AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Jan. 4 1900. 



ent points in the circle, more colonies can be placed in a 

 g^iven area than bj- any other plan, when working- with the 

 bees, and a start is made upon a row of hives, the work is 

 ended where it commenced, and presumably near the en- 

 trance to the honey-house. 



Where the location is subject to winds, and even if it is 

 not, a wind-break should be provided ; cold winds are disas- 

 trous upon an apiary in the early spring. 



The orthodox methods of securing the honey crop have 

 been recommended and practiced so long that they have be- 

 come really old-fashioned, and, being satisfied that there is 

 a better way, the Grimes family are seeking in that direc- 

 tion and upon the following lines : 



The leading endeavor of the wide-awake bee-keeper is 

 to get his colonies into a most populous condition before the 

 honey-flow commences, and to this end the queen is given 

 unlimited room ; and it makes but little difference whether 

 the colony is in a barn-hive, or any style that can be prop- 

 erly examined, the queen can occupy only about so much 

 room, and will rear bees to the extent of her prolificness ; 

 and when the field-bees are in a great preponderance over 

 the nurse-bees, and the honey-storing capacity of the hive 

 seems to be restricted, the colony is thrown out of balance 

 and a swarm issues, and a large first swarm early in a good 

 honey season can be depended upon for a large yield of sur- 

 plus honey. 



A non-swarming strain of bees seems to be the desid- 

 eratum with some of the leading apicultural lig-hts, but 

 there is no reliable method yet discovered whereby this im- 

 pulse can be prevented when working for comb honey, or, 

 if it is held down, it is to a sacrifice of queens, working- 

 force and honey. Swarming can be prevented in a great 

 measure by the free use of the honey-extractor, but some- 

 how even in this case a colony that has been prevented from 

 carrying out the instincts of nature, altho it may do well 

 for a time, soon gets out of balance, swarms, and thereafter 

 works in a sluggish fashion. 



The Grimes family can get the most out of an apiary 

 by working it for both comb and extracted honey. If there 

 are any weak colonies when the bees are placed upon the 

 summer stands, they should be moved alongside a strong 

 colony and workt as a nucleus. If the colonies should all 

 happen to be strong, and they are liable to be when win- 

 tered according to the Grimes plan, then as early as possi- 

 ble nuclei should be formed for at least two-thirds of the 

 colonies, or, better still, for all of them, and a laying queen 

 secured even if she must be purchast from breeders further 

 south. This nucleus colony beside the strong one is kept 

 in a semi-nucleus condition by drawing brood from it and 

 giving to the larger colony, the object being to throw that 

 colony out of balance, and to cause an immense swarm to 

 issue at the commencement of the white clover season. 



This immertse swarm is placed in a hive with only 

 starters in the brood-frames, a queen-excluder adjusted, and 

 upon this two supers of sections, the latter filled with foun- 

 dation, and the hive is placed in a new location. Nature 

 demands several days' rest for a queen after the issue of a 

 swarm, and she gets what Nature calls for while the bees 

 are building new comb; at the same time the hive is 

 so crowded with bees that the sections are rapidly filled. 

 We prefer to give the bees all new work at first. After a 

 good start has been made, or after the removal of the first 

 case of comb honey, sections with drawn combs can be 

 given to advantage if the bee-keeper should chance to have 

 any on hand. In working for comb honey the Grimes 

 family use the 4'+ section and separators. The new tall 

 section and fence separators may be the thing, but we 

 think that when everybody else gets to using the new form, 

 ours will be so unique that we will get the fancy price 

 for our honey. 



The hive and bees upon the old stand are united with 

 the strong nucleus and its laying queen. As the old hive 

 is well supplied with extracting-combs it is workt during 

 the season for that kind of honey. It can be workt for 

 comb honey, but we think it gives a greater profit with the 

 first named. 



If a further increase is desired, a nucleus is started with 

 one or two frames of brood and a cell from the parent hive, 

 otherwise the cells are all destroyed. The bee-keeper is 

 troubled with no after-swarms, unless it happens much 

 later in the season during a copious flow from buckwheat 

 or other fall flowers. 



It is the plan of the Grimes family so to construct the 

 colonies and the nuclei that they can be wintered in one 

 hive — we then have our nucleus colonies with laying queens 

 ready for the spring campaign. 



