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THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



109 



selves, with no swarming except durinji; 

 April and ^Nlay. 

 Hurricane, Ark. 



['■From one hundi-ed to three hundred 

 pouudi of comb honey of tirst-class qual- 

 ity, as an average yield per colony," is 

 truly wonderful. In this day of small 

 yields, it is refreshing to read of such a 

 locality. Mr. Kerr"s idea, as to the supe- 

 rior tinish and quality of comb-honey 

 where the bees have seven months to 

 devote to the work, is something entirely 

 new and quite at variance with the expe- 

 rience of nearly, if not quite all, experi- 

 enced producers of comb-honey. We 

 should decidedly prefer a location where 

 all the tinish and trimmings were applied 

 in ten days. It is a magnificent theory, 

 indeed; but we have never learned to 

 admire "a slow, steady stream," when 

 "first-class" comb- honey was the 

 object. — Ed.] 



Purchasers of queens prefer something 

 new; vendors prefer the new prices. 



— James Heddon, 1885. 



MR. W. H. PRIDGEN. 



[See frontispiece]. 

 Our readers will note this month that 

 we are presenting a new portrait of Mr. 

 W. H. Pridgen, the "queen crank" of 

 North Carolina. Mr. Pridgen has thus 

 styled himself in his advertisements; 

 and, from a rather extensive correspon- 

 dence with him for several years, we 

 incline to the belief that the appelatton 

 is well applied. We should not, of 

 course, care to have It get out that we 

 consider him a genuine crank, although 

 nearly all of the progress in queen- 

 rearing has been made by just such 

 enthusiasts. .Mr. Pridgen's bee-keeping 

 experience covers a period of twenty- 

 four years ; while the past ten years or 

 so, have been devoted to scientific 

 experiments as a queen-breeder. He 

 was the first to introduce wholesale 

 methods of manufacturing artil3cial cell- 

 cups: and as the originator of the sys- 

 tem of transferring cocoons to the cups 

 by means of a hollow-ended stick, his 

 name has spread throughout the bee- 

 keeping world. In our oiiinion nothing 



in the way of a nursery cage has ever 

 been devised which, for practical utility 

 and genius, excels the one invented by 

 the subject of this brief sketch. The 

 confining of bees for cell-starting, we 

 believe, is another most valuable devel- 

 opment of Mr. Pridgen's experiments. 

 In fact, there are too many kinks and 

 short cuts of his devising to permit of 

 their being enumerated here. SufBce it 

 to say that no name in the queen-rearing 

 profession stands higher to-day than 

 that of W. H. Pridgen, and we believe 

 the popularity which he has achieved to 

 be honestly acquired and well merited. 

 As with the other pictures recently pub- 

 lished in these columns, the one of Mr. 

 Pridgen is the latest thing out and just 

 a little ahead of anything published in 

 any other bee journal. 



How many never think who think they do. 

 — Jane Taylor. 



FEEDING FOR HARD WORK. 



KV HESSIE L. ITTXAM. 



SUGAR is cheaper than honey; and 

 the wise bee-keeper understands 

 that there is profit in building a 

 strong colony that is ready to go to work 

 in force when the first honey-fiow comes. 

 If undisturbed, bees show little activity 

 until there is something on which they 

 can work to advantage: but if fed in 

 spring, they at once assume the duties 

 of active life by rearing brood in large 

 numbers. Some may say, that means 

 swarming, and we have as many swarms 

 as we want. But this swarming habit 

 can generally be largely kept' in check 

 by supplying plenty of section room for 



storing honey. 



A simple method of feeding bees is to 

 fill a small sized baking powder can half 

 full of granulated sugar, and to this add 

 an equal quantity of water. Cover with 

 several thicknesses of cloth ; over this 

 place a small piece of board and 

 invert in an empty saucer on the top 

 of the brood-frames. This furnishes 

 a constant fiow of sweets from the cloth, 



