Nov. 9 1905 



IHt AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



775 



4- Contrtbutcb -f 

 Special drticlcs 



=\ 



Meeting Bee-Keepers at Fairs, Etc.— A Solu- 

 tion of the Question of High-Priced 

 Bee-Supplies 



BY F. GREINER 



TO meet the people who are engaged in the same business 

 we are, affords, to say the least, considerable pleasure, 

 and the beekeeper who does not from time to time mingh^ 

 with his brother bee-keepers misses a great deal, 1 dare say, 

 although in turn he often has to suffer great inconveniences 

 and hardships, for the great majority of men have queer ideas 

 of their rights and liberties, i. e., they disregard entirely the 

 rights and comforts of their fellow men, the women and the 

 children. Sellishness reigns supreme. This is sad but true. 

 I am unfortunately sensitive or susceptible to tobacco, and 

 always suffer untold misery when I come in contact with 

 smokers and chewers. 



There were gathered about the honey exhibit at the New 

 York State Fair a large circle of prominent honey-producers, 

 and the topics of the day were discussed. I failed to find one 

 who had joined The Honey-Producers' League. All seemed 

 to be rather shy of this new organization of honey-producers, 

 Ttiit/i the honey-producers left out .' 



High prices of bee-keepers* supplies was the universal 

 lamentation. Oue of the most extensive bee-keepers said : " It 

 is claimed that /don't kick on high prices, which Is true; but 

 the fact is, I never bought but one bee-hive of the manufac- 

 turers, which fact, however, is not mentioned." 



Another experienced old bee-keeper incidentally said : 

 " Manufacturers have gotten in a way of making bee-hives so 

 complicated that ordinary mortals with no elaborate ma- 

 chinery can make them." 



Here are two points which I wish to emphasize. In the 

 first place, if prices are really so high as to give an unduly 

 large profit to the manufacturer, why not follow the example 

 of our first-mentioned friend ? Why buy ? I am not sure 

 that our bee-supply manufacturers are making too large 

 profit. I never bought but 10 bee-hives and outsides for 100 

 supers, and those I considered I bought reasonably. Generally 

 I make my own hives ; this I have practiced for 30 years, and 

 shall continue it, although lumber is now up to $20 per 1000 

 feet 



I have of late been pricing gasoline engines, and find that 

 it would require the cash outlay of about $100 to rig up for 

 bee-hive making. I doubt if I myself am any more of a me- 

 chanic than the average bee-keeper, but I would say that I 

 can get up as good and serviceable a hive as any regular bee- 

 supply manufacturer, using a much more inferior outfit, with 

 the exception of the circular saw, than even the SlOO rigging 

 mentioned above. 



But — and now I am coming to the other point : My hives 

 are not of tliat complicated nature that the modern hives are 

 as sent out by the big factories. Let us review the history of 

 hive-making. 



When Langstroth made his first hive, all hive-parts were 

 cut off sijuare. This answered the purpose. The frames were 

 made as simple as they could well be made. The length of 

 top-bar required it to be made heavy, which again re(|uired its 

 being rabbeted at the ends. This rabbeting gave us, as an in- 

 cidental advantage, great rigidity of the frame, and consti- 

 tuted about the only difticnlty in hive-making. All other 

 work was cutting off square and nailing, ano some rip-sawing, 

 of course. Soon, however, hive-making was greatly improvecl. 

 The boards had to be mitered. With the help of an iron frami' 

 the 4 boards were held in shape till nailed. And not to forget, 

 1 must mention the beautiful but iindesirable bevel at top and 

 bottuin of the hives. It was a marvel to me, how it was pos- 

 sible to cut them so perfect that one would fit on the other : 

 also the tops, etc. I began to think that i might as well give 

 up the struggle of hive-making, but for some unaccountable 

 reason — perhapsobstinancy — I continued in my bungling way. 

 It was another complicated piece of business to get up a 

 chaff-hive of the older pattern, one requiring mechanical 

 skill to put it up. I refrained from following suit, and made 

 my own in a simple fashion. They are good to-dav. __: 



The dovetailed hive, Danzenbaker, etc, came last, and 

 the Hoffman-frame. I allowed my better judgment to run 

 away with that "desire" to be up to-date with the rest, and 

 the best, and so purchased 10 up-to-date hives with Hoffman- 

 frames, and 20 up-to date fence supers with plain sections. 

