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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Nov. 16, 1905 



PROTECTING HIVES FROM SUN HEAT. 



"Should hives be protected from the heat of the sun? 

 If so, what is the best method?" 



Mr. Hutchinson — I think where you are producing comb 

 honey, and the heat drives the bees out of the supers, it is 

 an advantage to have the hives shaded. I don't know of 

 anything better than a mov able board. You can make a 

 very cheap "board" out of shingles by having a piece across 

 the center of each, and you may nail the butts of the shingles 

 together and make a shade-board 2 by 3 feet. Have the hive 

 face either east or west, and lay that board on top of the 

 hive. 



Mr. Kimmey — When it gets hot enough to drive the bees 

 out of the super, you say. Do you know that it ever does 



Mr. Hutchinson — Yes. 



Mr. Kimmey — Some one has told us if the hives are 

 open ; Mr. Doolittle has said there was no need of opening 

 them at all. 



Mr. Hutchinson — It depends upon the location. If the 



hives are standing in a close place, where the sun could beat 

 down and no breeze pass over, that would make a great 

 difference. If they stood out on a hill where the breeze 

 could' blow over, that would make a great difference. 



Mr. ^Meredith — A gentleman I have some dealing with 

 in the bee-business recommended planting grape-vines; that 

 lets the heat of the sun directly on the hives before the 

 leaves come out, and after the leaves have fallen in the 

 fall, and it gave them shade protection in the summer, using 

 the Clinton grape more on account of its pro4ificness. 



Mr. Snell — I think the matter of shade depends largely 

 upon location, as Mr. Hutchinson said ; where the apiary is 

 surrounded by a good deal of wind-break the air is m.ore 

 suffocating, and the hives in that case will need shading; 

 where, if they stood out in more of an open place, where 

 there is more circulation of air, they would not become 

 heated up enough so that the bees would chister out very 

 much and desert the supers. 



(Continued next week.) 



Conducted by Emma M. Wilson, Marengo, 111. 



Hay-Rack for Hauling Bees 



Heretofore our bees have been hauled to 

 and from the out-apiaries by means of a rack 

 especially made tor the purpose, this rack 

 being placed on a common farm wagon. This 

 fall, instead of this special rack, a common 

 hay-rack was used, covered with boards so 

 as to make a level floor, blocks being tacked 

 down to keep the hives apart. Four hives 

 are placed abreast, the frames running from 

 side to side. 



There are two advantages over the old plan. 

 One is that there is not the trouble of keeping 

 a special rack from year to year that has no 

 other use but to haul bees. Hay-racks are 

 always to be had, and the heavy springs can 

 be added. The other advantage is, that in- 

 stead of 31 hives being hauled at a load, as 

 with the bee-rack, 59 hives can be hauled on 

 the hay-rack. 



Fastening Down a Bee-Veil 



I want to tell the sisters about fastening a 

 veil in a very simple and easy manner, the 

 plan, so far as I know, being original "in 

 this locality." 



Nothing unusual about the veil itself, just 

 a bag open at each end, one end sewed to the 

 rim of the hat and the other with a rubber 

 cord run through the hem. A safety-pin 

 caught through the edge in front is pinned 

 to the waist. In that pinniog lies the whole 

 secret of success. If pinned loosely, or even 

 what would ordinarily be called tightly, there 

 will be opportunity for bees to get urJer 

 when you are stooping over. But i* must be 

 made very tight, so that no matter what posi- 

 tion you may take there will be no loose place 

 for bees to crawl under. 



Try it, and you will And how easily it is 

 done, and how effective it is. 



Poor Report— But Still Hoping 



Dear Miss Wilson:— You asked all the 

 sisters to send in their reports, let it be good 

 or bad. 1 will send in mine, but it will be 

 very bad. 



Last spring I had SO colonies in pretty good 

 condition. The honey crop here was a fail- 

 ure. I got about 15U sections of honey of 

 very poor quality, quite dark. This is the 

 first time I have had an entire failure since I 

 have kept bees. I have always gotten some 

 surplus, if it was only 500 or GOO sections. 



I have had to feed the bees this fall for the 

 first time in my experience. I have now only 



68 colonies, the moth taking 3 or 3, and I 

 doubled up some. lam living in hopes that 

 next year will be better. 



(Miss) L. C. Kennedy. 

