344 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



May 31. 1900 



PUBLISHT WEEKLV BY 



QEORQE W. YORK & COMPANY, 



116 Michigan Street, Gtiicago, III. 



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



DEPARTMENT EDITORS: 



E. E. HASTY, 

 * " The Afterthoug-ht." 



LEADING CONTRIBUTORS: 



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



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



C. C. MILLER, 



" Questions and Answers.' 



IMPORTANT NOTICES: 



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Advertising: Rates will be given upon application. 



VOL. 40. 



MAY 31, 1900. 



NO. 22. 



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 Weather has been as fickle and chang-eable as— 

 as— the weather. During- the first half of May the tempera- 

 ture Teas abnormally high some days, and after the middle 

 of the month came March weather. Those who, trusting to 

 a continuance of warm weather, had ventured to do a good 

 deal in the way of spreading brood, found instead of an in- 

 crease a shrinkage in the amount of brood in the hive. It 

 is these unwelcome spells of cool weather that make the 

 spreading of brood such a doubtful procedure. The build- 

 ing up of colonies has been much interfered with, but bet- 

 ter weather will surely come. In the meantime, look out 

 sharp for starving. 



Clipping Queens' Wings seems to be gaining in popu- 

 larity. The objection that ai dipt queen may be lost, or get 

 in the wrong hive, is not denied, but the clippers reply that 

 it is better to lose the queen alone than to lose both queen 

 and bees. And it is probably true that when the queen is 

 lost because no one is present to watch the swarm, there 

 would be an almost certain loss of both queen and bees with 

 a flying queen. 



Another argument in favor of clipping is that it is 

 much easier to manage swarms with dipt queens. Mr. 

 Doolittle declares in Gleanings in Bee-Culture, " I would 

 rather care for three swarms whose queens have their 

 wings dipt than for one where the queen is not dipt." He 

 uses a Manum swarm-catcher, puts the queen in a round 

 wire-cloth cage an inch in diameter, and four or five inches 



long, and while the queen is farthest away from the open 

 end of this cage he holds the cage with the open end where 

 12 or IS of the bees of the swarm will enter it as they rush 

 from the hive ; then puts the cage in the swarm-catcher, 

 and the buzzing bees in the cage will make it easier to get 

 all the bees into the catcher. 



Some prefer to remove the old hive from its stand and 

 put the new hive in its place for the swarm to enter, when 

 it returns on missing its queen, allowing the queen to run 

 in with the returning swarm. In this case the queen is 

 caged and releast at the entrance when the bees begin to 

 enter. 



The best thing about dipt queens, according to Mr. 

 Doolittle, comes into play when swarms unite. He says : 



" In all apiaries having more than four or five colonies, 

 there is always sure to come a time when two or more 

 swarms will issue together. If two or more swarms come 

 out at once, I always use the catcher as first given, using 

 one of the queens to secure the swarms. The other queens 

 are caged with a few of their bees, and left in a shadj' place 

 till I get all in readiness, when I place one at the entrance 

 of each hive prepared to receive a swarm, except the hive 

 that is to have the queen now in the catcher. I now carry 

 the combined swarm around to the hives, placing one-half, 

 one-third, one-fourth, etc., of the bees in front of each, 

 according to the number in the combined swarm, letting a 

 queen go in with each part, when the work is done. In this 

 way it is no more trouble to manage several swarms where 

 they come out together than it is to hive them if they were 

 to come out singly. Thus much of the dread which used to 

 be experienced when two or more swarms come out together 

 is done away with." 



Bee=Keeping as a Sole Business can not be recom- 

 mended. When a novice with three or four colonies has a 

 net return of $10 or $15 to the colony, the most natural thing 

 in the world is for him to go figuring on the profit from a 

 larger number. If $10 are to be had from one colony, of 

 course 100 colonies will bring $1,000. That's easy. The 

 only thing is to get the 100 colonies. But that isn't a very 

 hard matter either. Are there not accounts of 6, 8, and 10 

 colonies from one in a single season 7 As he has done so 

 well in surplus, surely he can do as well in increase. His 

 4 colonies can expand into 32, or at least 24, and at the end 

 of two years there will be no question about the 100 colonies. 

 But two years is too long a time to wait, and the purchase 

 of a few colonies now will make sure of the 100 colonies at 

 the end of the year. So he lays his plans to get out of all 

 other business, devote himself entirely to bee-keeping, and 

 later increase to such an extent as to have an income of 

 several thousand dollars from the bees. 



But when it comes to actual practice, things don't pan 

 out as he had figured. The next season maj' be a poor one, 

 giving neither surplus nor increase, or if the matter of in- 

 crease is forced, the colonies will be so poorly developt and 

 supplied with stores that they never see the anniversary of 

 their birth. If he is so successful as to reach his 100, he 

 finds that with that number he by no means secures the 

 same average as with the original four. 



The moral of which is that no one is wise to give up 

 other business for bee-keeping until he has first made sure 

 by actual trial for a series of years that he can at least 

 make a living out of his bees alone. 



Honey for Poverty of Blood.— Gleanings in Bee-Cul- 

 ture says : " An Italian bee-journal reports the case of a 

 girl in Switzerland sufi^ering severely from poverty of 

 blood, and who could get no relief thru medicine. At last 

 she tried a honey cure, which restored her to permanent 

 health in something over a month. The treatment was as 

 follows : Morning and evening, honey dissolved in hot 

 milk; honey-water at will. Honey taken during the day, 

 in all about two pounds each week." 



