Published IfVeekly at Sl.OO a Tear by CSeorg^e 1^. York A, Co., 334 Dearborn St. 



Entered at the Foet-Office at Chicago as Second-Class Mail-Matter. 



QBORQE W. YORK, Bdltor. 



CHICAGO, ILL, JAN. 5, 1905. 



VoL XLV.— No, 1. 



=\ 



(Sbitorial Hotes 

 anb Comments 



=/ 



Volume Forty-Five — 1905. 



Tills weeli begins Volume XLV. How tlie years and 

 tiie volumes of tlie American Bee Journal are piling up ! It 

 will soon be a half-century since it began to be. And some 

 of its readers are growing old, but most are simply growing 

 older. Several of the faithful for many years have lately 

 written us that they are " too old to care for the bees any 

 longer ", and so " must also stop taking the old American 

 Bee Journal ". There is a touch of sadness in all this. And 

 yet a note of joy, too. These dear old readers have been as 

 faithful as their bees throughout all the passing decades, 

 and no doubt will be ready to depart in a few more years for 

 that Better Country 



" the Heaven of rest 



That lieth just over the wall by the tree 

 Where the summer-kist apples are best", 



as runneth the song, "The Hum of the Bees in the Apple- 

 Tree Bloom ". 



Midwinter Flights for Cellared Bees. 



There are still questions about wintering in the North 

 that will not down. One of them that was somewhat gen- 

 erally considered settled has been lately opened up again 

 by the assertion of Editor Root, that there is a real gain to 

 take bees out of the cellar in February or March on a warm 

 day, and return them after a flight. H. R. Boardman, 

 whose view is given in the last part of his article on page 

 495, may be said to represent the iliajority. Let us compare 

 their testimony : 



Mr. Root says in Gleanings in Bee-Culture: "While 

 the bees prior to removal were uneasy, they became per- 

 fectly quiet after being put back, and continued so for sev- 

 eral weeks after ". 



Mr. Boardman says : " I used to think it necessary, for 

 the welfare of the bees, to set them out for a flight during 

 the winter, but I now prefe* to have them remain in until 

 they are set out to stay ". 



Not entirely conclusive in either case. Granting the 

 truth of what Mr. Root says, is it certain that the bees 

 would not have been as well ofi^ at the beginning of the 

 harvest if left in the cellar till taken out for good ? 



We might do some reasoning on the case. If midwinter 

 flights are a good thing for outdoor bees, as all agree, why 



not for cellared bees 7 If bees are stirred up to brood-rear- 

 ing by being taken out, will not that be a damage to them 

 when returned ? 



But a mile of such reasoning, or rather questioning, is 

 not worth an inch of good, solid testimony from the bees 

 themselves. That testimony ought not to be hard to ob- 

 tain. When a day warm enough comes in February or 

 March, let part of the bees be taken out of the cellar for a 

 flight, and then returned. Let this be done by a hundred 

 bee-keepers or more ; let them note the difiference between 

 the bees taken out and those left ; let them report, and all 

 the reports taken together ought to give us something a 

 little more reliable than we have had on which to base aa 

 opinion. Will you try it and report ? 



Kerosene for Driving Bees. 



Driving bees out of a super by laying over the super a 

 cloth wrung out of a solution of carbolic acid seems to be 

 much more in favor among our British cousins than in this 

 country. Chas. U. T. Burke says this in the Australasian 

 Bee-Keeper : 



" I find more efi'ective a cloth wrung out as dry as pos- 

 sible with kerosene, and placed on top of the frames will 

 hunt every bee out of the supers, and if you are not careful, 

 will hunt the bees clean out of the hives. Be careful and 

 do not let the kerosene cloth remain on for more than a 

 minute at most — 30 seconds is quite long enough. The 

 moment this cloth is put on, you hear a buzz, and away go 

 the bees helter-skelter down below, and you can remove as 

 many supers as you like away to your extracting room, and 

 rarely a bee will be found in them." 



We should think it very important to be exceedingly 

 brief in this operation, else the honey might take on the 

 odor of the kerosene. 



Why Do They Lie So About Bees? 



H. S. Spence sends the following clipping, which for 

 magnitude in the Ananias-and-Sapphira line is well entitled 

 to the blue ribbon : 



QUEEN-BEES WORTH $200. 



Just as there are valuable strains in horses, cattle, and 

 other stock, so there are varieties of queen-bees which are 

 worth many hundred times their weight in gold. The most 

 valuable strain is the Italian, and many Italian bee-farmers 

 demand and receive without question prices ranging from 

 $50 to $200 for a single queen-bee of a certain kind. Such 

 bees are sent all over the world. The owner of a bee-farm 

 near Ottawa, Canada, goes to Europe annually and brings 

 back with him bees of an aggregate value of thousands of 

 pounds. He is enabled through the agency of an Italian 

 firm to efi'ect an insurance upon the most valuable of his 

 queens. — New York Herald. 



Along with the clipping Mr. Spence sends the following 



5.7.?^)^ 



