52 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Jan. 18, 19C6 



2Ht\ pasty's 

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The " Old Reliable " as seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. Hasty, Sta. B. Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



Wiring Frames— Folding Sections. 



I do not wish to suggest any doubt that Adrian Getaz 

 wires a frame in less than a minute ; but it looks as if it 

 would be very easy for some other person to spend 5 min- 

 utes doing it. About 16 little operations to be performed, 

 if I figure right ; and they would have to average less than 

 4 seconds each to " make the riffles." 



Pleasantly surprised to see a method of dampening sec- 

 tions so much like mine. I dampen 6 by 6, in a suitable 

 tray, about 100 in a batch, and keep them snugly piled until 

 they are folded, to prevent drying. But my dander rises a 

 little to hear him say that the Parker machine is not very 

 satisfactory. Might not be if you never learned how to 

 wriggle it, and tried to use it in too awf ullv cold weather ; 

 or if you tried to stick wax to a damp surface. All the 

 same, Mr. Getaz has given us a grand article on pages 841- 



Individual Bees Leaving Hives in Winter. 



Bees will come out and die sometimes when the tem- 

 perature is quite low. Nothing remarkable about that. But 

 if they do so in December we say, I fear the late honey was 

 pretty poor, and bees are going to die off badly. On the 

 other hand, if they refrain from dying on the snow clear 

 through January and beyond, we cheer up and hope to get 

 through with few losses, and not very many colonies re- 

 duced to weaklings. But what does it signify when, at quite 

 low temperatures, they come out, now one and then one, and 

 go looking around to see what they can find— evidently with 

 no intention of dying ? I see the like this December in my 

 yard, and Miss Wilson's remarks on page 844 show that the 

 same thing appears at Marengo. 'Spects we'll have to say, 

 " I don't know," and wait and see what it signifies. 



ignifies. 



Mixing Large Increase. 



I think Mr. Atchley, of the Texans, was all right in 

 holding out a little for the excellence of his way of making 

 large increase— wagon loads of 2-frame nuclei taken imme- 

 diately out of reach of all other bees. The bothersome 

 thing about it is that spots where open-air feeding can be 

 kept up week after week, and no outside bees strike in, are 

 pretty scarce over most of our territory. He that has such 

 a spot in reach, let him use it and rejoice. Page 846. 



Making Two Kinds of Honey. 



Sad that alfalfa honey should so constantly impress the 

 laity as being just sugar and water ! Undoubtedly right to 

 satisfy the taste of customers by mixing two kinds of 

 honey (as alfalfa and heartsease), but it is imaginable that 

 in some cases suspicions might arise from it. And if one 

 sets the example of shrewd mixing will not somebody else 

 follow, and not stop just where he should ? Near by stands 

 a close imitation to Satan, with a nice recipe that says, 

 " Improve your dark and strong fall honeys by putting in 

 just a little crystal glucose." It's nice to slide down the 

 slope ; but it isn't nice to slide over the precipice. Some- 

 times fear of the latter prevents our enjoying the former. 

 Page 847. 



Cows and Other Farm Stock in the Apiary. 



It would seem from what Mr. France tells us that the 

 canny cow, that so easily learned the true inwardness of 

 barbed wire years agone, quite as easily learns the signiB- 

 cation of barbed bees. Not so very wonderful. The won- 

 derful part is that she learns to come softly and graze 

 around the hives after nightfall. It appears that an apiary 

 gets along nicely unprotected in an open pasture when once 

 all the stock get to understand matters. But I should fear 

 that there would be an unendurable lot of knocking over and 

 damage done before the educational process was complete 

 Page 847. 



Food of Larval Bees. 



That a scant percentage of nitrogen in their food when 

 larvae, should alone, or even in the main, cause bees to die 



off at wholesale, I am scarcely able to believe. Might help 

 along in that direction if joined with some other powerful 

 cause. And the logic of Mr. Beuhne, on page 857, I am not 

 sure that that will stand fire. Imagine a kind of young 

 creatures that could eat hickory-nut meats only. Ten per- 

 cent additional shell to the nuts would not be likely to affect 

 them much. They are not fed the shells, but the meats. So 

 here. The other 73 percent of pollen (taking the best) is 

 largely shells — shells that can be seen with the microscope 

 in the excrement of nurse-bees. Increased shell likely to 

 decrease the number of larvae a hundred nurses could feed. 

 Would hardly bring down the quality of the food much, one 

 would say. Still it is possible that it might. Poorer food 

 makes poorer milk ; but corn-fodder with 10 percent too 

 heavy main stalks would not, if the quality of the eatable 

 part was the same. The chemical fact is worth keeping, 

 anyway. In best pollen 27 percent protein ; in poorest 

 pollen only 17. 



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Conducted by Morlet Pettit, Villa Nova, Ont. 



The National Convention at Chicago 



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Another National convention has come and gone, and 

 so the years glide by. I have watched these conventions in 

 the press, year by year, but this is the first one it has been 

 my good fortune to attend. The Grand Army of the Re- 

 public has always been so inconsiderate as to meet in my 

 busy season, and the convention not being able to exist 

 without low railway rates, has done likewise. This year 

 the Texans were so kind as to raise a " Yellow Peril " cry 

 so opportunely as to postpone and transpose the convention 

 to the time of the International Live Stock Exposition in 

 Chicago in December, after we Northeners have our bees 

 housed for winter. So the ill wind blew some of us good. 



Considering the change of place, and two changes of 

 date, the attendance was good, and the Southern brethren 

 who were afraid to come to our Northern winter, did not 

 appreciate the fact that Chicago stood ready to supply 

 amongst its many other striking features, a special brand of 

 mild December weather, served up for their benefit. It was 

 to me one of the disappointing features of the program, to 

 see Mr. Hutchinson's genial face on the platform so often 

 in his official capacity as secretary, to read the papers of 

 absent members from Texas, Colorado, and even Michigan. 

 I would even suggest that, in view of a crowded program, 

 papers not read by their authors be simply retained by the 

 secretary for the printed report. To meet personally, to 

 grasp the hand of, and exchange pleasantries and ideas 

 with, the men and women who are struggling with the same 

 problems which are vexing our souls — for this we travel 

 hundreds of miles to conventions. 



Being one of them, the writer will be permitted to say 

 the Canadian contingent was more marked by quality than 

 quantity. There were R. F. Holtermann, F. J. Miller, Jno. 

 Fixter. Wm. McEvoy, and the editor of this department. I 

 could name a score of others who had no plausible excuse 

 for not being there. 



Honey-Bees and Alsike— Bumble-Bees and Clover 



It was my good pleasure to meet on the street the other 

 day my good friend, Frank Kelly, who, as a seed-grower, is 

 a particular friend of bees. It was he who, a few years ago, 

 insisted on my bringing bees 14 miles to his farm to ferti- 

 lize his alsike. Frank is an original fellow who does not do 

 things by halves. He pretty nearly knows a good horse 

 when he sees it, and with the aid of his imported collie, 

 " Boy," carries off most of the local prizes with his sheep. 



With reference to bees and clover, he has very decided 

 views. The year I had bees there his yield of seed was ex- 

 cellent ; the next year he had none for seed. Last season 

 he had about 15 colonies of his own bees and a fair yield of 

 seed, but considered there were not enough bees to do the 

 blossoms justice. 



To fertilize his red clover, Mr. Kelly has a standing 



