Oct. 11, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE IOURNA«» 



645 



Convention Proceedings. | 



Report of the Proceeding's of the 31st Annual 



Convention of the National Bee-Keepers' 



Association, held at Chicago, III., 



Aug-. 28, 29 and 30, 1900. 



BY DK. A. B. MASON, SBC. 



[Continued from pap-e632.) 



After a short intermission, the convention was again 

 called to order by Pres. Root, and Miss Ethel Acklin de- 

 lighted the delegates with a song. 



Mr. N. E. France moved as follows : As there is a great 

 difference in score cards in judging bees, honey, and sup- 

 plies at the fairs of our land, I move that this National Bee- 

 Keepers' Association appoint a committee of three to con- 

 sider the matter and report on the same before we adjourn. 



The motion was seconded and carried. 



THE MAILING AND REARING OF QUBEN-BBKS. 



Pres. Root — Is there anything further before we renew 

 the discussion on Mrs. Acklin's paper, the rearing of 

 queens? Where we left off was whether queens are injured 

 in transmission thru the mails, and whether we should rear 

 our own queens or buy them. You may not care to go on 

 with that, but I simply tell you where we left oft'. 



Dr. Mason — Queens are injured in the mail, or else 

 those who have sent me queens have defrauded me, and 

 that I don't believe, because I have gotten them from Root, 

 Dadant, Hutchinson and Doolittle, and I don't believe I 

 have been defrauded by any one of them : I believe the 

 queens are injured in the mails. 



H. F. Moore — I can think of one instance where they 

 may be injured. At my station the mail train goes by at 

 40 miles an hour, and the mail-bags are thrown off at that 

 speed against a shanty. I am satisfied a queen would not 

 be worth very much after passing thru that ordeal. 



E. Kretchmer — I know of one instance where every bee 

 in the cage was killed by being thrown from a rapidly 

 passing train. 



Pres. Root — Are you sure it was from the concussion 

 they received, or was it from some other cause ? 



Mr. Kretchmer — They had not been in the mail-bag 

 more than 10 to IS minutes. 



Mr. Poppleton — I have quit ordering bees thru the mail 

 entirely. 



Mr. Hutchinson — There is something else besides rough 

 treatment ; some of the very best queens I have had have 

 been sent a long distance by mail ; while the queens may 

 not apparently be injured, people report they are almost 

 worthless, and superseded in a very short time. There is 

 something about putting them in a little cage and sending 

 them away in the hight of the season that seems to weaken 

 their laying powers. 



Mr. France — I have noticed over the State of Wisconsin 

 this year more than usual that specially tested laying 

 queens were the ones that complaint was brought about, 

 and I think the sending of a laying queen by mail is a detri- 

 ment to her. 



Frank Coverdale — I received 50 queens in one batch 

 from Texas, about two years ago, and all were introduced 

 safely without the loss of one, but two smothered to death, 

 which might have happened in Mr. Kretchmer's case ; the^' 

 might have been smothered instead of being killed in the 

 mail. All those queens came thru as perfectly as if I had 

 reared them myself. That is a pretty big batch. 



Dr. Mason — How do you know they were smothered ? 



Mr. Coverdale — I watcht them smother. 



A Member — What did you let them smother for ? 



Dr. Mason — Did they smother after they got to your 

 place ? 



Mr. Coverdale — The weather was very hot ; I had to 

 get them down cellar in a hurry. 



Mr. Abbott — It strikes me we are getting too much on 

 one side of the question. We are giving the impression 

 that it isn't safe to send queens thru the mail at all; that 

 isn't doing justice to our queen-breeders. I have been get- 

 ting queens thru the mails for 13 or 14 years, and I have 

 never had an instance of a queen being injured in the mails. 



