THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



11 



"Bee-Mastkb" has a department iu the 

 American Bee Journal, and flatters liimself 

 that no one will discover his identity. Let 

 him not lay that flatterinj^ unction to his 

 soul, as anyone at all conversant with his 

 writings in the past will at once recognize 

 the eloquent quill that he drives. 



Bee Pakalvsis is something that Mr. S. 

 A. Shuck of Illinois, thinks may be caused 

 by soured honey, and as the disease is worse 

 iu warm climates he thinks it is because the 

 heat aids the fermentation. He writes his 

 views to Gleanings and the editor calls his 

 attention to the fact that a change of queen 

 has apparently cured the disease which could 

 not be the case if the disease came from sour 

 honey. 



Bee Escapes are not used by E. France 

 because there is too much lifting (in raising 

 extracted honey), and he doubts if bees 

 could be gotten out of a second story when 

 three stories are used ; besides, he can take 

 the combs out of the two upper stories in 

 five minutes (brush off tlie bees, too, I pre- 

 sume), and there is no lifting except that of 

 lifting one comb at a time. The combs are 

 carried in boxes placed in a cart. All this is 

 gleaned from G eaninys. 



The Illinois State Bee-Keepeus have 

 lately held a very successful meeting, but 

 there is one point in reference to this So- 

 ciety ihat somebod;, has apparently forgot- 

 ten, and that is when the North Western 

 gave up its existence, or merged it into that 

 of the Illinois State, the agreement was that 

 at least one meeting a year should be held 

 in Chicago. No such meeting has been held 

 in 181)4. There is no city in this country 

 where so many live, practical, successful 

 honey producers can be gathered together as 

 at Chicago, and tliere ought to he a conven- 

 tion there every autumn. If the Illinois So- 

 ciety does not proposi to live np to its agree- 

 ment, it might be advisable to start a new 

 North Western Society, but I hope the giv- 

 ing of Chicago t! e " slip " was simply a mat- 

 ter of forgetfulness, or oversight, or " some- 

 thing " on the part of the Illinois Society. 



Dampness in bee cellars may not cause so 

 very much harm, provided other condit'ons 

 are right, is the decision of Mr. Doolittle in 

 an article in Gleanings. He brings out very 

 strongly the point that if the bees are quiet, 



that is, neither noisy nor running about, but 

 quietly and closely clustered, they are win- 

 tering well. When tiiey are not quiet, they 

 are not wintering well, even if the cellar be 

 the driest imaginable. This agrees exactly 

 with the decision arrived at over at the Can- 

 adian convention lately held at Stratford. 



^^■■■^.■^■^^■^ 



Mice sometimes do damage to bees win- 

 tered in the cellar. I have never failed to 

 keep a cellar free from either rats or mice 

 by putting in a few dishes of flour and arse- 

 nic mixed. Mr. C. Davenport, of Minneso- 

 ta, makes assurance doubly sure by using 

 different kinds of bait. In one dish he puts 

 cheese mashed up tine, in another he puts 

 lean pork chopped up fine, in another some 

 honey, in. fact he gets it down so fine as to 

 set out both dark and light honey, and each 

 item on the menu is highly seasoned with 

 arsenic. He writes this information to 

 Gleanings. 



A NON-SWABMING ABKANGEMENT. 



The most interesting thing to me at the 

 late Michigan State convention was a non- 

 swarming hive, or arrangement of a hive for 

 the prevention of swarming. It was ex- 

 hibited by the inventor and patentee, Mr. L. 

 A. Aspinwall, of .Jackson, Michigan. It will 

 be remembered that Mr. Aspinwall is the 

 man who tried to prevent swarming by the 

 use of wooden combs, his theory being that 

 the use of these combs would prevent the 

 rearing of drones and that that would do 

 away with swarming. I will not take the 

 space to explain why the use of the wooden 

 combs was not the success that had been 

 hoped for, but am glad to be able to say that 

 it was their use that led to th? present ar- 

 rangement, which is simply that of moving 

 the brood combs apart, as the swarming sea- 

 son approaches, and putting in each of the 

 spaces between the combs a half-inch board 

 perforated with holes like those in the wood- 

 en combs. In fact, the boards are really 

 one-half of a wooden comb, but there is no 

 septum. The bees can crawl through the 

 holes and walk about upon the wooden divis- 

 ion boards just as freely as upon the combs 

 of wax, but no honey is put in them because 

 there is no septum. Last year Mr. Aspin- 

 wall had seven colonies in hives thus arrang- 

 ed, and no swarming or signs of swarming 

 were manifest, while the colonies averaged 

 thirty pounds of comb honey in the supers. 

 Seven colonies in ordinary hives all swarmed 



