762 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Nov. 2. 1905 



The 



' Old Reliable " seen through New and Unreliable tilasssk,. 

 By E. E. Hasty, St». B. Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



Gathering Nectar Long Distances. 



Conclusive evidence that a ton of honey 

 was gathered 5 nailes away would be well 

 worth our consideralion. That which C. M. 

 Tarr gives on page 652, approximates it some- 

 what, but without being quite what juries re- 

 quire to hang a man by. Possible that they 

 got enough buckwheat from the 4acre field 

 to flavor decidedly nearly a ton of afternoon 

 honey, not buckwheat at all — and not a bee 

 going to the 5-mile fields at all. 



Mr. Blunk and His Apiart. 



How grand, gloomy, peculiar and solitary 

 Mr. Blunk looks in his apiary 1 And gentle- 

 TQen galore in white bosoms look on afar off — 

 to do him sufficient reverence — or to see him 

 get stung. 



In marching a whole apiary at once, little 

 by little, <i la Blunk, I once had occasion to 

 see chat the rear rank soon comes to have 

 many more flying bees than the front rank, 

 ■even with care and slow progress. Pages 657 

 and 663. 



A National Advertising Committee. 



A separate fund for advertising, adminis- 

 "tered by a committee subject to the National 

 Association, seems an excellent plan — pro- 

 vided the scheme that at present has the floor 

 actually needs mending or supplementing. 

 Page 662. 



A Point on Deeper Section-Cases; 



Excellent! Don't have cases so scant in 

 height that a few sections can by any possi- 

 bility have to bear the weight of a whole stack 

 ibove. Crushes things — and crushing, even 

 if limited to a small fraction of an inch, is 

 very bad medicine. Covers and walls should 

 carry the weight. Page 662. 



What More the National Association 

 Should Do. 



Wrestling with the question, What more 

 shall the Association do? the experts go in. 

 Almost half — ISoutof 2" — do not advise ad- 

 vertising; 7 out of 27 do advise it; and the 

 other 7 use language that can be construed to 

 favor it. Warfare against adulteration is ad- 

 vised by 12 out of 27. Only 4 come out flat- 

 footed for helping members sell their honey ; 

 but 3 more talk in that direction. Although 

 alone in his class, I think McEvoy gives the 

 prize answer — because he advises an inside 

 rather than an outside work, getting bee- 

 lieepers to ripen their extracted honey better, 



and so offer the public a better article. We 

 read something about beginning at the house 

 of God — and surely those who start out to set 

 a wrong world right should take an early 

 opportunity to attack scandalous wrongs 

 among themselves— clear up our own door- 

 yard, and t/ien get after other folks. Page 662. 



Number op Bees to Store a Pound op 

 Honey. 



The motto, "Keep all colonies strong," 

 which Doolittle quotes and queries about on 

 page 663, merely needs to be annotated a lit- 

 tle. Very valuable within proper limits. (Put 

 it negativels — never let a colony get below 

 10,000 if you can help it.) Preserve the dif- 

 ference between "strong" and "extra- 

 strong." There are times when it is rather a 

 waste for a colony to be extra-strong. But 

 also there are times when none but extra- 

 strong colonies will give you any surplus 

 worth mentioning. 



Single bee thought capable of bringing in, 

 in the course of its life, an ounce of nectar, 

 and this the equivalent of a third of an ounce 

 of honey. This allows 48 bees to store a 

 pound. I think we have as yet very few such 

 estimates to lay our hands on. It forced to 

 guess, without time to hunt data and figure 

 on them, I should have guessed much less. 

 Don't want to object exactly to the Doolittle 

 estimate, but suggest that it should be con- 

 sidered merely a rare maximum, or theoreti- 

 cal possibility. A 6-pound swarm numbers 

 26,400 bees. Let's hive them on empty combs 

 and reckon with them 45 days after (when the 

 last of them die). All have their 27 days of 

 field-work in front of them except say one- 

 quarter (6600 bees) which have already worked 

 a-field, some more some less, but the average 

 not so much as 13V^ days. So from the 26,400 

 subtract 3300 to even this up, and we have 

 left 23,100 bees. But the 38th day after hiv- 

 ing, lOOO additional bees go a-field; and they 

 work S days before our 45 day period is out. 

 The 39th day 2000 more go ; and they work 7 

 days. So on to the end. Thes^e finality addi- 

 tions fiuure the same as 2370 bee-lifetimes. 

 Add 2370 to 2.'<, 100 and our real number to 

 figure on is 25,470. At 48 bees to the pound 

 these bring in .530 pounds. We will allow 

 them to use up I'V pounds per day for the 45 

 days (total, 66 pounds), and look to find 464 

 pounds of honey in the hive. Manifestly this 

 is four times as much as we are to expect in 

 any ordinary circumstances. So, as a standard, 

 it would be more sane to say 200 bees to store 

 a pound — and this desirable standard rather 

 seldom reached. 



