566 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Aug. 10, 1905 



A Queen Experience 



We sent a very fine yellow, selected un- 

 tested Italian queen to a bee-keeper in Wood- 

 bury Co., Iowa, on June 31, as a premium. 

 Tuesday, the 3.5lh, we received the following 

 letter from bim, dated .June 24, and also the 

 queen still alive : 



George W. York * Co. 



Dear tiirs .-—The Italian queen you sent 

 me arrived Saturday eve, but the wire was 

 mashed in, and in bad shape, and the bees 

 feeble, so I return you the queen by to-day's 

 mall. Toucan send me another one; but I 

 want a good one, and yellow one. 



Yours truly, . 



We at once wrote him that he should have 

 introduced the queen, and not have returned 

 her, as she doubtless would have turned out 

 all right. The wire on the cage was bent in 

 just a little, but that was nothing worth men- 

 tioning. If the liees accompanying the queen 

 seemed to be a little weak, that was no detri- 

 ment, as some bee-keepers destroy the bees 

 and cage that come with a queen, and intro- 

 duce the queen in another cage. This is done 



to prevent the possibility of also introducing 

 a contagious bee-disease. 



No queen-buyer is ever justified in return- 

 ing a queen that is received alive, as queen- 

 dealers only guarantee safe delivery, and then 

 sa<i5^nc'«'o«," provided the purchaser does his 

 part. Had the Iowa bee-keeper done his best 

 to use the fine queen we sent him, and she 

 had died in a day or two, or had not given 

 promise of being all right, we would gladly 

 have sent him another queen free. But to 

 return a queen that arrived safely, just be- 

 cause the cage-wire was bent in a little, and 

 the accompanying bees seemed to be weak 

 (all as a result of going through the mails), 

 is not the way to treat a queen-dealer or 

 breeder. We have had suflBcient experience 

 in the queen-selling business to know that 

 many of the complaints against queen dealers 

 are wholly unwarranted. Of course, some 

 complaints are entirely justifiable. But we 

 know of a number of queen-dealere who 

 would much rather give a customer a half 

 dozen queens than not to treat him fairly. 

 Queen-dealers have rights as well as do those 

 who buy queens, and when both parties to a 

 deal will act fairly there will be no occasion 

 for complaints. 



r 



ITTisccUaneous Hctps 3tem5 



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Baron H. De Blonay, a noted Swiss 

 bee-keeper who was also a civil engineer, died 

 June 9. He was the owner of the castle of 

 which Mr. C. P. Dadant gave a description 

 in the American Bee Journal on his return 

 from Europe. De Blonay was a very demo- 

 cratic man, and did not boast of his ancestry, 

 which dated back nearly 10 centuries. He 

 always signed his name " H. De Blonay, 

 Eng." He was quite a lover of the bees, and 

 a member of the Societe Romande d' Apicul- 

 ture. 



California Apiarian Experiment 



Station.— We take the following item from 

 the Kingsburg (Calif.) Recorder: 



The United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture has established a sub-station in the plant- 

 introduction garden at Chico, for investiga- 

 tions in apiculture. An apiary has been 

 established, and a specialty will be made of 

 the testing of honey-plants to be secured by 

 Frank Benton, of the Department, who is now 

 in India. Bee-diseases on the Pacific Coast 

 will be investigated, and experiments will be 

 made with the different varieties of bees, 

 among ihem the giant bees of India, and the 

 various specimens of the Philippines. The 

 apiary and substation at Chico is in charge of 

 John M. Kankin. 



the whole flock. In her hurry she dropped a 

 125 set of false teeth. The baby, left alone, 

 crawled through the spilled cream and into 

 the parlor, ruining a S20 carpet. During the 

 excitement the oldest daughter ran away with 

 the hired man, the dog broke up 11 sitting 

 hens, and the calves got out and chewed the 

 tails off of 4 fine shirts. — Corfu " Enterprise." 



J. H. Fitch, of Taylor Co., Iowa, made 

 this oflice a pleasant call last week. He is 72 

 years of age, and still takes a deep interest in 

 bees. 



Buy Your Own Paper.— B. F. Schmidt, 

 of Clayton Co., Iowa, sends us the following, 

 and suggests that ii might interest our 

 readers. But we feel I'lite sure that very 

 few, if any, of the readers of the American 

 Bee Journal borrow it from their neighbors: 



A man who was too economical to subscribe 

 for his home paper, sent his little boy to bor- 

 row the copy taken by his neighbor. In his 

 haste the boy ran over a -j; (lO colony of bees, 

 and in 11) minutes looked lihe a warty summer 

 squash. His cries reached his father, who 

 ran to his assistance, and failing to notice a 

 barbed-wire fence, run into it, lireaking it 

 down, cutting a hiindfu! of flesh from his 

 anatomy, and ruining u s.',.00 pair of pants. 

 The cow took advunta^'i.- of the gap in the 

 fence, and got into the cornfield and killed 

 herself eating green con:. Hearing the racket 

 the wife ran and upM;i a 4-galIon churn of 

 rich cream into a baskn oi kittens, drowning 



Wm. Duncan, of Dupage Co., 111., 

 dropped in to see us last week. He is a 

 banker, and says he has lots of fun with his 

 bees, as well as considerable profit from their 

 honey. 



The Michigan Bee-Keepers' Asso- 

 ciation is advertising the honey crop of its 

 members through the medium of a booklet. 

