Feb. 15, 19( 6 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



143 



Mr. Cross spoke emphatically against the folly of boast- 

 ing- about large crops and big profits. 



F. A. Gemmill had seen something peddled in the city 

 in a fancy barrel on two wheels, drawn by a Shetland pony. 

 He thought everybody would want a package of honey from 

 such an outfit. 



A good point from R. F. Holtermann was that bee- 

 keepers should go before the Retail Grocers' Association in 

 every town and talk up honey. Give them good profit, and 

 post them to push sales. 



Mr. Holtermann offered a resolution, asking the Gov- 

 ernment to give the same help to the marketing of honey as 

 to other farm products. Carried. 



Convention Points and Pointers. 



H. G. Sibbald asserts that bees in general in this coun- 

 try have an average of not more than 7 Langstroth frames 

 full of brood at the beginning of the main honey-flow. 

 Therefore, 8 or 10 combs in the brood-chamber at all times 

 are plenty. I would like the opinion of others on that 

 question. 



Another point : He does not want brood-rearing to in- 

 crease after the beginning of a short honey-flow, because 

 the bees hatched 2 weeks before the close of the flow never 

 go to the fields to gather honey, hence are a useless expense. 



I maintain that only those bees that have not helped in 

 the harvest are fit to go into winter quarters, as the long 

 winter season is sufficient drain on the system without their 

 having become partly worn out by work. Therefore, the 

 more sealed brood in the brood-chamber at the close of the 

 flow the better ; and we want to give the queen as much 

 room as she can use at all times. 



The January Canadian Bee Journal is quite festive in a 

 new, dainty-colored gown, decorated with a large Maple 

 Leaf — Canada's emblem. 



^ 



Hlt\ f)asty 's 

 Ctftcrtfyougfyts 



j 



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

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



Various Plans to Control Swarming. 



The letter of J. E. Crane, about swarm control, has so 

 many commentable points that I hardly know what to do 

 with it. Mr. Crane is one of those practical brethren that 

 it is well to listen to. Almost discouraging to see how 

 many settled and undisputed things are simply not so in the 

 experience of a practical man. I'll dip in first (as, perhaps, 

 most important) at the experience that merely cutting cells 

 all but one does no good whatever. Barely possible that 

 Mr. Crane only means cutting cells once, and that once 

 when there is still unsealed brood to start more with. His 

 remark, however, hardly sounds like that. We scarce need 

 to be told that bees bent on swarming will start more cells, 

 and swarm with the proceeds, if they have the means of 

 doing so. If in a single well-kept apiary just as many colo- 

 nies will swarm with a lone-cell virgin (and leave the old 

 hive hopelessly queenless) as would have swarmed by the 

 let-alone method, a dozen cells to each hive — that " kind o' 

 knocks us." Sometimes they'll do that trick in almost any 

 apiary, I take it. 



Ne"Vt in order as provocative of (! !) is the experience that 

 virgins 5 days old are better received than those 5 minutes 

 old. Those who have found the opposite can not well all be 

 mistaken. What does this wide diversity of experience 

 mean? And success with 3-weeks'-old virgins is a little 

 stirring, too. Virgin 5 days old in a nucleus may be a very 

 different creature from a virgin badly caged 5 days, or a 

 cage-born virgin never out of her cage. Wonder if that is it. 



No special introductory for virgins. Lets them run 

 right in at the entrance. And 12 lost out of 36 seems to 

 have been his very worst record— usually very much better 

 than that. But the proportion of loss in late years is greater 

 than it was 20 years ago— and that's queer again. 



I think the general impression is that it is easy to in- 

 troduce a laying queen to a hive from which the prime 

 swarm has just gone out— and Mr. C. finds it nearly impos- 



sible. Possibly more would find serious difficulty if they 

 tried it much. (Some of the worst sort of disgruntled old 

 bees going back instead of staying with the swarm ?) 



