206 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 15 



a queenless colony, nor in a colony where 

 the queen was kept away by an excluder 

 during the swarming season. Late in the 

 fall I have had queen-cells destroyed to a 

 greater or less extent above a queen-exclud- 

 er." 



"1 see there are some things which I had 

 not taken fully into consideration. I had 

 supposed that, if I had been in the midst of 

 making nuclei to stop swarming, the effect 

 would have been disastrous in a season like 

 the last." 



"Of course, such a state of affairs as came 

 through your freeze would put a blue aspect 

 over all apicultural affairs ; but I do not see 

 why it would have been any more blue, had 

 you been trying to prevent swarming, than 

 it was when you were allowing the bees to 

 take their own course. It seems the freeze 

 stopped all prospects of swarming, as well 

 as all of the nectar-flow, and changed the 

 tide of affairs generally. Such things as 

 these come to us once in a while ; but they 

 should not deter us from striving to do the 

 best we can. We should lay our plans with 

 an expectancy of a good season. You re- 

 member the old question, 'What if the flow- 

 ers never bloomed for fear of the storm? ' " 



"One more question: What kind of queens 

 would I get, if, instead of going around ten 

 days after the old queen was removed, and, 

 cutting the cells the bees had reared, and 

 giving a different cell, I just let them go on 

 and hatch their own? " 



"The first thought just here is not what 

 kind of queens you would get, but what 

 kind of swarming rumpus you would have. 

 It would be ten times better not to try to 

 stop swarming than to allow the bees to 

 keep those cells they would rear after the 

 queen was taken away. I know you could 

 try to cut all the queen-cells but one ; but it 

 would be far easier to go through the hive 

 in a hurry, cutting all cells, and then giving 

 a cell from your best queen. This would 

 save hunting some perfect cell the bees had 

 reared In shaking the bees off the combs 

 so as to find all the cells, always remember 

 that not one single cell which has been so 

 shaken can be depended on to give a perfect 

 queen; therefore, unless you clip off the one 

 cell before you shake the frame, you have no 

 business trying to save any queen-cells from 

 that hive." 



" But if 1 should see fit to clip off the cells 

 before shaking, and ignore the question of 

 breeding up to a higher standard of bees, 

 would not such queens be good prolific ones 

 of their kind? " 



"If you selected the most perfect of the 

 cells, they would probably give you fairly 

 good queens; but you would have no assur- 

 ance just when the youn^ queens from these 

 cells would emerge; while, as a rule, such 

 queens tend toward a deterioration of stock 

 rather than an uplifting of it. I do not see 

 where any thing is to be gained by saving 

 such cells promiscuously reared, either in 

 time or honey ; but I do see a great amount 

 of uncertainty which will be entirely avoid- 

 ed by rearing your queens from your best 



stock, and having them ripen just at the 

 time you will be likely to need them for 



BLE KE^LPING 



IN THE SOUTHWEST 



Louts SCliOLL 



W^hile you are making money at keeping 

 bees why not make all you can? It can be 

 done. Better bees, good management, short 

 cuts, profitable marketing, etc., will help to 

 do it. 



Supplies are too high in price to tolerate 

 poor colonies in expensive hives. The rem- 

 edy is hardly "cheaper " hives but better 

 bees. A poor colony in a "cheap " hive will 

 not give as profitable results as a rousing 

 one in a good hive. 



The handling of combs individually, and 

 brushing off the bees, is a thing of the past 

 with mo. 1 can accomplish ten times more 

 in a given time by using shallow supers when 

 removing honey from the hives than by tak- 

 ing out and brushing each comb. 



With the increasing demand for pure hon- 

 ey, and the many localities that are proving 

 "no more good" for honey production, on 

 account of the clearing of the timbered land, 

 and cultivation, there need be no fear of an 

 overproduction of honey. In addition to 

 this the pure-food laws will help wonderful- 

 ly in increasing the demand for pure honey, 

 and there will never be produced enough 

 honey if it is rightly distributed. Hence it 

 is also easily perceivable that the prices will 

 be still better in the future. Prospects were 

 never brighter for bee-keeping than now. It 

 is up to the bee-keepei's, however, to make 

 the best out of it. 



.& 



It pays the bee-keeper to go visiting oc- 

 casionally. Whenever occasion offers, take 

 a trip around to other bee-keepers, and a 

 short stay with them may make you more 

 enthusiastic when at home again. It may 

 also help you to learn many new and valu- 

 able kinks that will save you money and 

 trouble or unnecessary labor. There is noth- 

 ing like "rubbing up against" others of our 

 craft, and it will only make the bee-keeping 

 ties the stronger; for "we be brethren.' 

 This may eventually lead to the better or- 

 ganization of bee-keepers throughout the en- 

 tire country. "In union there is strength." 

 I always feel well repaid after returning 

 home from such trips. 



The tendency here in the Southwest is 

 toward the production of more extracted 

 than comb honey. Section comb honey has 



