1900 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



107 



one who will take the time to study up 

 our National and other Bank Acts, will 

 soon understand how our bankers are 

 among the favored few of our nation, 

 and ^o up into the hundreds of thous- 

 ands, and millions of dollars, without 

 doing scarcely any labor along an econ- 

 omic line, while the bee-keeper toils on 

 day after day only to see much of his 

 earnings going to support these bankers 

 in their fleecing of the people. Again I 

 say to Bro. Marks, Don't do it ! Don't 

 set the commission men after us through 

 state and national supervision, for if 

 you do I cannot vouch even for the 

 honest ones; for when feeding at the 

 government trough the best of men seem 

 to lose their heads. 



QUEEN BEARING. 



Bro. Pridgen's article commencing on 

 page 82 is a very readable one and con- 

 tains lots of good things, among which I 

 find him touching on something which I 

 do not remember ever seeing touched 

 upon before. On page 83, near center 

 of last column, he speaks of honey flows 

 being so "heavy and sudden as to check 

 swarming." He here speaks of this 

 matter as coming before preparations 

 have been made for swarming; but with 

 me I have had several years in which 

 swarming was great — in some of them it 

 became almost a mania — when from six 

 to fifteen swarms would be out daily, and 

 just as soon as the honey harvest came 

 on in good earnest, the issuing of 

 swarms would drop off in a day or two 

 to from none to only two or three a day 

 for the first week, and soon cease alto- 

 gether. It is the slow continuous yield 

 of one, two or three pounds of nectar 

 (not honey) a day that keeps an apiary 

 on the swarm, to the disgust of the 

 apiarist. 



"PURCHASE OF QUEENS A WASTE OF TIME 



AND MONEY." 



When Bro. Pridgen wrote the words 

 found in the upper part of the first col- 

 umn, on page 83 : "Unless one studies 

 the traits of the different races and 

 manipulates them accordingly, the pur- 



chase of queens is a waste of time and 

 money," I hardly think he stopped to 

 weigh them fully, as he usually does 

 when he writes, for I do not think he is 

 willing to admit that there has been no 

 improvement in bees during the past 

 fifty years, even where managed on the 

 let-alone plan. I have many testimoni- 

 als telling me that the introduction of 

 my queens into their apiaries, managed 

 on the let-alone plan, has increased the 

 crop of honey more than ten times the 

 value of what was paid for the queens. 

 I am wide awake as to the study and 

 manipulation part, and had these 

 parties used that also, they would have 

 made a corresponding gain ; but unless 

 I am greatly mistaken, any man who is 

 now keping scrub bees (or those who 

 have depended upon "the survival of the 

 fittest"), would not find it a waste of 

 time and money did they purchase a few 

 of Bro. Pridgen's fine queens, and after 

 putting them in their hives, manage 

 them the same as before. Otherwise all 

 our efforts at breeding a superior bee 

 has been labor thrown away, except to 

 those who are given to study and 

 manipulation. 



RIPE CELLS BEFORE THE PRIME SWARM 

 LEAVES. 



Near the center of the first column, 

 page 85, Bro. Pridgen touches another 

 thing which every beginner and many 

 older bee-keepers should pay attention 

 to, where he says, "It is occasionally 

 the case that cells are ripe before the 

 prime swarm leaves the hive, and es- 

 pecially if the weather has been un- 

 favorable for some days, and the swarm 

 issues the first day that is suitable." By 

 paying attention to this matter they will 

 not be watching for second swarms 

 from such hives, eight or ten days later, 

 nor will they come to the bee-papers 

 with reports of queens fertile and laying 

 two or three days after maturity. Then 

 by understanding this, colonies can 

 often be prevented from swarming at 

 all by taking away the old queen and 

 cutting all cells as soon as the queen 



