171 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



September 



their hope of posterity depends somewhat 

 on her, and your neighbor if he is at all 

 intelligent and knows anything of the 

 mutual understanding between bees and 

 flowers, will also gladly welcome your 

 busy, yellow, shining, humming horde of 

 marauders. 



But one difficulty still remains, at least 

 which seems a diflHculty to the beginner, 

 and that is the marketing. This is easy, 

 too, when you know how. The ABC 

 of marketing is to work up a local trade. 

 In the first place your bees themselves 

 will advertise you and people will come 

 to you for honey. But a surer and more 

 business-like way is to take or send 

 samples of your different grades of comb 

 and extracted honey and get orders from 

 the grocers of your own and neighboring 

 towns. I have tried this method in the 

 New Jersey towns and villages around 

 me with such success that I sell more 

 honey than I can produce. Still, all 

 persons may not be able to adapt them- 

 selves to do their own selling, or may not 

 feel inclined to take up this branch of 

 the business; from such the commission 

 merchant is ever ready to receive con- 

 signments of honey and can dispose of 

 any amount without any trouble to the 

 producer. In addition to selling of 

 honey, queen-rearing is another pleasant 

 and profitable branch of the business. 

 Ordinary untested queens at certain 

 seasons of the year will fetch a dollar 

 apiece, while a blooded beauty who has 

 been properly mated will bring some- 

 times as much as three dollars. 



Englewood, N. J. 



"We look backward regretfing, or for- 

 ward hoping, while the present s.tainls 

 offering us flowers." 



Clothes Pins Come Handy. 



Talking about forming wire (jneen- 

 cell protectors, a clothes pin makes a 

 better former than a lead pencil over 

 which to stretch the three inch wire 

 squares that make the cells. All th<! 

 preparation needed is to chip off the 



rounded head of the pin. And, by the 

 way, the same clothes pins make good 

 formers for artificial queen-cells, a la 

 Doolittle. Mark on them with lead pen- 

 cil the various depths the dipping is to be 

 made in the process of depositing the 

 wax. M. F. Keevk. 



PREPARING BEES FOR WINTER. 



IIY AKTlirU C. MII.LEU. 



GIVEN abundant stores and time to 

 fix things to their liking, a good 

 colony will winter under all man- 

 ner of conditions. Mr. Heddon has said 

 that absence of pollen would ensure suc- 

 cessful wintering, and has explained his 

 reasons at great length. It would be 

 presumptuous on my part to dispute with 

 him the results of his investigations, and 

 I have no inclination to do so as I believe 

 he is right along the line of his theory. 

 But to many, if not most of us, the labor 

 and care involved in getting rid of all 

 pollen and feeding up on sugar stores is 

 decidedly beyond our inclinations. We 

 must have some less laborious way even 

 if at more risk, and at the same time we 

 wish to make the danger as slight as 

 possible. 



There are five factors to the problem, 

 and I place them as follows: A good 

 sized colony with j)l*?uty of young bees: 

 abundance of ripe stores; a sound hive: 

 the foregoing three factors combined 

 early enough to enable the bees to place 

 the stores to suit themselves and to seal 

 things up: and lastly the hives put where 

 tii(>y will not be flooded by any winter 

 deluge. To conserve the food supply 

 the "sound hive" may be a chaff or 

 other protected hive, or the hives may 

 be placed in the cellar; but indoors or 

 out the other factors remain the same. 

 Whether burlap, enameled cloth, or a 

 tight board cover be put over the bee^ is 

 a disputed question. After much exper- 

 imenting I have settled on enameled 

 cloth with sawdust or other non-con- 

 ductor over it, and it gives me entire 

 satisfaction. Other persons ans equally 



