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AMERICAN BEE {OUSNAL. 



Oct. 4, 19(K). 



i » The Afterthought. * 



The "Old Reliable" seen thru New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. HASTY, Richards, Ohio. 



THAT BKK-HIVE INCUBATOR— OR HBNLKSS HATCHER. 



" The proof of the pudding- is in the eating," no doubt ; , 

 but even if it eats well we want more than a teaspoonful, 

 else we lose interest in the whole thing-. Many of us knew 

 that a few eggs carefullj' adjusted over a very strong colony 

 of bees could be hatcht, as an experiment ; but I imagine 

 that the commercial, business-like, right-straight-along in- 

 cubating of eggs b3' bee-heat will come to some of us as a 

 new revelation. Here we have it right before our ejes, and 

 16 top-story chicks out foraging their way in this queer 

 world, minus hen. And the dark man behind the hive 

 backs it with the assertion that he has been at it all the 

 spring, finds it satisfactory, not unreasonable in its de- 

 mands for care, and safe enough to trust SS.OO sittings to. 

 And now that old chestnut of a debating-society question 

 about who is the chicken's mother will need readjusting. 

 Which indeed? the queen ? or the workers? or the drones? 

 or the cushion ? or the Norton ? or the combination ? Per- 

 chance when we try to do the trick we shall smother the 

 prospective chicks for lack of air, else chill them by too 

 much of it. Better find out first what those cushions are 

 stuft with, as therein may lie the whole thing — pure air. 

 -without draft and its chills. Page S29. 



CAUSES OF SWARMING. 



Prof. Cook rather requests criticism, page 530, and he 

 may get all the " no, no I" chorus he wants on his funda- 

 mental proposition, " Bees are incited to swarm because of 

 something disturbing their peace." I shall not cry no, 

 however. I rather like the dictum — if you will only take it 

 in a sense sufficiently broad. Say the young man goes 

 West because of feelings disturbing his peace ; and say the 

 male of the herd jumps over the fence, according to his 

 well-known style, because of feelings disturbing his peace, 

 and then you may proceed to float the proposition in ques- 

 tion also. Yes, the disturbance can usually be more readily 

 pointed out in the bees' case than in the others. Blessed be 

 disturbance. It moved Budha until he renounced a throne. 

 It moved Paul to preach the gospel. It moved the Christ 

 until he volunteered the cross. But when it comes to the 

 swarming of bees we are a little inclined toward. Blessed be 

 /acX- of disturbance. If we only coi//d give them " Some- 

 thing to do, something to love, and something to hope for " 

 — that earthly heaven in a nutshell, without any disturb- 

 ance thrown in, we should be very glad. _j 



CD I'll consent to kick right lively against the Professor's 

 notion that bees swarm for lack of honey. Here, alighting 

 upon a certain effect he thinks it a cause. After a colony 

 has swarmed itself nearly to death there is usualh' very 

 little honey in the hive. Of course there are " famine 

 swarms ;" but it does not elucidate matters to jumble them 

 up with normal swarms, which are very different. I'll ob- 

 ject also to those words "jf ever," more than half vpay 

 down the last column. If they mean anything they 

 mean to suggest a doubt whether bees ever swarm 

 without long and careful preparation ; and I think a 

 leading bee-man should, at this late day, be ashamed to 

 encourage such a doubt as that. It is of decided interest 

 that Prof. Cook's experience is that a swarm when the 

 queen is left behind ustially clusters. A prevalent impres- 

 sion, at least among non-clippers, is that such a thing is 

 quite rare. 



EVAPOKATINC, OR RIPENING HONEY ARTIFICIALLY. CD 



c_- Hove to evaporate the superfluous water in honey with- 

 out having the aroma (which is much more volatile than 

 water) also evaporate, well, that, I sadly fear, is an insolu- 

 ble question. The bees themselves make a partial failure 

 of it ; and they will work it much nearer to success than 

 any one else can. Exposing in a shallow pan will certainly 

 let some aroma get away ; but what are you going to do ? 