excepting on one occasion where all the bees and the queen 

 were dead ; how that came about I am not able to tell ; of 

 course, they may have been killed in the mails. A great 

 many times they are killed, I know, by bad handling 

 before they reach the mails as many times as they are in 

 the mails. A few years ago I was getting queens from the 

 Old Country ; while Mr. Benton was in the East he sent 

 me a number of cjueens from the Island of Cyprus, and if I 

 am not mistaken some came from Jerusalem, and only two 

 or three of all the queens that were sent over were dead, 

 and they died on the way. Those queens were, so far as I 

 could see, just as good as tho I had reared them in my own 

 yard. I think we are doing the queen-breeders a little in- 

 justice when we empha.size the fact too much that they are 

 injured in the mail. You may break your leg walking 

 down a slippery street ; you don't always do it. If you see 

 your neighbor walking down and he does it, you don't stop 

 on that account. There were four men in our city killed 

 with electric wires in four weeks, yet the men go right up 

 the places where the others went, and go on with the work 

 as tho nobody had fallen and was killed ; it doesn't neces- 

 sarily follow that because one man took hold of the 

 wrong wire and got more electricity than he could 

 stand, that the next man will do it. It doesn't necessarily 

 follow that because a few bees are injured in the mails the 

 rest will be injured. I believe I get as good queens to send 

 out to my customers as tho they had been reared in their 

 own apiaries ; and on very many occasions I believe they 

 are a great deal better, because the people from whom I get 

 them know better how to rear them than I do, or the people 

 to whom they are sent. There are a whole lot of things to 

 know. I don't know anything about rearing good queens. 

 A man askt me about foul brood ; I don't know anything 

 about it. If you will ask me about Belgian hares, I can tell 

 you, but I don't know anything about the diseases of bees, 

 i believe in giving the fellow that does know how every 

 possible chance, and don't let us kill his business by creat- 

 ing the impression that you can't transmit bees in the mail. 



Dr. Mason — I don't see that we are doing the queen- 

 breeders any more injury when we say we have failed to ^ 

 get good queens thru the mails than we are giving all the 

 people of St. Joseph unjust consideration because four of 

 them got killed by lightning ; there is just as much justice 

 in blaming those fellows for getting killed as there is in 

 blaming queen-breeders for the injury to queens in the 

 mails. I don't blame Mr. Root for sending me a queen that 

 proved to be a poor one. I feel sure he sent me a good one : 

 something went wrong before she reacht me, and I believe 

 the mail was to blame for it. Like those men Mr. Abbott 

 speaks of in St. Joseph getting killed, the rest will go on 

 handling wires and we will go on ordering queens just the 

 same, I suppose. 



Pres. Root — There are other phases of the question 

 very interesting ; we ought to have our question-box very 

 soon. 



H. W Funk— I wish to ask Mrs. Acklin about what per- 

 cent of those cell-cups will be accepted when bees are not 

 gathering honey freely ? 



Mrs. Acklin— I hardly know what to say. I know this 

 year we have had a great deal of trouble in having the cells 

 accepted — more this year than ever before ; it was so very 

 dry in our part of the country the first of the season. I 

 should think anyway about 75 percent for a poor season. 



Mr. Funk — I have tried the system, and the bees accept 

 about 1 in 3, when there is no honey coming in. When 

 honey is coming in freely it works all right ; when honey 

 seems to be a failure the plan is pretty much a failure to 

 put in the cell cups direct. 



Mrs. Acklin — If you feed the colonies before you put 

 the cells in, you will succeed better. 



Mr. Funk —I have tried that to some extent with very 

 little difference, if any. 



Mrs. Acklin— It seems to make a difference with us. 



Pres. Root- It makes all the difference with us; we 

 can't do anything with getting cell-cups accepted unless we 

 feed a little every day ; feed them four or five days previous 

 to the time of giving the cell-cups. 



Dr. Mason— I want to ask Mr. France if he thought the 

 queens were as liable to be injured in the mail provided 

 they were caged and left a day or two before being shipt ? 



Mr. France — I think not. 



Dr. Mason — When I have ordered queens I have gen- 

 erally suggested to those I ordered from to cage them and 

 leave them a day or two before shipping. 



O. Li. Hershiser— It strikes me that we can not tell 

 whether they have been injured in the mails or not ; take 

 the class of untested queens that are shipt a very short 



