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40th YEAR 



CHICAGO, ILL, DECEMBER 27, 1900, 



No. 52. 



I % Editorial. ^ ^ 



A Happy New Year wi- wish to every 

 one who reads the Anierkan Bee Journal. 

 Ves, and a happy New Century, too — tho, in 

 all probability, very few now living will see 

 the whole of the 20th century, wliich begins 

 with UIUI. 



Volume 40 of the American Bee Journal 

 closes with this number. It is getting old, 

 and, like ripe fruit, should be mellow and 

 sweet. We only hcipe that in its future years 

 it may be as great a help and lilessing to its 

 hosts of readers as it has been in all its past 

 years. If we shall be permitted to live, and 

 labor upon it, it will likely become better with 

 its increasing years. At least that will be our 

 aim. 



The Annual Index will be found in this 

 number. It will prove of innnense value to 

 all who have been wise enough to preserve 

 the weekly copies as they were received dur- 

 ing the year. While its preparation in- 

 volved no small amount of labor, it is also of 

 no small importance, as liy referring to it 

 every subject that one wishes to look up can 

 easily be found and reread. Those who have 

 not all the copies will be surprised, by reading 

 over the inde.v. to find how great has been the 

 variety of topics treated during this year in 

 the American Bee Journal. 



Getting Outside Sections Pilled. — 



It is well known that a super of sections will 

 not all be promptly finisht at the same time, 

 some of the outside sections l>eing still un- 

 sealed when the rest are fully completed. The 

 Pettit plan is devised to overcome this difli- 

 culty, and some practice returning the un- 

 finisht sections to the bees to have them com- 

 pleted. F. L. Thompson suggests a plan 

 which, altho he has not tried it, promises so 

 well that it may lie well worth considering, 

 lie says in the Progressive Bce-Keeper; 



Being very short of time this summer, and 

 sometimes of material. I used a number of 

 last year's sections, with more or less honey 

 in them, for the outside rows in a number of 

 supers in one yard, and noticed that in those 

 supers the bees, as a rule, coniniettved work on 

 the new sections in the rows next the outside 

 ones. They did not finish them sooner than 

 the center ones, but as soon, bo that I was 

 almost always enabled to handle supers in- 

 stead of sections in that yard, in such cases. 



Of course, such a means of arriving at the 

 result would hardly pay in ordinary circiun- 

 stances — it makes more supers of new sections 

 to handle, for one thing. But it suggests an 

 idea that may be worth while, that if iwovery 



thin permanent combs, one on each side, were 

 allowed to remain in each super thruout the 

 season, the bees in ordinarily strong colonies 

 would likely finish the outside rows soon 

 eniiugli to enable one to handle supers in- 

 stead of sections, just as well as if the combs 

 were thick, and the expenseof the honey thus 

 permanentlv invested, as it were, would be 

 slight. 



I have thought of laying a sheet of founda- 

 tion on an ordinary separator, warming it 

 sufliciently to attach it to the wood, then 

 cleating it with five half-inch cleats, and plac- 

 ing it outside of each outside row in T-supers 

 made slightly wider than usual. This would 

 give two permanent one-sixth inch combs 

 (after once being builtout) next the outside of 

 each super, and have the same effect as if the 

 two outside rows were honey-combs. I have 

 never tried it. 



Reducing the Swarming Habit. — 



Harry Lathrop, having mentioned in Glean- 

 ings in Bee-Culture that there was a notable 

 decrease in the amount of swarming by his 

 bees, he was urged to say just why he thought 

 there had been such decrease. He prefaces 

 his reply by saying that he has had in j'cars 

 no swarm from colonies workt exclusively for 

 extracted honey, and seems to suppose that 

 bee-keepers in general have no swarms from 

 such colonies. As to those workt for comb 

 honey, about one-third of them swarm in 

 good honey-years, but swarming is much 

 more troublesome in years when bees get just 

 enough to keep brood-rearing going with lit- 

 tle or no storing. His practice 'is to keep his 

 comb-honey colonies as busy in the sections 

 as possible, watch them closely, and give 

 storage-room as needed, removing the finisht 

 supers promptly. This being followed up 

 year after year results in tlie small numbers 

 mentioned, but he would expect the same re- 

 sults only after several years with colonies 

 which had been in the habit of sending out 

 two or three swarms every season. 