 Artificial heat will do worse. And I doubt if the vacuum 

 pan would be any improvement in that respect. Earnest 

 determination not to have thin honey will suppress the most 

 of it. And when one does have it I guess that long expo- 

 sure in a deep storage, letting the water rise and pass off, 



while part of the aroma remains because down where it 

 can't evaporate, is about the best one can do. But look a 

 little out. Changes in the direction of spoiling may come 

 faster than ripening. The shallow pan in a hot, well ven- 

 tilated chamber may be the best sometimes, notwithstand- 

 ing loss of aroma. Who will notice aroma anyhow in a 

 honey which has begun to be slightly tart, and also begun 

 to have a mean taste, indescribable, but entirely unde- 

 niable ? 



OVERSTOCKING — AN ANTI-SWARM REMEDY. 



Deep entrances and selection in breeding will no doubt 

 help to some extent about undesirable swarming ; and so in 

 torrid climes (or torrid days in nominally temperate climes) 

 will double covers ; yet the suspicion forces itself upon my 

 mind that the real relief of H. L. Jones in Australia is the 

 same as mine here — overstocking of the location, that king of 

 anti-swarm remedies. It is quite desirable not to be fooled 

 in such a matter as this. Number of bees may remain sta- 

 tionary if the pasturage is half plowed up. Also the honey 

 supply need not be past if the pollen supply is over-reacht. 

 Page 536. 



AN EXTRA-EARLY FALL FASHION. 



And it's a new dress Miss Journie has, is it, and all to 

 make her look young? Faith, and does she think she can 

 hide the fact that she's comin' forty by a new dress? And 

 wasn't the ould dress as becomin' as any in town, sure ? 

 Why need she be worritin' the other girls and their spon- 

 sors by her extra-early fall fashions ? 



Don't you know I'm really queer on the subject of such 

 changes in the papers I read. (I don't know whether any 

 one else is affected that way or not.)*- It almost always 

 takes me awhile to get reconciled to the change so as to like 

 it even as well as the old style. Eventually I wonder at 

 myself, and wouldn't go back for anything. 



BEES AND BOYS. 



Bee-keeping for boys, to keep them on the farm, page 

 548. Well, it may work sometimes ; but usually when a 

 boy is old enough to keep bees his heart has already gone to 

 the city, or somewhere off the farm, and the remedy would 

 come too late. 'Spects it would work better if begun a 

 good deal earlier. At the place I call home are two boys 

 that call me " Uncle Em." One is five and the other seven. 

 Without any initiative of mine they long ago prest me to 

 the promise that I would give them some bees when they 

 got old enough. Two colonies to each it was to be. They 

 sagely consider that two colonies would be very much nicer 

 than one. This anticipation looks very big on their hori- 

 zon ; and they talk of it a great deal. They don't throw 

 dirt and clubs at the entrances of my hives fiow, at least not 

 exactly as they used to do. But they often run needless 

 risks of being stung on purpose to get themselves inured to 

 stings ; and a sting seldom swells much on them now. 

 They catch bees in hollyhocks, and hive them in fruit-cans 

 — or did till no more fruit-cans for breakage could be ob- 

 tained of mamma. It strikes me that we have here a 

 pointer as to how to make a bee-keeper if desirable to make 

 one. 



IMPRISONMENT OF NUCLEI. 



Anent the Somerford plan of nuclei I guess the damage 

 from imprisonment of the bees is less than it would be from 

 the desertions which elsewise occur ; also that making exit 

 difficult is better than making it impossible. But don't 

 forget to see that they have plenty of water poured into 

 empty comb. Page 548. 



A MIGHTY BUMP OP FAITH. 



My, how Rambler's bump of faith is developing ! He 

 sees a coming uncapping-machine that will uncap eight 

 combs a minute (whole apiary in an hour), and a self-puff- 

 ing smoker that will let the bee-man use both hands for 

 something else ! Page 551. 



" LOST SWAK.MS." 



On Wm. M. Whitney's problem, page 555, I'll guess the 

 swarm went vpithout clustering because they had been out 

 several times before, and came back unseen — last time only 

 the day before. A little later in point of time a wandering 

 swarm of small size entered the same hive — because it was 

 exhaling odor, and too much in a disturbance to fight. 

 Having now a queen that could fly (and plenty of practice), 

 the rest was easy as rolling off a log. In the common case 

 of swarm intrusion which lasts only over night, both 

 queens usually survive, I believe. 



