(Entered at the Post-Office at Chicago as Second-Class Mall-Matter.) 

 Published Weekly at $1.00 a Year, by George W. York & Co., 334 Dearborn St. 



GEORGE W. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL, FEBRUARY 8, 1906 



VoL XLVI-No. 6 



^ 



(Ebttorial Hotes 

 anb Comments 



j 



Repetition of Good Advice 



Good advice can hardly be repeated too often. The 

 winter is the time to read over again the bee-papers of the 

 preceding- year. In the hurry of the busy season many 

 good things that appeared in the bee-papers were likely 

 overlooked. But now is just the time to get the papers to- 

 gether and go over them carefully. It will pay to do so. 



Some bee-keepers we have heard of say they haven't 

 time to read bee-papers. Then they haven't time to keep 

 bees, either. One doesn't need to spend more than say two 

 hours a week in reading the American Bee Journal. There 

 are probably very few who read all of any one paper when- 

 ever it comes. But if an hour or two is spent on each copy, 

 the best and most helpful of its contents can be gleaned. 



The great trouble with many is, they haven't learned 

 to do thoroughly what they undertake. They do things by 

 halves, or do only half of several things. It won't do to 

 read a good bee-paper in a half-hearted or listless way, if 

 one expects to profit by the reading. We are inclined to 

 think that the reason some do not value a good bee-paper is 

 because they don't read it carefully, and then profit by 

 what they have learned. Simply subscribing for the paper 

 will not add any honey to your crop. But by painstaking 

 reading, and careful application of the instruction gained, 

 there may result a surprising increase in both profit and 

 pleasure from the bees. 



Inbreeding Among Bees 



Continued inbreeding has been blamed for the " run- 

 ning out " of many an apiary — and rightly. On the other 

 hand, some of the most noted achievements in the way of 

 improvement of stock have been made by means of that 

 same inbreeding. Do not be too much alarmed about in- 

 breeding, if you always breed from the best ; but do not be 

 surprised at deterioration if the selection is left to the bees. 



Alfalfa Hay and Honey in Colorado 



Irrigation gives the agricultural products of Colorado 

 for 1905 as $46,990,000. A little more than a third of this is 

 for hay. As a large part of the hay is from alfalfa, it does 

 not seem strange that Colorado should produce quite a bit 

 of alfalfa honey. 



" Advanced Bee Culture," by W. Z. Hutchinson 



A new edition of this work has appeared, so much en- 

 larged and improved that without any great stretch it might 

 be called a new book. Its author has given in it the results 

 of his own study and experience as a bee-keeper, enriched 

 by many a thought gleaned from his years of editing the 

 Bee-Keepers' Review. 



Mr. Hutchinson is an enthusiast in matters pertaining 

 to beautiful typography, and the book shows it. Its 230 

 pages are printed in clear type upon excellent paper, daint- 

 ily bound in cloth. Photography is a hobby with Mr. 

 Hutchinson, so it is not at all surprising that the more than 

 70 illustrations are mostly half-tone engravings from pho- 

 tographs taken by the author himself, and of some of them 

 he may well be proud. 



The book is written in Mr. Hutchinson's well-known 

 easy style, and is practical throughout, the author declaring 

 it to have been his purpose to describe in plain and simple 

 language what he believes to be the most advanced methods 

 of managing bees for profit, from the beginning of the sea- 

 son throughout the entire year. 



Mr. Hutchinson is the arch apostle of "keeping more 

 bees," and so the first chapter starts out with a plea for bee- 

 keeping as a specialty, "dropping all other hampering pur- 

 suits, and turning the whole capital, time and energies into 

 bee-keeping." 



He was at one time an enthusiastic advocate of the 

 Heddon hive, but now says : " Divisible brood-chamber 

 hives cost consiberably more than any other styles of hives, 

 and after using them for years by the side of the ordinary 

 Langstroth hive, seeing them used by other persons in dif- 

 ferent locations, and considering the new features that have 

 recently sprung up in bee-keeping, I have gradually come 

 to the decision that if I were now starting in the bee-busi- 

 ness, I should not use the horizontally-divisible hive ;" and 

 closes the chapter on the choice of a hive by saying, " In 

 brief, my choice of a hive for Michigan is a simple, plain 

 box with plain, all-wood hanging frames — and I would win- 

 ter the bees in the cellar." 



The author favors the use of the Heddon honey-board, 

 and says : " There have been more or less successful at- 

 tempts to do away with the necessity for a honey-board by 

 using wide, deep top-bars, accurately spaced ; and while 

 such an arrangement does away with a large share of the 

 bur-comb nuisance, I have yet to see a case in which there 

 was not enough of it left to warrant the use of a honey- 

 board." This sounds a bit strange in view of the fact that 

 so many others have discarded the honey-board, but the 

 preceding paragraph explains it. In that he gives Y% of an 

 inch as the space over the tops of the frames, and no matter 



