Sept. (), 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE lOURNA'. 



565 



going- to fly off the handle and advertise superior slm/: ior 

 sale. This queen is a liyhrid, and we all know that it is 

 exceedingly uncertain to produce like from something that 

 is not pure. I have reared a few queens from her for my 

 use, but do not expect to duplicate her in the least. 



We now frequently hear of such queens making thi-ir 

 appearance almost from nowhere, and from stock which is 

 not pure, and never did anything extraordinary in the past. 

 Bee-keepers, as a rule, understand that such freak (jiieeiis 

 are unfit to breed from, but during these days of the supe- 

 rior-stock craze— where in the last year or two nearly all 

 the most beautiful golden bees have suddenly changed to 

 that of superior stock — some of our brethren have lost sight 

 of all these facts, and are breeding from such a queen as I 

 have described, under the disguise that it will rai^e the 

 standard of honey-producing qualities. They know that 

 many queens sent out will not be what they should be. This 

 is a very wrong thing to do, and should not be tolerated. 

 It will do more to lower the standard than it can ever hope 

 to raise it, and is almost as bad as adulterating honey and 

 labeling it as such to escape the law, hoping also, thereby 

 to raise the standard and sale of pure extracted honej'. 



We should not breed from anything except that which 

 has a good, solid foundation of many years standing back 

 of it, and then we know we will get what we are after. 

 There are several queen-breeders who have such stock, and I 

 hope they will be the ones who will profit b_v the present 

 sensible craze for something better. 



EXPKRIEN'CE WITH PLAIN SECTIONS. 



Some little time ago some one askt in the American 

 Bee Journal whether it would be advisable to change to 

 plain sections. In reply I beg to give my little experience 

 of one season. 



I have changed to the tall Danzenbaker sections and 

 fence separators, using full sheets of foundation in con- 

 nection with the same, and I am pleased to say I shall never 

 regret the day I made the change. The tirst super taken 

 this season had 28 sections filled solid to the wood all 

 around, and rankt as fancy. I never before had anything 

 to equal this, and in many cases I only received about one 

 dozen fancy bee-way sections from the first super, the 

 others being more or less unsealed. The bees were not 

 crowded in the least, as they were working in an empty 

 super below it when completing this one, thus showing that 

 it is not necessary to crowd to get fancy comb honey in 

 tall sections. 



If any one is in doubt about this question, better try a 

 super or two of tall sections with full sheets of foundation 

 before buying anj'thing else. My tall section honey is 

 selling for 20 cents per section — 5 cents more than I got for 

 the 4'4 bee-way. With me I can heartily endorse all the 

 good things that have been said about tall narrow sections. 



Hamilton Co., Ohio. 



The Influence of Locality in Bee-Keeping-. 



BY W. Z. HUTCHINSON. 



THIS matter of locality and the part that it plays in bee- 

 keeping is reall}' becoming a chestnut ; but it needs 

 cracking just the same. Anything in the nature of a 

 paradox, or that appears mj'sterious, is at once charged up 

 to locality. In many instances the inference is correct. To 

 illustrate : 



Holy Land bees are not liked here at the North. They 

 are great breeders. So long as there is honey in the hive 

 they will keep on rearing brood. We don't wish any such 

 characteristics here in the North. When the harvest is over 

 we wish breeding to stop. We don't care to rear a horde of 

 useless consumers. In the South, in Cuba, for instance, 

 the harvest comes in the winter, or what corresponds to our 

 winter, and it is very desirable that the colonies shall be 

 populous at that season of the year. To accomplish this. 

 Holy Land bees exactly fill the bill. Thus you see, in one 

 locality one strain of bees is desirable, but another is not. 

 In some other locality the conditions are reverst. 



