.hino, t!tl4. 



American Hae Journal 



comb with starters, and it's expensive busi- 

 ness to support a lot of useless drones. 



3. No. it doesn't seem to; at least they 

 build out the comb the same as if no wire 

 were present, and the cells where the wires 

 are occupied with honey, pollen or brood 

 just the same as if there were no wires. 



4. Eggs are likely to be laid in drone-cells 

 as soon as there is a considerable How. and 

 drones will appear 24 days later. 



Lazy Bees— Producing Chunk Honey— Rearing 

 Queens and Drones from Same Colony 



i. Last season I had la^y colonies that did 

 .tot do anything but rear bees. They were 

 runnineover with bees, but did not swarm 

 nor store any surplus honey. Would it be 

 best to give them another queen ? 



2 How would it work for chunk honey to 

 put on an extra body of Hoffman brood- 

 frames with brood foundation or would it 

 be better to use section foundation ? 



1. Would you advise rearing drones and 

 queens from the same mother ? 



4- Do bees store more honey and quicker 

 in 2 story hives than they would in supers, 

 and do you advise 2-story hives for honey to 

 be sold as chunk honey ? 



West ViRciNiA. 



Answers— I. It is possible that there may 



have been some excuse for the bees doing 

 nothing, but if other colonies were doing 

 well at the same time the likelihood is that 

 the bees were at fault, in which case it 

 would be well to give a queen of better 

 stock. 



2. The thinner foundation would be better 

 for table honey, and yet some have reported 

 that the heavier foundation was thinned 

 down by the bees. It would not be a bad 

 plan to try each, and then you would know 

 better what to do in future. 



3. It will be better to rear queens from 

 your very best colony and drones from a 

 few of the next best. Yet if you should try 

 to rear queens and drones both from the 

 same colony it is not certain that much 

 harm would come from it. for the young 

 queens would be likely to meet drones from 

 other colonies, perhaps from a colony a 

 mile or more away. 



4. They will probably store as much in 

 one as in the other. Like enough they will 

 start a bit sooner in a super, provided it be 

 shallow. Kor chunk honey you will prob- 

 ably like something shallower than the 

 brood-combs. 



Twfo Percent Loss 



Bees have wintered finely. The loss was 

 2 percent out of 100 colonies. 

 Anthon, Iowa. April 16. G. W Nance. 



Stronger Than Ever 



I have kept bees since 1863. and I have 

 never had bees as strong as they are this 

 year. John A. Thomas. 



Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. April 30. 



Wintered Better than in 38 Years' Ex- 

 perience 



Prospects for the season are very promis- 

 ing. Bees have wintered in better shape 

 than ever experienced in all my beekeeping 

 career of 38 years. G. C. Greiner. 



La Salle. N. Y. May 4. 



the usual amount of honey that they have in 

 the 10 previous years. In regard to Mr. 

 Wilder's article about locations, my experi- 

 ence has taught me that locations are every- 

 thing in beekeeping. The man who hap- 

 pens to start in the right location is bound 

 to win out. While clover regions are not 

 always reliable. White clover does not 

 furnish honey every year, neither does white 

 sage. If any of the readers of the American 

 Bee Journal are thinking of changing loca- 

 tions, I can. if they write me. tell them 

 where to locate for a sure crop every year 

 without cellaring the bees, and no enemy to 

 annoy them in the least. 

 Katispell, Mont. J.D.Kaufman. 



Better Outlook in Vermont 



My bees have wintered finely this year. I 

 haven't lost a colony out of 50. I wintered 

 them in the cellar, and set them outside 

 April 2. There was plentyof snow here this 

 last winter. We ought to get some clover 

 honey. We haven't had a clover year for 

 3 years; basswood hasn't yielded for 2 years. 

 Last year my honey was from raspberries. 

 goldenrod and asters. M. C. Young. 



Rutland, Vt.. April 8. 



Optimistic Outlook 



Our ij7 colonies are in the finest shape we 

 ever had bees at this time of year; plenty 

 brood, pollen, stores and bees, and the 

 honey-flow is due in this locality June 20. So 

 we expect to have u? colonies in extra good 

 shape by that time. 



The past winter was very favorable to the 

 bees. We had no long continued cold, so 

 all our colonies came through finely. They 

 were wintered outdoors in chaff hives. We 

 rear all our queens, and never had but one 

 case of foulbrood. It was given treatment 

 promptly, and I have not had a trace of it 

 since, and that was 4 years ago. 



Grant Luzader. 



Pennsboro. W. Va.. .■\pril 16. 



A Good Outlook in California 



While the old saying is always possible. 

 " There's many a slip "twixt the cup and the 

 lip." nevertheless it has been nearly 20 

 years since southern California, in almost 

 all sections, has had such bountiful rains up 

 to this time. Perhaps the rainfall has never 

 been so unevenly distributed, varying all 

 the way from 7?^ inches to 35 inches over the 

 sage and wild buckwheat ranges. Almost 

 all beekeepers are very sanguine, and con- 

 sider the prospects very favorable for at 

 least an average crop of honey. This is for 

 the tiftirriEittcii sections. 



L. L. Anorews. 



Corona. Calif.. March 12. 



