THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



2G9 



f roubles with Uncle Sam ami been admitted 

 to the mails: and its proper name, Bee- 

 Keepers' Quarterly, yoes up to mast head 

 attain. 



In the second number of tlio year the lead- 

 ing place, both in position luid importance, 

 is given to an exposition of Mr, Heddon's 

 method since his last improvements. He 

 makes the key of out door wintering to be 

 packing — but not with cliaff — something 

 more solid, and not over two inches thick. 

 This is to utilize the winter sunshine, and 

 the importance of a dark colored exterior 

 surface is strongly urged. 



If cellar wintering is chosen he favors n 

 temperature about ten degrees higher than 

 most of the fraternity have settled upon — 

 and if the bees roar let 'em roar. He thinks 

 that stir caused by warmth and nothing else 

 will not bring disease. Disease will bring 

 unrest and death ; but it does not nec- 

 essarily follow that healthful unrest will 

 bring disease and death. Let the bee man 

 walk this plank a little carefully, I should 

 say. 



He gives again his method of increase, 

 when increase is desired, by rapid division in 

 swarming time, letting the queens go where 

 they may without any hunting. The proper 

 amount of jarring, and smoking, in con- 

 nection with the fact that it is swarming time, 

 makes them accept their changed locations. 



And his master key of all is non-swarm- 

 ing. Thinks he has bred that out almost 

 entirely, and that he can now scatter his col- 

 onies a few in a place wherever forage fa- 

 vors. 



"And I noed'nt toll you tliat tliis condition of 

 affairs simply moans a revolution in honey pro- 

 duction." (Column 2. No. 1, ISQ.'i. 



The trouble with this non-swarming is that 

 the means taken to arrive at it seem alto- 

 gether inadequate to bring the results claim- 

 ed. Hard to see anything different from 

 the old practices which have failed a thous- 

 and times; I wish to speak with becoming 

 respect for so eminent an aiiiarist as Mr. 

 Heddon, yet with very strong conviction 

 that in his " breeding out the swarming im- 

 pulse " he has really done nothing what- 

 ever — mitigated the condition for the mo- 

 ment no doubt, but changed not one whit the 

 nature of the bees. Many of us have notic- 

 ed that it has been several years since 

 swarming has raged with its old time vio- 

 lence. This year it opened out sharp and 

 early, but suddenly stopped, and stayed stop- 

 ped; yet the season has not been so poor 



but that there is (juite a bit of surplus honey. 



Foolish as it may be, therefore, 1 expect 



Mr. Heddon's non-swarming bees to take the 



swarm fever just as readily as any of our 



apiaries do whenever the moon's horns get 



right again. 



"Our local newspaper is known as one of tiio 

 boHt of its clans to ho found in Amorica; wo will 

 soil it iinil buy bees: or wo will trade it for bees 

 to the full extent of the $5,000 we ask." Pa^o 3. 

 ( 'olumn ;!. 



Don'teven repuire it to be bees with the 

 swarming impulse bred out. He'll jerk that 

 out of'em quick sticks. One of the serious 

 disadvantages of our vocation is that selling 

 bees in large numbers is so nearly impossi- 

 ble; with a few more such calls as the above 

 we should think that a boom was upon us. 

 Yes, and another thing that looks like boom 

 is friend York's plump declaration that 

 Heddon hadn't spot cash enough to buy the 

 American Bee Journal. Accept it as an 

 evidence of better times near at hand, 

 brother Heddon, and be too glad to get mad, 



Mr, Heddon is developing as a humorist. 

 His article on page second, anent the im- 

 portation of t\\Q word Adel, is pretty well up 

 in comic merit. 



We all hope the specialist is not going to 

 die just yet ; but if he dies the citation be- 

 low tells us pointedly what to expect next, 



"With th(t spocialist dies tlie bee journal. 

 * * * The farmer will supply the honey, and 

 tlie agricultural journal will supply the bee 

 lore." 



And here also is a gem in its department, 



"Booh never spring dwiiidloif they aro winter- 

 ed well. ThoBo who think (liHerontly wore niis- 

 takoii about the wintering." 



Mr. Heddon has a water pan that holds 14 

 of the ()0 pound cans. It is heated by a hot 

 water pipe that comes up from the story be- 

 low, where it is coiled inside of a heating 

 stove. 



( )ne day and night is required to liquefy the 

 840 pounds. As the water in the pan cannot 

 be even boiled, damage to the color or flavor 

 of the honey is impracticable. This is an 

 arrangement calculated to make small oper- 

 ators somewhat jealous. 



THE GENERAL ROUND - UP 



Another death among our ranks — Apicul- 

 turist gone. Whether planets or institu- 

 tions or journals or men or mosquitos, death 

 seems to have all seasons for its own among 

 them. Or perhaps we had better except the 

 planets from casual and untimely deaths. 

 And who knows but that the man who should 

 obey God as implicitly as planets do would 



