March 30, 1905. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



249 



cheapest possible meat. We know that. We also know that the 

 Meat Trust of the United States is a gang of high-handed and abomin- 

 able robbers — robbers that rob those who raise the cattle on the one 

 hand, and rob those who eat the meat on the other hand— robbers that 

 fix prices— and fix them not on reason, nor right, nor natural laws, 

 but on a. /?<i^ as impudent as the Czar's. Most other trusts differ only 

 in degree. By the way, there isn't any Meat Trust. We know that. 

 And we are ready, and waiting; to hear, that there isn't any trust 

 among bee-manufacturers. It is one of the commonest characteristics 

 of this particular evil genus to deny their own existence. When the 

 dog howls all night it means, in dog language, " There are no such 

 things as dogs." 



We must be getting almost ready now to put things together. We 

 were startled awhile ago to leara that those who wrote to different 

 firms for prices on lots of bee-supplies got in reply identical figures I 

 Hcce Rex ! There she am ! No more to be said. No place for argu- 

 ment. No place for anything but the searching question, What are 

 we going to do about it? What — if anything? Sad that a "decent 

 regard for the opinions of mankind " did not keep our purveyors from 

 this step — but it did not, it seems. Sad that it did not occur to them : 

 We serve a select body of men ; we should therefore be a little select 

 in our methods. We did think that there were men among them that 

 were willing to stand in the blaze of publicity as model men. We 

 thought that some of them shrank from appearances of evil — shrank 

 from them personally, and, more than that, shrank from them in a 

 Christian sort of way — seeing we are taught to avoid the appearance 

 of evil. That we were mistaken in this came to us as a sorrow and a 

 blow. They are willing, it seems, for some prospective profits (when 

 profits were already good) to take a position which necessarily renders 

 them a sort of stench in the nostrils of mankind. Sorry ! Very sorry ! 

 If we had not greater things to be sorry for we should be sorry that 

 they threw away such an opportunity as they had — the opportunily of 

 illustrating to the bigger bears how a spirit of live and let live, resting 

 on the public sentiment and public reasonableness of an enlightened 

 patronage can make it unnecessary to form a trust. Well, the onus of 

 the wliole thing is not that certain goods may be offered to ua a little too 

 high. That's not it. Scotch that false idea whenever it pops up. It's 

 the discovery of a yoke for our necks that we didn't know of before. 

 It's the compulsory facing of the problem : Shall we go quietly on in 

 a sort of semi-bondage, or shall we do something about it and break 

 the bonds? — and shall the State Seal of Virginia furnish us with the 

 model for a tableau? On one thing I shouldn't wonder if we were 

 already near unanimity. It's well settled that " Faithful are the 

 wounds of a friend" — we'll make them realize what an awful lot of 

 friends they have, and what phenomenally faithful friends they be. 



E. E. Hastt. 



[The foregoing was really intended as a private letter to us, liut 

 we have Mr. Hasty's permission to publish it. — Editor.] 



Doctor ITIillcr's 

 Question -- ^ox 



=/ 



Send Questions either to the office of the American Bee Journal, 

 or to Dr. 0. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 



Management with a Queenless Colony 



1. I have a queenless colony. I took a frame of brood and eggs 

 from another colony and gave to it. The bees will rear another queen, 

 I suppose, but she can not be fertilized now, and what will be the 

 result! 



2. How would you manage a queenless colony at this time of year, 

 when no queens are to be had ? Missouri. 



Answers. — 1. To answer your question in very few words, any 

 queen reared from brood given before the middle of March, as far 

 north as central Missouri, will in 9 cases out of 10 be only a damage. 



2. One way is to give it a queen as early as you can buy one. 

 Another, and perhaps a better, is to distribute its bees and combs 



among other colonies. 



.*-.-»- 



Italianizing! Bees 



I have 4 colonies of brown bees which I wish to Italianize the 

 coming season. 



1. When is the best time to introduce the new queens ? Should it 

 not be early enough to secure Italian drones? 



2. When I remove the old queens can I not also remove a frame 

 of brood, honey and bees with her to an empty hive, forming a nucleus? 

 Then if anything happened to a new queen I could return the«ld one 

 again. Would not the nucleus keep growing until I could later in 

 the season requeen with an Italian queen, or cell reared from the new 

 queens, thus utilizing the brown queens during the breeding season, 

 to some extent? New Yorker. 



