36 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



February, 



respect to seasons, are quite similar, 

 but the nectar-yielding vegetation of 

 the respective countries are quite op- 

 posite in their seasons of bloom, giv- 

 ing Cuba the advantage of the dry sea- 

 son for the handling of her honey 

 crops. 



THE QUEEN REARING DISCUS- 

 SION. 



Under the caption, "Can Good 

 Queens Be Reared by a Cupful of 

 Bees?" Mr. Alley, in the American Bee 

 Journal, takes up the cudgel in the affir- 

 mative, and cites instances in which 

 he has accomplished this very thing. 

 Indeed, a certain queen which was but 

 a chance product from one of the min- 

 iature boxes that he uses as a fertiliz- 

 ing hive, proved to be so valuable as 

 a breeder that he would not think of 

 selling her for $ioo. In reference tq 

 this observation, Mr. Alley takes oc- 

 casion to remark: "How this state- 

 ment will make Editor Hill, of the 

 American Bee-Keeper, jump! Mr. Hill 

 does not think any queen is worth 

 $ioo. I do; and I know the full value 

 of a good breeding queen, and I think 

 there are many queen-dealers who ap- 

 preciate the value of a good queen." 



Brother Alley is an expert in His line. 

 It is doubtful if the world holds a more 

 proficient queen breeder. His obser- 

 vations in regard to queen-rearing mat- 

 ters are full of interest and instruction. 

 He is a master whom we all respect; 

 but the origin of some of his notions 

 in regard to other people's ideas and 

 plans, has long been somewhat of mys- 

 tery to us. The above quotation is a 

 case in point. He says we do "not 

 think any queen is worth $ioo." As 

 we have never said we did not think 

 any queen is worth $ioo, we question 

 the source of Mr. Alley's knowledge. 

 If his conclusions have been arrived at 

 through telepathic influence we have 

 to assure him that his apparatus is 

 "out of fix." Perhaps an evil spirit 

 has censored the telepathic message 

 enroute. Maybe Brother Alley really 

 don't care to see the point in regard 

 to high-priced queens, which we have 

 discussed in this journal. "There's 

 none so blind as those won't see." We 

 are inclined rather to attribute Mr. Al- 

 ley's misconstruction of statements to 



careless reading, ratl:er than wilful 

 misrepresentation. This idea is borne 

 out to some extent in the article re- 

 ferred to above. Mr. Alley takes unto 

 himself a quotation as the text for his 

 article, which is not his at all. Ho 

 starts out by saying, "On page 707 I 

 am quoted thus:" and proceeds to re- 

 produce what Arthur C. Miller has 

 written in the American Bee-Keeper. 

 Mr. Alley should give others a more 

 careful reading before diving into them 

 and making public statements as to 

 their position. It is a courtesy due 

 alike to his coadjutors and opponents 

 in discussion. 



COMB-BUILDING IN THE OPEN. 



Owing to the retiring nature of the 

 honey-bee — its natural habit of conduct- 

 ing its domestic operations behind 

 "closed doors" — its admirers usually 

 take great interest in observing their 

 home life, whenever opportunity is af- 

 forded. 



In tropical countries it is not so rare 

 to find a colony doing business in the 

 open air. We well remember a scene 

 of this kind, in which we were intense- 

 ly interested, many years ago. on the 

 south coast of Cuba. The horizontal 

 hollow log, placed about a foot from 

 the ground, which served as a "hive" 

 for an enormous colony, found its 

 capacity inadequate during the honey 

 flow, and had extended its beautiful 

 white combs some distance from the 

 open end of the log, connecting them 

 with adjacent shrubbery and vines. 

 Several of these honey-laden combs, 

 attached to delicate vines and fragile 

 stalks of grass, had weighted them to 

 the ground. The vines of the wild 

 morningglory from the blossoms of 

 which nectar was gathered, grew 

 through the solid combs of glistening 

 honey and spread their foliage about 

 it. It was a novel sight to a northern- 

 er. We have since seen several sim- 

 ilar instances of comb-building in the 

 open air, both in the north and in 

 southern countries. 



The picture on page 26 from the 

 British Bee-Keepers' Record, of Lon- 

 don, was sent to that journal by Mr. 

 J. B. Hewett, and shows an extraor- 

 dinary case of open air comb-building 

 in the garden of Bitterly Court, Lud- 