 This I have regretted ever since, although I believe I bought 

 them cheap. I greatly prefer the loose-hanging frame to any 

 other, be it closed-end or Hoffman. I have little use for fence 

 separators — plain separators suit me better. I would not even 

 to-day use plain sei'.tions, but use the bee-ways. I can handle 

 the plain just as well as the other, and I can save a little in 

 shipping-cases, etc., but the retailer spoils many a box of the 

 plain ones when he wouldn't spoil any of the bee-ways. 



■ In summing up I would say: If the (poor ?) honey-pro- 

 ducer does not wish to enrich the (rich ?) manufacturer, why 

 does he not go to work and make his own bee-hives? About 

 the only thing we will regularly have to buy of the manufac- 

 turer are the sections, if we are comb-honey producers, and 

 I doubt if he would become rich very fast at that business 

 even at the present high prices. 



Some bee-keepers use large quantities of comb foundation. 

 If I needed it very badly, and did not want to pay the present 

 high prices, I would make that myself. I find I can make a 

 good article for the brood-chamber. This is all that is needed. 

 It would be better if section comb foundation had never been 

 made. By its use very inferior comb honey is now produced. 

 I have produced tons of comb honey without it, not even using 

 it for starters, and can do so again, although it has been a 

 convenience to have it to use as starters. 



Ontario Co., N. Y. 



Black Bees— A Down-Trodden Race 



BV ALLEN LATHAM 



ONE can scarcely read through a single copy of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal without some slurring remark concern- 

 ing the black bee. From all sides one hears this race 

 derided and all other races lifted far above it ; even our good 

 Dr. Miller is forever telling his questioners to get Italian oees 

 if they wish to get rid of the wax-moth. Yet there is black 

 blood in Dr. Miller's own bees. 



I will not take the reader's time to explain the various 

 reasons for all this opposition to the black bee, but merely say 

 that it is a more or less unfounded prejudice. I doubt greatly 

 whether any one can demonstrate that the black bee is infe- 

 rior to the Italian in keeping out the moth. Any race will 

 keep out the moth when any colony is in normally good con- 

 dition, and any race will give way to the moth when there is 

 trouble with the queen, or when starvation is coming in at the 

 entrance. 



When, during the early part of this summer, I was greatly 

 troubled with pickled brood, and noticed that the disease was 

 especially bad with the black colonies and showing almost 

 none at all with the straight Italians, I was obliged to ac- 

 knowledge that here at last was a point at which the Italians 

 surpassed the blacks. Later, however, when I onserved that 

 the Italians failed to come up to normal strength, though 

 breeding heavily, while the blacks seemed to hold their 

 strength remarkably well, I tried to get up a defense for my 

 protege, the black bee. I concluded that all colonies were 

 affected with the disease, but, whereas the black bees died in 

 the larval stage, the Italian workers died soon after leaving 

 the cells. The only gain was in the combs of the Italians 

 being kept free from diseased brood. Many hybrid colonies 

 had their bees die in the pupa state, and thousands of the 

 white workers were carried from the hives. 



The disease has gone, and my faith in the black bee is 

 coming back in all its strength, for which reason I desire now 

 to point out still further its superiority to the Italian as a bee 

 of profit when bred with equal care. 



It must have struck every thinking bee-keeper as a 

 strange thing that Italian colonies so quickly run back to the 

 black condition It seems to matter little how few the scat- 

 tering colonies of blacks there are about the country, and how 

 large the apiaries of yellow bees are, sooner or later they will 

 all be black or dark hybrids unless constant effort Is made to 

 prevent this. I observed only the past summer that, though 

 my home apiary is largely headed by Italian queens, and 

 though I keep many more bees than any one near here, only 

 a third at best of my yellow queens mated with other than 

 black drones. 



How shall we account for this strange fact, if it is ac- 

 knowledged to be a fact ? How does this inferior black bee 

 with its predisposition to yield to disease, its inability to cope 

 with its enemy, the moth ; its weak honey-getting power, and 