Before the yield of white honey ends, all filled sections 



are removed, and the unfinisht ones are concentrated upon 

 the strongest colonies, and there will be but few unfinisht 

 sections at the close of the season. We aim to secure all of 

 comb honey as a No. 1 article ; all of the dark honey is 

 secured with the extractor. 



The Grimes family are aware that the above plans re- 

 quire a good amount of work, but so does any plan of mod- 

 ern bee-keeping require more skill than it did 60 years ago, 

 when old Grimes was a boy and straw-skeps and box-hives 

 were used. 



Bob Burdette says that when he was a boy he always 

 loaded his gun by putting the powder in before he did the 

 bullet ; but now they put the bullet in before the powder, 

 and that is the dilference between a muzzle and a breach 

 loader ; and in like manner with our bee-management. 

 Sixty years from date the improvements will be greater 

 than in the past, and the Grimes family believe in adding 

 their mite to hasten the millennial day. 



The American Bee Journal — Historical. 



BY DR. E. GALLUP. 



THE first volume of the American Bee Journal was pub- 

 lisht before the War of the Rebellion, by Samuel Wag- 

 ner, a man in every sense of the word. It was then 

 suspended until after the Rebellion was over ; or, for five 

 j'ears, if I remember rightly, I knew nothing of its publi- 

 cation, or the first volume, but heard of it in some manner, 

 and subscribed and commenced writing for it on its re- 

 sumption. 



The first national bee-keepers' convention was held at 

 Indianapolis, Ind., Dec. 21 and 22, 1870. At that time H. 

 A. King was publishing the Bee-Keepers" Magazine in New 

 York city. It advocated H. A. King & Co. and ' the Ameri- 

 can hive exclusively. It ignored the American Bee Journal 

 and the L,angstroth hive — they were never mentioned, and 

 if in writing an article for his paper either the American 

 Bee Journal or the Langstroth hive were mentioned, it 

 would invariably be expunged or dropt out before publica- 

 tion in his paper. 



About that time N. C. Mitchell was publishing the 

 National Bee Journal at Indianapolis, in the interest of N. 

 C. M. and his hive. Well, both King and Mitchell tried 

 their soft soap on a man about my size and build, but their 

 pipes failed to connect, altho each offered a handsome bonus 

 to write exclusively for his journal and advocate his hive, 

 etc. But both journals went where the woodbine twineth, 

 as they deserved. 



Mr. Wagner was a very quiet, reserved man, so far as 

 blowing his own horn was concerned. He expected and di4 

 publish a journal that would, or ought to succeed on its own 

 merits, but came very nearly failing financially. King be- 

 came frantic about the Indianapolis convention, and was 

 afraid his scheme of keeping the mass of bee-keepers in 

 ignorance of the American Bee Journal and the Langstroth 

 hive would fail, so he got up a rival convention at Cincin- 

 nati. 



In February, 1871, just after the Indianapolis conven- 

 tion, I received a private letter from Mr. Wagner, stating 

 that he should be compelled to discontinue the American 

 Bee Journal, as he had already sunk nearly $1,500 in the 

 venture, etc. I replied that some 20 old substantial sub- 

 scribers had a private meeting at Indianapolis, and had 

 canvast or talkt the matter over among themselves, as he 

 had written to one or two others on the subject. We found 

 a large proportion of those that attended the convention 

 had never heard of the American Bee Journal or the Lang- 

 stroth hive, and did not even know they had an existence, 

 so I replied as follows to Mr. Wagner : 



" Now, Friend Wagner, I do not wish to advise, but if 

 you can hold on until after the Cincinnati convention, we, 

 the old subscribers, are bound to make a tremendous efi^ort 

 to increase your subscription list, and place the 'Old Re- 

 liable ' on a firmer foundation," etc. 



Well, we got subscribers at Cincinnati, obtained all the 

 names of bee-keepers we could get hold of, and sent each a 

 copy of the American Bee Journal. Some time after, I do 

 not remember how long, I received another letter from Mr. 

 Wagner, thanking me very kindly, and saying that the 

 American Bee Journal was fairly and squarely standing on 

 its own feet, that it had fully paid up its loss, and more. 



Now the readers will see how very near we came to 

 losing the old stand-by, and first in the field. 



When I first commenced writing for the American Bee 

 Journal I wrote a series of articles on the subject of bee- 