Again, here at the North, where our main harvest comes 

 early and is of short duration, small brood-chambers are 

 desirable. In the South, or where the harvest is prolonged 

 thru the whole summer, large brood-nests find favor. Then 

 there is the wintering problem that is ever with us here at 

 the North. In the South, chaif hives, and bee-cellars, and 

 the like, are of no interest whatever. California and Colo- 

 rado have conditions and sources of honey-flow that are en- 

 tirely different from those of Michigan and Canada. The 

 fundamental principles of bee-keeping are ever the same, 



but localities differ ; they differ so much that a bee-keeper 

 going from Michigan to Cuba, or to Texas, and attempting 

 to carry on bee-keeping as he has done at his old home, 

 would be sadly " left." ~~ 



In reading our bee-journals, and attempting to profit by 

 the advice they contain, we should ever have in mind this 

 matter of locality. The experience, and views and advice 

 of Mr. Doolittle may be all right for New York, and Ontario 

 and Michigan, and some of it may be all right for Florida 

 or California, but not all of it. 



Then there is another point : the more thoroly a man 

 understands his own locality, the greater his chances for 

 success. He must know at exactly what time in the season 

 to look for the different honey-fiows. It may seem incred- 

 ible, but I have had bee-keepers come to me to buy sections, 

 come in great haste, and a heart filled with enthusiasm, the 

 bees were " just piling in the honey, and the owners had 

 only discovered it, and the bas^ivood honey harvest was coin- 

 ing to a close. Tliese men did not even know ^t'/i^rf the 

 honey was coming from. Of course, this is an extreme 

 case, but not so very extreme as some may think. 



A man ought to know what strain of bees to keep ; what 

 size and kind of hive and fixtures to use ; when to take his 

 bees from the cellar (if he winters them in the cellar); 

 whether to protect them on the summer stands when he 

 takes them out, and, if so, in what manner; whether to feed 

 in the spring ; whether to unite before the harvest ; whether 

 to shade his hives and how ; when to put on the sections : 

 and so on thru the whole season he should know, as nearly 

 as it is possible for him to learn, exactly what is best 

 adapted to his particular locality. In reading articles in 

 the bee-journals he should always ask him.self : " Does this 

 apply to my locality?" — Bee-Keepers' Review. 



Genesee Co., Mich. 



Are Queens Confined in Cages SIiort-Lived? — 

 Queenless Colonies. 



BY HENRY ALLEY. 



SEVERAL things have been said in the bee-papers the 

 past few months that have attracted my attention. One 

 statement, made by some one, that young queens con- 

 fined in cages are short-lived ; that for every day so con- 

 fined the life of the queen is shortened three months. Now, 

 it would be interesting- to know just how this conclusion 

 was reacht. It seems to me it would require much time and 

 careful experiment to test this thing. I do not believe any 

 one has reacht these conclusions except by guessing at it. 



I have had queens live to great age. One queen lived 

 four years and two months. One of my customers wiote 

 me that he had one of my queens that lived six years. How 

 long would these queens have lived had they not been con- 

 fined in cages ? 



The course of short-lived queens is not owing to con- 

 finement in cages, but is caused by the methods used in 

 rearing the queens. Except at swarming-time, I find that 

 queens reared in a hive above the brood-chamber proper, 

 are short-lived. Superior queens can be reared by almost 

 any method at swarming-time, say from May 20 to July 10. 

 Owing to the fact as above stated, I long ago gave up 

 the " top story " method of rearing queens. I found that 

 queens so reared were very inferior, and not more than 25 

 percent of such queens were of any value. 



For several years I have employed a method for pro- 

 ducing queen-cells that give me the finest, most prolific 

 and long-lived queens. This process has not been given in 

 any of the bee-papers. Later on I shall attempt to describe 

 it so that all will understand it. Talk about getting cell- 

 cups by the bushel I Well, by my method I can get them 

 by the thousands, and they are all made by the bees — no 

 artificial work about them. I never have found it necessary 

 to make artificial cell-cups, nor to transfer larva? to cell- 

 cups. I furnish the bees with eggs, and they do the rest, 

 and all is done in a natural way, and the result is queens 

 that give perfect satisfaction. They are large, well-de- 

 velopt, and many of the queens are superior to those reared 

 under the swarming impulse. 



I made this statement in the bee-papers several years 

 ago. Editor Hutchinson thought I could rear just as good 

 queens artificially as are reared under the swarming-fever, 

 but not better. I am ready to back up this statement by 

 sending one dozen queens to any prominent bee-keeper, and 

 put them against the same number of those reared at 

 swarming-time. If mine do not prove to be the better 

 queens, I will so acknowledge it. 



There are certain principles that must be followed in 



