200 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



March 29, 1900 



PUKLISHT WEEKLY BY 



GEORGE W. YORK & COMPANY, 



118 Michigan Street, Cliicago, III. 



[Entered at the Post-Office at Chicag-o as Second-Class Mail-Matter.] 

 EDITOR: 



Dr. C. C. miller, 



*' Questions and Answers."' 



DEPARTMENT EDITORS: 



E. E. HASTY, 

 * "The Afterthought." 



LEADING CONTRIBUTORS: 



G. M. DooLiTTLE, C. P. Dadant, Prof. A. J. Cook, 



F. A. Snell, R. C. Aikin, "Old Primes." 



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VOL.40. • MARCH 29. 1900. 



NO. 13 



Note— The American Bee Journal adopts the Orthography of the follow- 

 ing Rule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philolog- 

 ical Association and the Philological Society of England: — Change 

 "d" or "ed" final to "t" when so pronounced, except when the "e" af- 

 fects a preceding sound. Also some other changes are used. 



The Hive Question^A Correction An editorial in a 



former number of this journal, referring^ to the views of L. 

 Stachelhausen as g^iven in Gleanings in Bee-Culture, says 

 he was led to the conclusion " that for extracted honey a 

 large hive is best, and for comb honey a small one." Re- 

 ferring to this in Gleanings, Mr. Stachelhausen says : 



" Certainly I did not mean to say this. For the welfare 

 of the bees and their proper development it makes no dif- 

 ference whether the bee-keeper extracts the surplus honey 

 or takes it off in the form of filled sections. If a small 

 hive is ill-fitted in this respect for extracted honey, it can 

 not become better for comb honey. By the present man- 

 agement we can not use the advantages of large hives in 

 producing comb honey, so we can form only one conclu- 

 sion, and that is, the present management is incorrect. 



" The problem is to find out a management by which 

 all advantages of large hives can be utilized, and at the be- 

 ginning of the honey-flow to get the colony in such a condi- 

 tion that the work in supers is started at once, and all the 

 honey stored there— that is, to get the brood-chamber in the 

 best possible condition."' 



Alsike Clover.— The Warren (Ind.) Republican con- 

 tains an address by Dr. I. A. Smith, in which he discusses 

 alsike clover in a somewhat exhaustive manner. He makes 

 a bushel of seed sow about 8 or 10 acres, and says : 



" As I sow chiefly with oats as a nurse crop, my rule is 

 to wait until March 25 before sowing my oats. After this 

 time I begin sowing as soon as the soil is in suitable condi- 



tion, using shallow cultivation, never plowing immediately 

 before as some do, but usually by disking, dragging and 

 harrowing, so as to get the surface fine and mellow, the 

 finer the better, and sowing the clover behind the finishing 

 harrow, being sure, wind or no wind, to sow before any rain 

 falls upon the freshly harrowed soil ; this is very important. 

 If the land is in suitable condition, as in case of having" 

 been fall or winter plowed, I prefer to use a good, sharp 

 drill for putting in the oats, and sow the clover immediately 

 behind the drill ; I have had the best success in this way." 



Alsike stands drouth and close grazing better than red 

 clover, and heaves less with freezing. When firmly estab- 

 lisht it may be freely pastured till early September. Many 

 fields have kept in thrifty condition for three years, one 

 field for five. A persistent stand is favored by cutting the 

 first and pasturing the second. It should be cut in full 

 bloom, but later cutting is not so objectionable as vs^ith red 

 clover. He considers it a better fertilizer than red clover 



Rietsche's Foundation Press has obtained a popu- 

 larity that is surprising to an American, there being now 

 16,000 such presses in use. In this country comparatively 

 few bee-keepers make their own foundation, the number of 

 such being perhaps less now than a few years ago. Ger- 

 mans are probably more saving of outlay, but another item 

 makes a difl'erence that would not generally be suspected. It 

 is that a bee-keeper in Germany who does not make his own 

 foundation may buy that which is adulterated. Such a 

 thing is never suspected in this country, the manufacturers 

 of foundation being entirely reliable. Adulteration is not 

 all confined to America. 



"No Wax=noth in Colorado."— Prof. C. P.Gillette, 

 of the State Agricultural College at Ft. Collins, Colo., sends 

 us the following about the moth that infests comb honey 

 there : 



On page 154, I notice that Mr. Aikin and Mr. Rauchfuss 

 state that the wax-moth does not occur in Colorado, and 

 Mr. Rauchfuss can not understand why people should claim 

 that Colorado honey is sometimes infested with these in- 

 sects. 



It seems to me that two insects are probably being con- 

 fused. So far as I know, the old-fashioned wax-moth does 

 not occur in Colorado, but there is a smaller moth that is 

 • generally distributed over the country, commonly known as 

 the Mediterranean flour-moth, which I have repeatedly seen 

 infesting honeycomb. The larvee of this insect do not 

 seem to care for wax or honey, but feed upon pollen, and 

 perhaps propolis as well. The larva; are sometimes quite 

 troublesome on stored frames of old comb, and I have seen 

 them in crated sections of comb honey. 



Both the larvse and the moths of this species are con- 

 siderably smaller than the old wax-moth. 



C. P. Gillette. 



Uncapping Honey in the Spring was recommended in 

 a paper by D. W. Heise at the Toronto convention, and re- 

 ported in the Canadian Bee Journal. When there are yet 

 only two to four frames of brood in a colony, he raises each 

 of these frames sufiiciently high so the honey along the top- 

 bars and in the corners can be uncapt. This helps the bees 

 to the honey, and allows the queen to fill the comb with 

 brood to the top-bar. If there is no honey between the 

 brood and the top-bar, he places a comb of honey next the 

 brood on each side, first uncapping it. In the discussion 

 following, Mr. McEvoy said : 



" I have followed the uncapping system ofl' and on for 

 17 or 18 years, and I have made it pay after I got right into 

 it and understood pretty near how to do it, but I have had 

 it go the other way at times. I have always made it pay 

 between fruit-bloom and clover. There is a gap at that 

 time in most localities, and it pays to uncap some. I have 

 uncapt sometimes too much, and have made a mistake, but 

 just to uncap two or three combs in an evening in the bare 

 time in order to supply them with unsealed stores and to 

 feed the larvse, in this way I'get the honey used up rapidly. 



