ordinary wristband large enough to let the hand through 

 is nothing less than an urgent invitation for bees to enter. And they 

 are not slow to accept the invitation. 



Farther than close-fitting wristbands, however, many of the vet- 

 erans would object to any protection for the hands. The discomfort 

 of wearing gloves on a hot day would to .them be greater than that 

 from a few stings that might be received duripg the course of a day in 

 working with bees of reasonably decent temper. 



If gloves must be worn, they are much better to have the tips of 

 the fingers cut off, thus taking away the chief clumsiness of working 

 with gloves. Some, however, especially among the sisters, would ob- 

 ject to having even the tips of the fingers bare, their object in wear- 

 ing gloves being hardly so much to avoid stings as propolis. 



Automobiles for Out-Apiaries, in preference to horse-tiesh, 

 seem now to be possibilities in the not distant future. There is no 

 question as to their advantage in one respect— they will never get 

 frightened, run away and break things because attacked by cross 

 bees. With horses there is always some anxiety in that regard. The 

 main objection to the use of automobiles at present has relation to 

 expense. Editor Root views that part of the subject hopefully. He 

 says: 



Already the operating expense is far below that of a horse. We 

 hear a great deal about expensive repairs, and they are expensive if 

 one does not understand something of machinery. The process of 

 simplifying the auto is going on all the time, and the repair item will 

 grow less. Already there is a very good machine offered at retail for 

 $275; quite a number at $550, and a host of them at *7.50. The cost of 

 operating a gasoline-vehicle is about a halt a cent a mile, of the run- 

 about type. Figure up the mileage of your horse, cost of keeping, 

 including the labor every day, or two or three times a day, whether 

 you use it or not, and see where the figures are. When the automo- 

 bile stops, the only expense is the interest on the investment, and re- 

 pairs, and these last may or may not be a large item. It can lie idle 

 six months. My auto is kept in a little room, and sometimes during 

 bad weather it stands for days without any one going near it; and yet 

 it is ready for me almost instantly when I am ready tor that. 



The price of automobiles has dropped some *200 or $300, on run- 

 abouts, this year, already. Millions of money are being poured into 

 the industry. It will not be long before Yankee genius will be able to 

 turn out a machine so cheaply that every one can have one who can ■ 

 afford a horse and buggy and a barn. No, throw the barn out of the 

 account. But whether the automobile will be able to go over any 

 roads that a horse and buggy can is doubtful. Good roads and auto- 

 mobiles mMs( go hand in hand. There is no use in buying an auto- 

 mobile unless you can have better roads than where the mud is half- 

 axle-deep. ^^^^^^__^__ 



"Queen-Right Colonies" is what F. Greiner, in the Ameri- 

 can Bee-Keeper, calls colonies that are all right as to having a laying 

 queen. This is a useful innovation from the German language. The 

 word " queenless " is used with regard to a colony that has no queen, 

 but heretofore we have had no word for its opposite. The new word 

 "queen-right" means more than the opposite of queenless, for if it 

 merely means that it would include colonies with virgin queens or 

 with drone-layers. But in one word it expresses the fact that a queen 

 is present and that she is a normal laying queen. 



To Stop Robbing, G. Small gives the following in the Austra- 

 lasian Bee-Keeper : 



At night close up the robbed hive seeing that there is a iiueen and 

 a good supply of food, then let it remain for three days, open it at 

 night again to let the bees have some fresh air or to feed them, but 

 closing the hive again before the other bees are on the move ; by this 

 you keep out all " robbers " which will be seen flying round in dozens ; 

 with the hive being closed they find they cannot get in to plunder and 

 kill, and will leave the hive entirely master of the field. 



This simple but effectual way has been tried by the writer with the 

 robbing in all stages, and according to these stages the longer or 

 shorter time you will require to keep the robbed hive shut up, in some 

 cases three days, six days, or even ten or twelve days are required for 

 treatment to prove successful. 



Continued long enough, the plan ought to work well ,with any 

 colony having a good queen, but there would be sometimes danger of 

 suffocation. It would be a good deal of trouble to open the hive every 

 evening and then close it again for ten or twelve days, and it would 

 for some be easier to put the colony for that length of time in a cool, 

 dark cellar. But if the colony be thus moved, an empty hive should 

 be put in its place, otherwise the robbers will make a severe assault 

 upon a neighboring colony. 



The Honey-Flow and Swarming in Illinois and adjacent 

 States are somewhat unusual. The general rule is that when the bees 

 get to storing heavily they give up swarming, but this year the heavy 

 flow seems only to make them worse. Can any one tell why? 



Swarms in Chimneys and Walls of houses are not confined 

 to California this year. Throughout the white clover region of Wis- 

 consin, Illinois, and Indiana, they are unusually common. One cor- 

 respondent reports five in his vicinity. 





Miscellaneous Items 



] 



A Bee-Keepebs' Picnic will be held by the Southeastern Minne- 

 sota Bee-Keepers' Association at Homer, on Aug. 25, 1903. All bee- 

 keepers are invited to be present. It should be made a great day tor 

 all the bee-folks in that neighborhood. 



The Sisters Department in this journal has the following 

 kindly mention by Stenog in Gleanings in Bee-Culture: 



From a very modest beginning. Miss Emma Wilson has made her 

 department, '• Our Bee-Keeping Sisters," one of the best in the " Old 

 Reliable." Miss Wilson's scholars ask a good many practical ques- 

 tions which are ably answered. 



Eugene Secor, of Winnebago Co., Iowa, has an interesting arti- 

 cle on " Some of the Benefits and' Pleasures of Bee-Keeping,"' in the 

 July 15th number of the Twentieth Century Farmer. The illustrated 

 original heading used in connection with the article is very attractive 

 indeed. All together it is an attractive as well as instructive contribu- 

 tion, and will doubtless incite many a reader of that excellent farm 

 paper to investigate the habits and work of the busy bees. 



Mk. William McEvot, foul brood inspector for Ontario, Canada, 

 reports 220 colonies of bees, and hopes before long to increase his 

 apiaries to 1000 colonies. He says he has secured the largest crop of 

 honey this season he has ever had. The inspectorship lias kept him 

 from going as largely into bees as he would like to do. There are 

 few as prominent bee-keepers in Canada as Mr. McEvoy. He cer- 

 tainly has done a great work for bee-keeping in the Province of On- 

 tario. . 



Amerlkanlsche Bienenzucht, by Hans Buschbauer, is 



a bee-keeper's handbook of 138 pages, which is just what 



our German friends will want. It is fully illustrated, and 



neatly bound in cloth. Price, postpaid, $1.00 ; or with the 



American Bee Journal one year — both for $1.75. Address 



all orders to this office. 



.< • » . 



The Premiums offered this week are well worth working 

 for. Look at them. 