 Sangamon Co., 111., Oct. 27. 



From 80, spring count, to 68 in the fall, 

 with 2 sections of poor stuff to the colony — 

 well, that certainly may be classed as some- 

 thing of a failure. But failures have their 

 uses, too. The successes of future years will 

 always seem just a little brighter for having 

 the failure of 1905 as a background. And 

 there is the true spirit of a bee-keeper ringing 

 out in that last sentence — "I am living in 

 hopes that next year will be better." 



Miss Kennedy deserves thanks for her re- 

 port. Somehow it is always easier to chroni- 

 cle success than failure. But in one respect 

 the poor reports are of more use than the 

 good ones. " Misery likes company," and we 

 can condole with one another in our failures; 

 and, besides, those who have done well, or 

 fairly well, will feel the more grateful for 

 their success in the midst of failures. 



Please let us have reports, sisters, whether 

 of failures or successes. 



Bees and Grapes in Indiana 



Considerable has been said about bee-keep- 

 ers educating the public through communica- 

 tions to the local press, and at least one of the 

 sisters has been doing some practical work in 

 that direction. The Sun-Telegram, of Indi- 

 ana, contains a well-written article from the 

 the pen of Mrs. Helen V. Austin, replying to 

 the sensational statement that over one-third 

 of the grape crop of Indiana had been de- 

 stroyed by the bees, and that the damaffe had 

 been confined to that State alone. 



To some bee-keepers such statements may 

 seem too silly to merit reply. But not too 

 silly for many people to believe. A sample 

 of what unreasonable things people may be- 

 lieve is thus given by Mrs. Austin : 



" An individual undertook to explain to me 

 how it was possible for a bee to puncture a 

 grape. A vague idea was doubtless wander- 

 ing through his brain of the legend of the 

 Plum and the Curculio. His notion would 

 convulse a bee-keepers' association and cause 

 our Uncle Sam's department of entomology 

 to invent a new bug. Tell it not in Gath, but 

 he said the bee punctures the grape with its 

 sting! 'When ignorance is bliss, it were 

 folly to be wise,' just about the time that the 

 bee convinces this ' foolish Callatian ' that 

 the utter and onlj' use and purpose of her 

 sting is for self-defense." 



Some of the people in the region where the 

 Sun-Telegram is published will no doubt 

 change their views after reading Mrs. Austin's 

 article. 



The 



' Old Reliable " seen through New and Unreliable Glasses, 

 By E. E. Hastt, Sta. B. Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



" Pound " Sections to Weigh a Pound. 



L. V. Ricketts is working at a good matter 

 — trying to have pound sections actual 

 pounds. Wish I could fall into his proces- 

 sion; but I fear uniformity of weight is im- 

 possible. With me occasional ones are over 

 one pound weight now; and increase of size 

 will bring more of them. It's not easy to get 

 any pay for one or two ounces of extra 

 weight in a section. Hardly right to balance 

 off extra-weight ones against scant-weight 

 ones in the same case, and so push the diffi- 

 culty onward to the grocer. Every once in a 

 while some one agitates for deereastng size. I 

 rather think, Mr. R., that to stand firm against 

 decrease is about the best we can do under 

 the circumstances. Page 695. 



FuMiQATiSG Comb Honet. 



So Comrade Greiner finds that an ounce 

 and a half of bisulphide of carbon is too little 



to kill the " varmints " in a stack of five sets 

 of combs— and kicks about it — and threatens 

 to go back to sulphur. He has found 2.K^' 

 ounces of sulphur plenty, and perhaps more 

 than a plenty, for the same-sized stacks. 

 Shouldn't wonder if he was right. Page 695. 



WuT Foul Brood Affects the Larv.e. 



An idea of Mr. Dadant's, on page 696, is 

 worth thinking of a second time. Tbat the 

 reason why larv;c take foul brood while adult 

 bees do not, is that the former have as yet no 

 poison, while the latter carry a big dose of a 

 powerful and suHieient antidote. I don't feel 

 positive that poison in the .sac provided for it 

 has any effect on the tissues outside. May be 

 it does, however. In fact, it is pretty cer- 

 tainly brought into existence outside before 

 it is put in — and the process may be going on 

 most of the time — with more or less of the 

 chemical escaping into the regions round 

 about. 



