THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



137 



MVIERICAN APICULTURIST 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY 

 Henry Alley, W^erxheim, IVIeiss. 



Established in 1883. 



Subscription Price, 75cts. Per Year. 



Entered nt the P. O. Wenham, Mass., as second class 

 mail matter. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



WIXTEIilXG BEKS. 



Instructions on this point need not be 

 long. Plenty of bees, and that of course, 

 means good queens, plenty of good 

 honey or sugar syrup, and warm, dry 

 quarters. See that the food is supplied 

 before too cold weather, and that the 

 bees are fixed up before winter sets in. 



THE SEASON OF 1891. 



The bee and honey season of 1891 

 has passed. After fixing the bees for 

 winter, what next? Now let us lay our 

 plans for 1892. Spend all leisure mo- 

 ments in winter getting things in order 

 for the coming harvest. Write your 

 bee experience and send it to the Api 

 and see how nicely it looks and appears 

 in print We tell you friends, if you 

 desire to crowd out of the Api what 

 space the editor occupies, just send in 

 some good articles, and they shall have 

 the room instead of our own. You see 

 how easily you can get rid of our 

 "stuff." 



FRANK BENTON. 



This gentleman may now be found in 

 the Apiarian Section, Division of En- 

 tomology, Washington, D. C. Should 

 say that Mr. B. is the right man in the 

 right place. Bro. B. got a little put out 

 with us some ten years ago. We never 

 knew what the trouble was, and, to say 

 as little about it as possible, we never 

 cared. However, we are willing to for- 

 get and forgive, and now let it all pass. 



BEKS AND FKUIT. 



Gardeners and fruitgrowers begin 

 to realize the worth of the honey bee 

 to them. The fruit farmers who are ig- 

 norant of the habits of the honey bee 



are continually finding fluilt with their 

 best friend. Were it not for the honey 

 bee, little or no fruit would be raised 

 some seasons. When trees are in blos- 

 som and it rains neaily all the time, 

 the honey bee puts in its work. Let 

 the sun peep through the clouds for a 

 moment and thousands of bees will be 

 in the trees. It is under such circum- 

 stances that the bee is the fruit-grower's 

 benefactor. 



That new title page of Gleanings is 

 a gem of art. For solid wear, however, 

 month after month, nothing equals a 

 very plain title page with little besides 

 the title, says Dr. Miller in Gleanings. 



The Dr. had his mind's eye on the 

 title page of the Api when he penned 

 the above. 



KEEPING DKONE BKOOD. 



We queen-breeders, says G. M. D., 

 often want to keep the very last eggs 

 laid by the queen of our choice in drone- 

 cells, so as to have a very few fine drones 

 late in the season. By hand-picking 

 these, after all the other drones are killed 

 off, we can have things our own way as 

 to the mating of our queens. Now, I 

 find that drones reared in July "play 

 out" before October; hence, to have 

 good strong drones in October they 

 must come from eggs laid during the 

 eady part of August. I have no diffi- 

 culty in getting these eggs during the 

 last of the honey harvest ; but to get 

 the bees to perfect them to living 

 drones is where the trouble lies. Last 

 year I tried placing these in a queen- 

 less colony, but only about fifty drones 

 was the result out of about as many 

 thousand eggs. This year I tried put- 

 ting them in a populous colony which 

 had lots of honey, putting them over 

 the queen-excluder, in the second sto- 

 ry, where I raise my queen-cells. This 

 did better than last year, yet the bees 

 destroyed over one-half of the eggs. 

 Who, in a locality similar to mine, where 

 basswood is the last honey crop, can 

 tell me how to rear and keep drones 

 during August and September? 