Answers.— 1. It would be a nice thing to have the new queens 

 installed verv early; yet on the whole it is an open question whether 

 it's best to get the queens early or later. Very early queens cost more, 



and there is more danger introducing than in harvest time. The drone 

 part is not so important, for the probability is that your queens will 

 mate with drones from surrounding apiaries. 



2 Yes, your scheme is all right. And don't be worried if you 

 don't get all Italian blood in one season. If yoa do it in 5 you 11 do 

 well. 



Transferring Bees 



I bought 10 colonies of bees in hives that are square. I want to 

 transfer them into the regular-size frame hives. 



Will it do simply to remove the combs from the old frames 

 which would not fill the new frames in length, or would it be better to 

 fill the new frames completely by cutting the pieces to fit! 



Missouri. 



Answer.— Better fill frames entirely; otherwise the bees will be 

 likely to fill out with drone-comb. In cutting pieces to fill out, it may 

 be convenient to remember that it is not really necessary to have them 

 the same way up and down that they were. 



Feeding Bees 



Clipping ttueens-Uslng 

 Bees Died 



Hives in Which 



1 Is it safe and right to feed bees honey that has soured? 



2. So much is said about clipping queens in the spring that one 

 might think that it had to be done for each colony every spring. Uoes 

 not the clipped queen live for several years, as a rule? 



3 When a colony is winter-killed, and the hive is filled with conab 

 and considerable honey, can not the hive with its comb and honey be 

 used to advantage for a new colony? If necessary to cleanse it, how 

 should it be done? . ,, ,. ,. „, 



4 Are all Italian bees " red clover " bees, or is there a distinct 

 kind especially adapted to gathering honey from red clover? 



Answers.- 1. Yes, if fed in the spring at a time when bees are 

 flying daily, and at a time when there is no danger of its going into 



^""■Pj" Ygg but the safe way is to look for her each spring, or at least 

 before swarming-time, lest she may have been superseded and a suc- 

 cessor with whole wings be present. It sometimes happens that a 

 queen is superseded before she is a year old. 



3 Yes indeed. Usually the bees will do the necessary cleansing, 

 but you should brush out all the dead bees, and if any of the combs 

 are very foul withhold them till after the bees have occupied the hive 

 for a day or two, and give only one or two a day. 



4 There's nothing very distinct about it. Bees that will work on 

 red clover are called '• red clover " bees, whether Italian or not. 



. <4 • *• 



Transferring Bees 



Will you please tell me how to transfer bees from one hive to 

 another? The hive they are in is poor, and X would like to get them 

 into one with 9 frames. Illinois. 



Answer— Just exactly how it should be done, provided the bees 

 are now in a frame hive, depends upon the size of the frame now in 

 use compared with the one to which you wish to transfer them. If 

 the frame is shallower than the old one, you will cut down the comb 

 so as to make it the right depoh. If the new frame is deeper, put the 

 comb in, and then cut pieces to wedge in on top. Or, which may be 

 more easily managed, turn the comb so the present top and bottom 

 may be at the sides, and then cut the comb just deep enough to go in 

 the frame. Before taking out the first frame from the old hive, have 

 an empty frame ready for it. Lay some strings on a table or some- 

 thing of the kind, on these strings lay the empty frame, then after 

 putting in the comb tie the strings. Of course the strings must be 

 laid in such a way that they will be distributed along the length of 

 the frame, perhaps 6 or more of them, each string independent of the 

 others. When you take out the first frame, brush the bees from it 

 before cutting, and put it in its hive after tying. Then move the old 

 hive from the stand and put the new one in its place, and after that 

 brush the bees into the new hive each time you take out another 



"^^Tt'is iust possible that the old hive is a box-hive without any 

 frames. In that case it maybe better for you to wait till the bees 

 swarm, hive the swarm in the new hive, then 21 days later cut the 

 contents out of the old hive. In the meantime it wi 1 pay JO" bf '» 

 buy a bee-book to tell you more about this and a whole lot of other 

 things. ^ _ ^ 



Keeping Bees on Shares 



1 have an opportunity to get some bees on shares. The other man 

 is to furnish the hives, supers, and bees, and I am t.<;.'""'°'s^^'^f^*°" 

 tions and take care of them. They are in good condition. What pro- 

 portion ought I to have? ^°^^ *• 



Answer —That's a very hard question to answer. If you are an 

 expert with bees, giving them close attention, you ought to have a 

 much larger share' than the one who knows little about the business 

 and does little at it. So your share may vary from k.to Jj- «e"fj»"y 

 speaking, keeping bees on shares is not the most satisfactory thing in 

 the world. 



