FEBRUARY 1, 1913 



89 



top. The cushion much resembles a mat- 

 tress about two inches thick, which holds 

 its shape, and is nailed to the under side of 

 the inner cover. While some beekeepers use 

 a cushion above an inner cover, Mr. Powers 

 is, so far as I know, the first to invert the 

 arrangement, using the inner cover above 

 the cushion. By having the cushion firmly 

 attached to the inner cover it maintains its 

 shape, and there is one less loose piece to 

 handle. This arrangement, as shown in 

 Fig. 1, is used on the hives the year round, 

 with the best results, and certainly no other 

 apiary which the writer has examined in 

 early spring has shown the average strength 

 of Mr. Powers' colonies in April, 1912. 



Not being satisfied with the usual make- 

 shift hive-stands, Mr. Powers has devised 

 and now uses the concrete stands shown in 

 flgTires 1 and 2. The method of making 

 these stands is simplicity itself. Forms 

 perhaps two inches 

 deep, shaped as shown, 

 and resting directly on 

 the bare ground, are 

 filled Avith concrete, 

 and left to harden for 

 some time. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH 

 DIFFERENT RACES. 



Mr. Powers has ex- 

 perimented on quite a 

 large scale to find the 

 best strain of bees for 

 tlie production of comb 

 honey in his locality. 

 Starting with an ex- 

 cellent strain of Ital- 

 ians, the first experi- 

 ment was the introduc- 

 t i n of Carniolan 

 breeding queens, from 

 which the entire yard 

 was requeened. If I 

 am not mistaken, from 

 the resultant Carnio- 

 Italian cross Mr. Pow- 

 ers secured the largest 

 average per colony 

 which he has ever tak- 

 en. 



About this time the 

 rise of Banat bees oc- 

 curred in our beekeep- 

 ing pei-iodieals. Im- 

 ported queens of this 

 race were secured and 

 tested. It was found 

 that the new bees, 

 while perhaps not so 

 prolific as the Carnio- 

 lans, produced fully 



as much fancy honey, perhaps even excel- 

 ling the Carniolans in whiteness of capping, 

 in using the minimum of propolis and in 

 gentleness. 



The yard was then requeened with 

 daughters of tlie Banat breeders, most of 

 them mating with Italian drones. But after 

 trying the Banats and their crosses for 

 some years Mr. Powers has come to think 

 less highly of them than before. Their 

 universal fault, in this locality, is their 

 diminution in strength and working energy 

 during the blossoming of the second cro^D of 

 alfalfa — the very time when we need colo- 

 nies with a maximum of strength. 



Meridian, Idaho. 



[Nearly all the reports have indicated 

 that the Banats are less desirable than Ital- 

 ians or Carniolans. It looks as though 

 they, like the Punics, deserve to be forgot- 

 ten.' — Ed.] 



Fig. 2. — How the concrete hive-stands are made. 