He quotes Frank McNay as agreeing with 

 him in the opinion that by proper manage- 

 ment bees can be made to lose their desire aud 

 tendency to swarm. The following very em- 

 phatic testimony is quoted as coming from 

 Mr. McNay: 



He related how at one time he purchast a 

 good-sized apiary from a farmer, and workt 

 them the same as he did his other yards, but 

 was surprised to find these bees easting 

 swarms right along, while there was none in 

 the other apiaries. In apiaries of bees that he 

 has owned and operated for a number of 

 years he has so little swarming that it is not 

 necessary to keep any one in on the watch. 



All of which is very encouraging to those 

 who are making effort by way of selection to 

 oljtain bees with little tendency to swarm. It 

 can hardly be repeated too often or too em- 

 phatically, that it lies within the power of 

 every bee-keeper to work for results in this 

 line. No great amount of skill or knowledge 

 is required to discourage those conditions that 



are known, to favor swarming, and then to 

 breed from stock the freest from the habit of 

 swarming. The man who does this need wait 

 no long series of years for his reward. Im- 

 mediate results will be obtained in the in- 

 crease of the honey crop, for it seems now to 

 be pretty well agreed that non-swarming an<l 

 good gathering keep very close company. The 

 fact can not be disputed that there is now a 

 great difference in bees as to the tendency to 

 swarm. Can it be reasonably questioned that 

 if care be taken each year to breed from those 

 least given to swarming, the habit will each 

 year grow less and less ? 



The Bee-Keeper of Limited Means 



has his case diagnosed in the Progressive Bee- 

 Keeper by R. C. Aikin. He says: 



There is almost a necessity that a poor man 

 — one with little or no capital to push a busi- 

 ness in a special and wholesale way — should 

 engage in several lines. Competition is sharp, 

 and the man who has hundreds of colonies of 

 bees, and an equipment in proportion with all 

 the faculties to handle them, can produce 

 cheaper than the man with a few colonies. A 

 man with ten colonies of bees, a few dozen 

 hens, two or three pigs, a cow, a horse, fruit 

 and a vegetable garden, and above all owiiimj 

 these thint/s. can live and be comfortable in a 

 modest way, but can not well lay up money. 

 The man with his himdreds of colonies, and 

 •selling at a given i)rice, will make more 

 money per colony from his ajuaries than will 

 the man with the few. Then with the garden, 

 fruit and other things in a small way, he has 

 advantage of the man with limited means. 



But what will the poor man do if he can not 

 compete with his well-to-do neighbor ; Select 

 some one thing that he will push as a spe- 

 cialty, keep that thing growing as he is able, 

 and all the while hold fast to the other side 

 issues and helps that go far toward supiiort- 

 ing the family. Do the specialty well, push 

 to the front, and let no one excel you in it, 

 and keep the other things going in good 

 shape, too, even tho limited. 



Mr. Aikin is a careful writer and a fair man, 

 but some of his views in the foregoing may 

 bear scrutiny. Because a poor man is not 

 able to compete with the man who has his 

 hundreds of colonies, he is advised to divide 

 his forces and " engage in several lines." If 

 the man with many colonies can do better be- 

 aiHse of his mauy colonies, will it not be true 

 that the more the poor man has the better he 

 can do ? So why divide his forces, unless it 

 be that by so doing he may have something 

 more reliable '. And therein lies the gist of 

 the matter. Bee-keeping is an uncertain busi- 

 ness — the fact may as well be faced — and the 

 man of limited means dare not safely trust his 

 all to it. But to numy it is a very desirable 

 business. Taking together its desirability and 

 its uncertainty, Mr. Aikin's advice is good ; at 

 least with a little modification : Do not trust 

 your all to such an uncertain business as bee- 

 keeping, but if you have along with it the 