His puzzle also is a deep one. Why are colonies re- 

 queened with ripe cells much more liable to swarm than 

 those requeened with virgins ? Well, the former have a 

 good many days to wait before they can have brood to rear, 

 and time to take to troublesome courses; ("Satan finds some 

 mischief still for idle hands to do.") while with week-old 

 virgins they can have brood quickly, if everything goes 

 well. Not sure that this is the true solution, however. 



Page 5. _ 



Would Brown-Up Dr. Phillips. 



Glad to see the face of Dr. Phillips, who has come into 

 such prominence in apiculture now Benton is gone. If the 

 tailor may be retailored, and the Doctor doctored, my pre- 

 scription for him would be lots of bee-work in the hot sun- 

 to brown him up a little. Page 6. 



" May Starvation " Among Bees. 



Aware that there is such a thing as May starvation, for 

 I have met it myself ; but for an apiary of a dozen colonies 

 all to starve in the latter part of May is ahead of my time. 

 And should expect it in France even less than in northern 

 U. S. This anent Dadant's article on page 7. 

 Testing Beeswax. 



" Look a little out " how you use bur-comb pinched up 

 into a lump as a standard of specific gravity to test sus- 

 pected wax by, as per page 10. Bees are very apt to knead 

 more or less propolis into bur-comb ; and propolis is heavier 

 than water, while wax is lighter. Better get your test-lump 

 from wax that has been melted, and thus the propolis and 



dirt got rid of. 



Moving Bees. 



Strikes me that colonies arriving at a new location 

 minus all the field-bees will not, for quite a bit, get to stor- 

 ing 8 or 10 pounds per day. Of course, it's much better to 

 have the old bees left behind rather tnan to have them all 

 die on the road ; but we'll keep our three cheers for the man 

 that will carry them all over the road without any worrying, 

 and with only the usual daily deaths from old age. Page 2s. 

 Liquid Feed for Bees in Winter. 



As a matter of off-hand opinion about liquid feed in 

 winter, I don't believe bees will take it up in winter much 

 better than they will take it down. May find it better the 

 first time, if it is warm, because warm odors rise. The 

 grand trouble in both cases is that they only take one meal, 

 storing none in the combs for future use. Then, directly, 

 there ensues a week so cold that no bees can go outside the 

 cluster, and starvation arrives. If you must give liquid 

 food in winter, fill an empty comb with it and put it right 

 where it is needed. To do this remove an outside comb; 

 slip the next 2 or 3 wall ward ; then insert the comb of feed 

 right square in the middle of the cluster But there are 

 other things to be thought of also, especially if out-of-doors. 

 Honey from an inside comb may fail to reach the spaces 

 not adjacent. Also a case might arise in which most of the 

 bees were not quite dead yet, but too cold to take feed. Clos- 

 ing the entrance and bringing them into a very warm room 

 ought to save them for the time being. Then put some 

 feed in the top center of two more combs and give them- 

 placingthem next but one on each side of the first one 

 eiven Six spaces then have the means of life adjacent 

 tndif some bees die in other spaces the colony can exist 

 without them. All this looks very hopeful on paper but 

 either dysentery or winter breeding, or both, are liable to 

 step in and scoop vou at last. Also time, and space and 

 zeal would all play out before many colonies were treated 

 in such a way. Page 25. 



A Queen-Bee Free as a Premium.— We are now book- 

 ing orders for Untested Italian Queens to be delivered in 

 May or Tune. This is the premium offer: To a subscriber 

 whose own subscription to the American Bee Journal is 

 paid at least to the end of 1906, we will mail an Untested 

 Italian Queen for sending us one new subscription with 

 $1 00 for the Bee Journal a year. Or, we will renew your 

 subscription to the American Bee Journal for a year and 

 send a fine Untested Italian Queen— both for $1.50 Now 

 is a good time to get new subscribers. If you wish extra 

 copies of the Bee Journal for use as samples, let us know 

 how many you want and we will mail them to you. Address 

 all orders to the office of the American Bee Journal. 