®ur Bee Kcepincj Sisters 



=\ 



Conducted by Emma M. Wilson, Marengo, 111. 



J' 



"Woman in Industry" 



The daily papers tell us that Congress is to 

 be asked tu authorize a thorough investiga- 

 tion upon the general subject of " woman in 

 industry," and as the strenuous individual 

 who at present holds with no lax hands the 

 reins of Government, " is said to have been 

 ■consulted and to have expressed warm sym- 

 pathy with the project," it is quite possible 

 that something may be doi ug in that direction. 



Now the question Ie as to just how much 

 that is going to affect us of the bee-keeping 

 sisterhood. Is a congressional committee 

 likely to swoop down upon us any day, or are 



we to have due notice of its coming in ad 

 Vance, so that we may do some special pick 

 ing up, and have all trim and tidy in our 

 yards? And will the said committee come 

 provided in advance with bee-veils, or are the 

 sisters expected to furnish them? 



We are told that of the 5,320,000 women of 

 10 years or over engaged in "gainful occupa- 

 tions "in the United States in 1900,980,025 

 were credited to agricultural pursuits. Won- 

 der how many of that number were set down 

 as bee-keepers. And how many colonies of 

 bees should be in the care of one of the sis- 

 ters to take her out of the list of " domestic 

 and personal service" (there were 2,099,165 

 of that class) and put her in the list of agri- 



cultural pursuers * A single colony would 

 hardly justify changing the label on a sister; 

 100 colonies certainly would; but where is the 

 line? 



Perhaps it may be well to wait till those in- 

 vestigators, or inquisitors, or whatever they 

 may be, shall get around. 



" Touch Not, Taste Not, Handle Not" 



On page 720, Mr. Hasty objects to that 

 sugar-water summer drink with only 2 ounces 

 of honey in it. All right, Mr. Hasty, let's 

 strike out the sugar altogether and substitute 

 3 pounds of honey instead, and make a better 

 drink of it. 



Now as to the really serious objection — the 

 "drunk " in it. Is it really true that there is 

 any more alcohol in it than in any effervescing 

 summer drink? We don't want to go so far 

 as to object to yea.'t in bread. However, if 

 there is the least danger in that direction, by 

 all means let's have nothing to do with it. 

 Goodness knows, we sisters don't want to 

 advocate anything to help the saloon business. 



Summer's Obsequies 



The gentian weaves her fringes, 



The maple's loom is red. 

 My departing blossoms 



Obviate parade. 



A brief but patient illness, 



An hour to prepare ; 

 And one beloved this morning, 



Is where the angels are. 



It was a short procession — 



The bobolink was there, 

 An aged bee addressed us. 



And then we knelt in prayer. 



We trust that she was willing — 



We ask that she may be. 

 Summer, sister, seraph. 



Let us go with thee ! 



In the name of the bee, 

 And of the butterfly. 

 And of the breeze— Amen ! 



—Emily Dickinson. 



Dark Honey for Spring Feeding- 

 Color of Beeswax 



I just want to tell Mr. Hasty that he is wel- 

 come to regard it as proof that " Great minds 

 run in the same channel " — the fact that two 

 of his "Afterthoughts" came to me also in 

 reading the recent copies of the Bee Journal. 



I thought that the matter of having plenty 

 of dark honey for spring use in the brood- 

 chamber might be overdone, though likely it 

 seldom is. For myself, it I found it desirable 

 to feed just before the white honey came 

 freely, I would prefer good sugar syrup, and 

 regard a trace of it in the supers as less ob- 

 jectionable than old, dark honev. Doubtless 

 the advice was meant to cover earlier feeding 

 in advance of fruit-bloom. In that case, it is 

 good advice for the sniall-hitie men. Those 

 with large hives well filled in the fall would 

 surely have less of that kind of work to do. 



The other " thought " I had that jibed with 

 Mr, Hasty's, was anent the color of beeswax. 

 I thought Mr. Dadant's statement that all new 

 wax is tiihite a remarkable one. I thought that 

 possibly he meant muliseolored, or cleaji in- 

 stead of white, as he was talking of travel- 

 stain in that connection. 



With me, the color of freshly-built comb — 

 where there is no admixture of old wax — 

 ranges from the snowy through various 

 shades of cream to what might be termed 

 straw color or yellow. I had not thought of 

 the reason for the difference, and am not pre- 

 pared to accept Mr. Hasty's view of the mat- 

 ter. I set it down simply as an idiosyncrasy. 

 It seems to me that is a good deal easier. 



My sympathies are with the man looking for 



a location. He wants advice from some one 



who could give it to him without having at 



i the same time ' an ax to grind." If the edi- 



