THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



81 



I have thus given some of the princi- 

 pal points of a(lv,inta<;e of the storifying 

 hive ill connection with the use of the 

 queen exrliuler, and as will be seen 

 these advantages are such as to give the 

 utmost control over brood-rearing, the 

 economical use of the stores and the 

 most profitable honey production. Add 

 to this the comjjaratively easy manage- 

 ment of these small hives and their su- 

 perior wintering qualities, and it must 

 be granted that we have the nonpareil 

 of bee hives. 



New Philadelphia, Ohio. 



A FEW BEE NOTES 

 The past winter at Lancaster has been 

 a hard one on bees in that there were 

 such long spells of cold followed by 

 windy and but slightly warm weather. 

 The bees felt the need of a flight, and 

 were tempted out by the sun only to 

 fall on the snow. However, I should 

 have wintered mine very well but for a 

 costly experiment. 



Last season the bees gathered no 

 honey after July 15 and, of course, had 

 to be itd for winter. Pressed for time, 

 I did n it feed sufficiently in the fall, in- 

 tending to feed more during Christmas 

 week. At that time I cooked up about 

 a hundred pounds of candy. Some of 

 this was the syrup left from the fall 

 feeding, which I cooked right in with 

 the rest. This syrup had about three 

 pounds of honey in it. The cardy was 

 placed in large cakes over the frames. 

 During the winter the candy softened, 

 probably from the honey present, and 

 running down broke up the cluster. 

 Only such hives as were very strong and 

 vigorous survived the shock by con- 

 suming the sticky mass. This killed 

 nine colonies for me besides being the 

 direct cause of the present weakness of 

 about ten more. 



My daughter of Alley's two-hundred 

 dollar, alias one-hundred dollar queen, 

 played a freak during January. Being 

 thoroughly aroused by the feeding in 

 the winter, she began to lay. Three 

 frames were well started with brood, 

 when the bees shifted their position for 



want of stores leaving about half the 

 bees with the brood. Fortunately the 

 queen went with those bees which 

 moved. At present the colony is pretty 

 weak. 



The weather has been rather cool for 

 spring forcing. The bees are greatly 

 opposed to starting much brood, and it 

 takes a good deal of coaxing to get a 

 small colony into shape. 



Those good old colonies which stored 

 such a surplus last season, and had 

 plenty of honey to winter on, are the 

 ones which are booming at present. 

 As the queen is, so is the colony. 

 Don't keep any but the best queens. 



What do so many of us mean by 

 claiming that the black bee is smaller 

 tlian the Italian? I have seen enough 

 colonies of either race to draw a con- 

 clusion, and I say emphatically that the 

 black bee is the larger. She is stockier 

 and probably weighs more. It is true, 

 though, that the Italian has a larger 

 honey sac, and so when full of honey 

 appears to be larger. 



By the way, is a large or small queen 

 preferable? Of course, we all say the 

 large one is. However, a few years ago 

 when raising queens I had a very small 

 but unusually yellow queen hatch out. 

 I kept her because she came from my 

 best stock and was of such a beautiful 

 color. The hive in which she was, led 

 the apiary for the next three seasons. 

 Though of small build, when in full lay- 

 ing condition this queen did not look 

 small at all. At such a time an unob- 

 serving person would have called her 

 a large queen. Just so do most of us 

 say that the Italians are large, because 

 we think of them as we have seen them 

 with their abdomens extended with 

 honey. 



I expect to try an interesting experi- 

 ment next June, A neighbor has four 

 or five acres of raspberry bushes. He 

 has given me permission to place a 

 colony of bees in the middle of that 

 patch when it is in bloom. I expect to 

 find out by this something about rasp- 

 berry honey. 



Now a word about rats. The pests 



