®kant«5js tn 1^? Culture 



Published by The A. I. Root Co., Medina, O. 



H. H. Root, Assistant Editor. E. R. Root, Editor. A. L. Boydkn, Advertising Manager 



A. I. Root, Editor Home Department. J. T. Calvert, BuBiness Manager. 



Entered at the Postofflce, Medina, O.. as Second-claBs matter. 



VOL. XL 



OCTOBER 15, 1912 



NO. 20 



Editorial 



During this month a good many colonies 

 will have to be united. Many have com- 

 plained that bees go back to their old 

 stand ; but if the work is done rightly there 

 will be no returning. Wait until the fh'st 

 four or five days of cool Aveather, then 

 early in the morning do the uniting, re- 

 moving the hives from the old stands en- 

 tirely. 



STINGLESS BEES (?) ETC. 



The clipping below seems to have been 

 having the run of the daily papers. We 

 chp it from the Detroit Neivs of Oct. 1 : 



The stiugless bee lias at last arrived, having been 

 produced by an English apiarist named Burrows 

 after two years of experiment. A description of the 

 new bee, which has been received here, says that the 

 hybrids are splendid workers, and are less liable 

 to disease than the ordinary honey-producer. Bur- 

 rows mated Cyprian drones with Italian queens to 

 produce the new bee, which, while possessing a 

 stinger, can not use it as a weapon of offense. 



Something like twenty years ago, when 

 D. A. Jones brought the first Cyprian bees 

 from Cyprus, the same or a similar claim 

 was made, and there was just a grain of 

 truth in it. The Cjqirians, or a cross such 

 as mentioned, seemed quite slow about get- 

 ting on the "war-path;" but it soon trans- 

 pfred that, when once roused up, say by 

 untimely meddling, they stung worse than 

 any other bees we had. So much for news- 

 paper canards. — A. I. R. 



HONEY-MARKET CONDITIONS; CORNERING 

 THE MARKET. 



At the present time there seems to be 

 an effort on the part of some one to corral 

 the crop of western honey. Small buyers 

 are complaining that they are unable to 

 supply their needs. While this will have 

 the effect of boosting prices of both comb 

 and extracted, the people who are doing the 

 cornering shoitld not make the mistake of 

 holding on too long nor boosting the prices 

 too high. Now is the time to sell lioney — 

 especially that in the comb. When cold 

 weather comes on, the prospective buyer 

 is confronted with the hazard of gi'anulat- 

 ed comb honey. He will be shy about 



placing his order, and the result will be 

 that some one will be left with a lot of 

 comb honey on his hands that he can't sell. 



SHIPPING BEES IN 1, 2, AND 3 LB. PACKAGES 

 WITHOUT COMB. 



It is usually very difficult to send bees 

 without combs in extremely hot weather 

 any distance. While we have had splendid 

 success in making such shipments all over 

 the country when the weather was suit- 

 able, we have had difficulty when it turned 

 extremely warm, especially with the larger 

 packages of bees. Lately we have been 

 23roviding bottles of water ; and in every 

 ease where the water was given, the bees 

 went through in good order. In some cases 

 not a single bee was reported dead, not- 

 withstanding the weather was very warm 

 when the bees were en route. Experience 

 has shown that bees in high temperatures 

 require water. Without the means of get- 

 ting it they will die in a few hours. This 

 explains why nuclei and colonies on combs 

 will go through in good order, because the 

 water in the honey would seem to carry 

 them through. On the other hand, without 

 combs, and only bee candj', under similar 

 conditions, they will go through in bad 

 order. 



We took some little self-sealing tin cans 

 and -filled tliem with water, and, after 

 screwing the cover down, made a single 

 perforation through the cap about the size 

 of a pin. These were secured in the center 

 of the cages, when, presto ! the bees would 

 go through with the loss of scarcely one of 

 their number. 



PARCELS POST AT LAST AND ITS EFFECT ON 

 BEE CULTURE. 



Our readers will remember how, during 

 the past three or fout years, we have been 

 'urging them to write to their Represent- 

 atives and Senators in Congress, requesting 

 their favorable consideration of the various 

 parcels-post measures that have been sub- 

 mitted from time to time, and how as often 

 they have been put to sleep in committee; 



