106 



THE BEE-KEEPERS ^EV- 



would, should he stray this side of the line. 

 Canadian, 4G2. 



Dr. Miller in his article commencing on 

 page 464, notes that wooden separators 

 crinkle out of shape, and then the nails in 

 the ends hold them so, despite the efforts to 

 press them right again. He deprecates nail- 

 ing, unless with one nail in the middle of 

 each end. As for himself he takes new ones 

 about every year, and on that account does 

 not want so much nailing on or pulling off. If 

 practical men throw wooden separators away 

 every season to get rid of the propolis and 

 kinks, I guess I'll adhere to my tin ones for 

 the present. 



Perhaps the most important idea in the 

 article is about moving unfinished sections 

 when on the hive. Never finished out quite 

 so nicely if moved to a new place. Guess 

 that's so, too ; although I do not remember 

 to have seen it so stated in print before. 

 Step-mother will raise a boy ; but own moth- 

 er and own boy is the best way. The special 

 gang of bees who are at work on a section, 

 and who feel a wee bit of pride in it, seems 

 to be broken up by moving it to a different 

 place. It thus falls into the charge of super- 

 numeraries, who give it a lick and a prom- 

 ise, and get it oft" their hands. 



On page 474, in an article on queen-rear- 

 ing, which comes by way of the British Bee 

 Journal, the need of care about chilling is 

 urgently pressed. Full exposure for five 

 minutes, at as mild a temperature as Of/ , was 

 fatal. Under a roof, and protected from the 

 wind, larvai were still alive after fifteen min- 

 utes ; but the question whether they would 

 fully recover, so as to make just as good 

 queens as any, was not followed up. Pre- 

 sumably doubtful. 



A special kink in getting ready for winter 

 is given by A. G. Willows on page 445. 

 With two stories of frames, and where there 

 is no late harvest to speak of, there may be 

 frames of honey enough available to go into 

 the winter without feeding, but the middle 

 combs in the brood nest nearly destitute — 

 brood in August, and emptiness later on. 

 Just make out the winter outfit in August 

 above the excluder, putting up the queen, 

 and side frames also if they are heavy 

 enough. The other frames remain quietly 

 below until the brood is all out, when the 

 lower story and its excluder are removed 

 bodily. 



George Wells, the sponsor for the two- 

 queen-to-the-hive system so popular at pres- 



ent in England, contributes an article on 

 pages 449-451. It makes us feel the experi- 

 mentalism (if that's the proper word) of oar 

 British cousins to notice how patiently he 

 proves that his system, in his hands, scored 

 a victory in his locality last season. The 

 season one of the worst on record there. 



Non-progressive bee folks in England 

 claim that skep honey is better than frame 

 hive honey. This of course is true if the 

 frames are extracted too green ; and the skep 

 has the good feature that it does not encour- 

 age that naughty trick. He owns up that the 

 skep is the only hive adapted to some folks. 

 He raises extracted honey because sections 

 are not in demand. How surprisingly mar- 

 kets differ ! A somewhat surprising thing is 

 the amount of wax harvested. Three pounds 

 to the hive, when the honey harvest was only 

 741^'. Most of us would jingle more cash if 

 we could realize three pounds of wax per 

 hive. Wonder how he did it ? 



But Master Canadian will step forward 

 and hold out his hand for a few ferule spats, 

 to atone for his carlessness in making out 

 the table in Mr. Wells' article. We read 11 

 cents where it should be 11 pence, S1.2 cents 

 where it should be S}4 pence, and 2 cents 

 where it should be 2 shillings — all the prices 

 in the table given wrong. 



The General round -Up. 



The change in the American Bee-Keeper, 

 mentioned in last month's editorial, is a lit- 

 tle in the nature of a new departure. To 

 have a bee magazine and a family magazine 

 combined has not been tried recently I think 

 — although the mere change from 1(> pages 

 and cover to 32 pages and cover would be 

 nothing out of course. Under the present 

 arrangement a little more than half the 

 space is occupied with general reading. 

 Well, this is one of the ways to do things 

 which is all right if it succeeds. Undoubt- 

 edly there are editors and publishers that 

 would achieve success on just those lines. 

 But just as surely this peculiar plan is no 

 mascot, with powers to compel success. 

 There is no happy thought that will bring a 

 bee paper success without earliest, judicious 

 editorial work, and lots of it. Part of the 

 time in the past history of the A. B. K. it 

 has been a sort of motherless gosling on the 

 common ; and that sort of thing is quite as 

 capable of sinking a family journal plus 

 bees as any other kind. Moreover as com- 



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