 This booklet has a crop report, which gives 

 the name and address of each member having 

 honey for sale, how much he has (comb and 

 extracted), and how put up. The booklet 

 also contains information regarding honey as 

 a food, care of honey, etc. They are to be 

 distributed among the honey consumers, and 

 large honey-buyers of the State and elsewhere. 

 If funds will permit, other advertising will 

 also be done outside of the booklet. The 

 plan has been tried one year, and was success- 

 ful enough to warrant a second attempt this 

 season. The Association extends a hearty 

 invitation to Michigan bee-keepers to join the 

 Association, and also asks them to send their 

 names and reports of their honey crop, and 

 the way it is put up, before Aug. 12, with 

 $1.00, and they will then get the benefit of 

 this year's advertising. The $1.00 will also 

 make each a member of the National Bee- 

 Keepers' Association with its benefits. Every 

 Michigan bee-keeper should at wire send his 

 (or her) name and address with $1.00 to the 

 acting secretary Elmore M. Hunt, Bell 

 Branch. Mich. 



"Combcb" anb 

 "(fxtmcteb" 



HONEY IN ANCIENT IRELAND. 



There was no sugar, and honey was greatly 

 valued ; bee-hives were kept everywhere ; and 

 tlie management of bees was considered such 

 an important industry that a special section 

 of the Brelion Laws is devoted to it. The 

 people used honey in a great many differ- 

 ent ways. They basted roasted meat with it; 

 it was used with salmon while cooking, and as 

 a seasoning willi all sorts of dishes. Often 

 at meals each person had a little dish some- 

 times of silver, filled witli honey, beside his 

 plate and each morsel, whether meat, fish, 

 or bread, was dipped into it before being con- 

 veyed to the nmutb. The people often mixed 

 honey with milk, either sweet or sour, for 

 drinking. From honey also was made a kind 

 of liquor called mead, very sweet and slightly 

 into.xicating. Tliis was considered a delica- 

 cy: and a visitor was often treated to a drink 

 of mead immediately on arrival. As bees were 

 so abundant, beeswax, as might be expected, 

 w as turned to account for lighting purposes. 

 In some of our old records we find wax 

 candles mentioned as being used in the houses 

 of the richer classes (in Dinnree for instance) 

 long before the fifth century. — From Joyce's 

 Ciiild's History of Ireland, in the Irish Bee- 

 Journal. 



ACREAGE OF ALFALFA NECESSARY FOR .'lO COLO- 

 NICS. 



How many acres of honey-plant are neces- 

 sary to take care of 100 colonies of bees ?" 



This being an alfalfa district, I thought it 

 would perhaps interest my fellow bee-keepers 

 to state my experience this summer, as the 

 above question has often put me to thinking 

 regarding pasturage. 



In partnership with my brother we had 

 79 colonies, spring count. The season was 

 at least three or four weeks late, having cold 

 nights accompanied with drizzling rains at in- 

 tervals throughout May until the middle of 

 June. By this time the alfalfa was starting 

 to bloom, "scattering." There were very few 

 stores in the hives, no brood-rearing to speak 

 of, as we have no blossoms to mention until 

 alfalfa comes on. On the 26th of June we 

 had two swarms come out which we had to 

 feed for a few days on account of a cold rain. 

 After then we had fine weather, and the bees 

 went to work with a will on the thousands of 

 acres of alfalfa surrounding us, which had a 

 purple cast by this time. By the middle of 

 July all the alfalfa was cut except^ a little 

 around ditches, etc., our own fields included, 

 and everything seemed to be at a standstill 

 in the apiary. Up to this time we had hived 

 48 swarms, making a total of 1S8 colonies. 

 There being very little sweet clover in bloom 

 we decided that the only surplus honey we 

 should get would be gathered on our own 

 farm: and having 30 acres or more of alfalfa, 

 we knew we could control that amount of 

 pasture, as other fields are generally cut when 

 coming in bloom, making better hay. When 

 the first cutting of alfalfa was all done we 

 had only 19 colonies working in the supers. 

 On the 5th of August we were putting on 

 another round of supers, honey coming in ga- 

 lore. That 30-acre field was a sight to be- 

 hold. From morning till night it was a con- 

 stant uproar. We stood there many times and 

 listened to the buzz overhead as they passed 

 to and fro, it doing us more good to know that 

 they had at last struck a land of plenty, and 

 we the satisfaction of knowing that we can 

 control to a certain extent our own pasture. 

 That alone amounts to us to more than the 

 loss in hay. 



Though only a novice of a few years' 

 experience in bee*keeping, my idea of suc- 

 cess in that line, "to be master of the :^itua- 

 tion," is to control as much as possible our 

 own pasture, and not depend on our neigh- 

 bors being delayed in cutting their fields of 

 bloom. We are not so fortunate as some bee- 

 keepers wiiere nature provides with plenty of 

 moisture and a constant honey-flow through- 

 out the season. A scarcity of water for irri- 

 gation means a scant honey crop; therefore, 

 profiting by this year's experience with alfalfa 

 we will try next year to regulate the bloom 

 so as to have a paradise for the bees through- 

 out the season. 



I am satisfied that 1.000 acres of honey- 

 plant isn't necessarv to take care of 100 colo- 

 nics of bees. We had aO colonies that stored from 

 three to six supers of honey, while the(>thers 

 fell below three supers.- — Ceo. J. Smith, of 

 Colorado, in Gleanings in Bee-Culture. 



