Oct. 29, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



699 



4. From a commercial point which pays the better, comb honey or 

 extracted? and can I use the same stylo of hive for both lunds; 



5. There are uo Italian bees nearer to my place than :i miles, 

 while nearly every farmer around me has from 1 to 20 colonies of black 

 bees, not to mention the wild bees, and, literally speaking, " the 

 woods are full of them." Now, it I were to buy Italian queens 1 don't 

 see how I could keep their olTsprintr pure If is almost a certainty 

 that their young queens would mate with black drones, and if I would 

 have to keep on buying Italian queens, and destroying all queens reared 

 in my hives, it would be rather expensive so long as there does not 

 seem to be a way to control the mating of queens with such drones as 

 we would desire. 1 don't see how I can Italianize with profit. What 

 is your advice in the matter? Alabama. 



AsswEKS. — 1. The probability is that the odor comes from some 

 plant upon which the bees are working. I have had the same thing 

 occur here; an exceedingly offensive smell coming from the hives, 

 with nothing apparently wrong otherwise, the disagreeable smell dis- 

 appearing in a few days. 



•J. Hard to tell; those who try them and don't like them are not 

 likely lo say much about them, so that the testimony is rather one- 

 sided. Some clairu they can get a higher price for honey in tall sec- 



tions, others say there is no diHerence. Much the same with the Dan- 

 zenbaker hive; some are <iuite eiiihusiastio over it, while others do not 

 approve. For my own use I prefei the dovetailed. 



H. If j'ou have any considerable number of s-frame hives, and are 

 working for comb honey, don't think of changing to the lO-frame 

 without lirsl trying theui on a small scale. The difference in weight in 

 handling the hives counts for a good deal with some; if you don't care 

 for that I'm afraid the 10-frnme would be better for you. But no one 

 can decide the question for you so satisfactorily as you can decide it 

 for yourself by trying the two kinds side by side. 



4. That depends upon thequalityof the houey, themarket.and the 

 man. I should lean toward the opinion that extracted might be better 

 for you, but I may be entirely wrong. The same hive may be used for 

 either, but if you work for extracted the probability is that you should 

 have a larger hive than the s. frame. 



5. Most decidedly you can Italianize with profit, and most decid- 

 edly you'll lind it an impossibility to keep pure Italians. The first 

 cross between Italians and blacks, you will probably find, will give 

 you as much honey as pure Italians. It will be a small expense to buy 

 one Italian queen each year, and you can plan to have most of your 

 young queens reared from her. In that way you can keep up your 

 stock quite satisfactorily. 



The Novelty Pocket=Knife. 



nd Address on one side— Three Bees on the other side. 



HOWARD M. MELBEE, 



HONEYVILLE, O. 



(This Cut is the i'm-v Size of the Knife.] 



Your Name on tile Knife. — When orderiug, be sure to say just wtiat name and 

 address you wish put on the Knite. 



The Novelty Knife is indeed a uovelty. The novelty lies In the handle. It is 

 made beautifullv of indestructible celluloid, which is as transparent as glass. Un- 

 derneath the celluloid, on one side of the handle is placed the name and residence of 

 •he subscriber, and on the other side pictures of a Queen, Drone, and Worker, as 

 shown here. 



'I'he Material entering into this celebrated knife is of the very best quality; 

 the blades are hand-forged out of the very finest English raz'jr-steel, and we war- 

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 the back springs of Sheffield spring-steel, and the finish of the handle as described 

 above. It will last a last-time, with proper usage. 



Why Own the Novelty Knife ? In case a good knife is lost, the chances are ihe 

 owner will never recover it; but if the " Noveltv " is lost, having name and address 

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appropriate this knife is for a present! What more lasting memento could a mother 

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 J side? 



The accompanying cu/ gives a faint idea, but cannot fully convey an exact representation ol 

 this_beautiful knife, as tb^ ** I^oveltj- " must be seen to be appreciated. 



How to Get this Valuable Knife.— We send it postpaid for $1.2S, or give it as a Premium to the 

 one sending us \rtREENF.w subscribers to the Bee Journal iwith$.^'«.) We will club the Noveltj 



Knife and the Bee Journal for ( 



, both for S1.90. 



GEORGE W, YORK £ CO, 



*S" Please allor" -"bout two weeks for vour knife order to be tilieo. 



Chicago, UL 



I WANTED ! Fancy Comb Honey 1 



m 





In No-drip shipping-cases. Also extracted, 

 in barrels or cans. Mail samples and quote 

 your best price delivered Cincinnati. 



1 



!;<«g 



9 The Fred W, Muth Co., '''*'"* uncinnati, omo. ^ 



*/^ 



Order Your BsC'SypDlles Now El- 



42Aiit R. H. SCHMIDT CO., Sheboygan, Wis. 



Please mention Bee Jotimal when -writing 



we can serve yoti 

 , and get them at 

 prices. 



c 



FROM MANY FIELDS 



A Peculiar Year fop Bees. 



We have iiad a peculiar year. I 

 started witli 40 colonies, and soine were 

 very wealt, as tiie spring was very un- 

 favorable, and tiiey were on tiie point 

 of starving when the clover flow came, 

 about June l.S ; but from then until 

 Aug. 25 they improved all the shining 

 hours, and I closed the season with 

 2700 sections of comb honey, and 500 

 pounds of extracted. I extracted all 

 the half-filled sections, and will save 

 them for next year for bait. I am get- 

 ting 12,'2 cents for my comb honey and 

 10 cents for the extracted, here at 

 home. Wm. ClEary. 



Kossuth Co., Iowa, Oct. 18. 



How to Use Fopmaldehyde. 



After reading many letters and items 

 on the use of formaldehyde as a de- 

 stroyer of foul brood, in the American 

 Bee Journal and other journals, I fail to 

 find sufficient insistence on the neces- 

 sity of having the box into which the 

 infected comb is placed absolutely air- 

 tight. Formaldehyde-gas is very dif- 

 fusible, and unless it is confined by 

 sealing up every crack or little hole 

 the effect will be very disappointing. 

 Perhaps that will explain some of the 

 failures reported. 



C. H. GraEning, M. D. 



Bremer Co., Iowa, Oct. IS. 



A Wet, Cold Season. 



It has been a very wet. cold season, 

 still the bees did well the first part of 

 the season. They commenced swarm- 

 ing the last of May, and the swarming 

 fever ran high in the majority of api- 

 aries until the first of August. 



It is seldom that I have l«nown bees 

 to gather honey faster than they did 

 the past season, from the middle of 

 May until the first of August, when 

 they stopped gathering any surplus 

 honey in this vicinity. 



I started in the spring wtih IS colo- 

 nies, nearly all Italians, but a few 

 hybrids. They cast 27 swarms, but 10 

 of them clustered in S clusters^ so at 

 the close of the season I had 37 colo- 

 nies and 700 pounds of comb honey, 

 and if there had been a fall flow of 

 honey I would have had several hun- 