Location is Almost Everything in Bee- 

 keeping 



We had our bees rented last year down in 

 Wyoming, and by all accounts they gathered 



The Market for Honey in France 



Trade reports based on statistics, and 

 written without a special knowledge of the 

 article in question, are apt to lead to wrong 

 conclusions. The American trade would 

 experience a disillusion if it based its cal- 

 culations on the prices given in the report 

 under this heading, on page Bo. 



The price of 150 francs ($28.85) I do not 

 think has ever been reached. After 2 years 

 of failure, the highest price reached last 

 year was 135 francs per 100 kilos. 12 cents per 

 pound. In average years the price ranges 

 between go and no francs. 8 and [o cents per 

 pound 



Now. if it came to furnishing an indiffer- 

 ent kind of honey at these prices, even with 

 a duty of $1.75 per mo pounds. America might 

 make attractive offers to the French trade, 

 but competition is absolutely barred for the 

 simple reason— and this was omitted in your 

 consular report— that these quotations are 

 foraspecial kind of honey, which the I'liileJ 

 States do iwt Jurnii/i. and required by the 



trade and the French public, that will only 

 take that particular honey for table use. It 

 is just as in lingland. where more than 

 double the price paid for your most appre- 

 ciated honey is paid for thedomestic Scotch 

 product, although there is no duty on honey. 

 I he honey is known in trade as " surfin ex- 

 tra, and is gathered on .s'<h///„/„. a smaller 

 part on crimson clover-both plants not cul- 

 tivated in the United States to an extent 

 worth mentioning. 



This horiey is nearly water white, very 

 rich, and of a most exquisite taste. Other 

 honey in France does not fetch anything 

 near the price paid for the " surfin extra." 

 In biscuit factories, bakeries, etc. dark 

 honey from Illeet-Vilaine. F.ure-et-Loire. 

 and Morbihan is greatly used. Its quotation 

 at present IS 78 francs per 100 kilos, a little 

 less than 7 cents per pound, which can be 

 considered an average price for this honey. 



Owing to Its strong flavor and its quality 

 of coloring cakes a beautiful dark brown 

 this honey can be replaced by no other kind, 

 according to the statement of a large Ger- 

 man factory that yearly takesno.ooo to iso 000 

 pounds of it against 060.000 pounds of west- 

 ern honey which is imported directly from 

 Cuba. Domingo. Chili, etc . for the manufac- 

 ture of cheaper kinds of cake, ) 



Perhaps the greatest honey districts are 

 the Landes." It is a part of France of 

 which the Lditor gave a description in this 

 magazine. The honey there produced is 

 used a great deal in the manufacture of 

 adulterated honey, and for that reason also 

 exported to Germany. It is paid to the bee- 

 keeper 5 cents per pound. 



As the dutyof honey is 1^4 cents. American 

 dealers would have to furnish honey for 35< 

 cents free, in France, if they would compete 

 in selling honey to the factories of "miel de 

 fantaisie'" (adulterated honey,: 



I will wind up by quoting from a letter of 

 one of the largest dealers in France: 



"Foreign honey competes but little with 

 trench honey. There is a duty of 20 francs 

 per 100 kilos, which is fully suflScient to pro- 

 tect local production." 



,, . , C. Kneppelhout. 



Unebergen. Prance. March 24. 



Classified Department 



[Advertisements in this department will 

 be inserted at is cents per line, with no dis- 

 counts of any kind . Notices here cannot be 

 less than two lines. If wanted in this de- 

 partment, you must say so when ordering. 



BEES AND QUEENS. 



Phelps' Golden Italian Queens will please 

 you. 



Bees and Queens from my New Jersey 

 apiary. J. H. M. Cook. 



lAtf 70 Cortland St.. New York City. 



Goi.DEN all-over Queens. Untested. $1.00 

 1 ested. {3,00, Breeders. $5.00 and Sio, 

 i.\U Robert Inghram, Sycamore. Pa, 



For Sale— Choice Golden Queens that 

 produce Golden bees equal to any. 



Wm. S. Barnett, Harnett's. Virginia. 



PiiRE Tunisian Queens, tested. $1,00; 2-lb. 

 bees with tested queen, $4,00. Safe arrival 

 guaranteed, Lenoel. Nabeul. Tunis. 



Untested Queens. 75c each; $7.>oper doz. 

 Nuclei, $1 25 per frame. Bees. Ji.soperpound 

 Full colonies. Sframe. $6,50: lo-frame. $7.50. 

 Stover Apiaries. Mayhew. Miss. 



British Golden Queens. Carniolans 

 leather colored Italians, tested. Ji 50 each 

 Diseases unknown. William Beck. 



Scosthrop Apiary. Bell Busk, via Leeds. Eng. 



For Sale— Fine Italian Queens. See my 

 large ad. in this issue. 



J, F, Archdekin. Rt. 7, St. .Joseph, Mo. 



viii Queens— Moore's strain of leather- 

 colored Italians In April at 75c. Bees by 

 the pound and Tested queens. Write us 

 for prices on nuclei. Address, 



Ogden Bee St. Honey Co., Ogden, Uta 



