March 22, 1906 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



251 



6 years ago I purchased the land where they now are. Be- 

 fore moving the bees I built the board-fence seen in the 

 picture, to protect my neighbors and a public street on the 

 north side of the lot, as it is a well-known fact that bees 

 flying over any obstruction are less liable to come in con- 

 tact with teams or pedestrians. But some of my neighbors 

 took exception to that high board-fence and tried to have it 

 removed. Like all good doctors, the first remedy was to 

 remove the cause — the bees. A petition was sent to the 

 Board of Health that said bees were detrimental to the pub- 

 lic health ; to have them removed ; also that high board- 

 fence. 



Our local "doctor," the Board of Health, looked the 

 grounds over and weighed every point pro and con, and 

 decided he could see nothing that would injure the health of 

 anybody. The bees were neat and clean, and the fence was 

 neither dangerous nor vicious. But this decision did not 

 suit my neighbor on the other side of the fence. More 

 stringent measures must be taken. Our village council 

 was induced to pass an ordinance to prohibit the keeping of 

 bees in the village of Central Lake in any form, for any 

 purpose whatever, and imposing a penalty of a fine of not 

 less than $2.00 nor more than $20 for every colony of bees 

 kept in violation of this Act. 



I have always tried to live as a law-abiding citizen, but 

 this law brought me within its toils. I was arrested and 

 brought before a local Justice for keeping bees in violation 

 of this ordinance. I secured counsel and met my opponents 

 in battle array. The Justice decided that such a law was 

 unconstitutional, as it deprived a citizen of carrying on an 

 honorable industry in any lawful manner whatever. This 

 decision did not suit the complainant in this suit. It was 

 but a short time before the second warrant was issued, and 

 I was brought before another Justice, who, being a near 

 relative of the complainant, and not knowing the facts, we 

 had reason to believe the decision was rendered before the 

 warrant was issued. We decided that any argument before 

 this court was of but little use. The Justice acknowledged 

 his inability to decide the constitutionality of the question 

 involved, and for the violation of said ordinance I was fined 

 $20 ; but I did not pay said fine, and carried the case to the 

 Circuit Court. Here it hung fire for over one year, but 

 finally the case was brought to trial. The Circuit Judge 

 decided in accord with the first Justice, that the law was 

 invalid. 



Now the battle is over, the victory is ours, and the bees 

 still hold the fort. I am afraid it is not fought to a finish, 

 however — 



For he who tights and runs away 

 Will live to fight another day. 



My bees are my main support now in my old age. For 

 the last three years I have been living upon borrowed time. 

 I have climbed the mountain, passed the summit, and now 

 am going down almost to the bottom on the shady side ; but 

 with the help of my good wife I hope to live and eare for 

 my bees a few years longer. H. A. Doty. 



Surely, persistency is one of the strong points in Mr. 

 Doty"s make-up. And it seems to have won, at least for a 

 time. It is surprising how some neighbors can be so can- 

 tankerous — so utterly unreasonable. We hope Mr. Doty 

 may live yet many years, and finally completely overcome 

 all opposition to his keeping bees so long as they are not 

 real disturbers of the peace and quiet of the neighborhood. 



Mf. Alson SecOF, son of Hon. Eugene Secor, of Iowa, 

 called on us recently. " Alson " is assistant editor of that 

 great farm monthly, Successful Farming, published in Des 

 Moines. A small part of his work is to look after the bee- 

 department of the paper, which, of course, he knows how to 

 do — that is, if he profited by his father's apiarian instruc- 

 tion when at home, and no doubt he did that, and along 

 other lines also. Successful Farming is to be congratulated 

 on having been successful in securing Mr. Secor as one of 

 its editors. 



'"' Crofts & Reed are new advertiers in the American Bee 

 Journal. They are all right, as are all others advertising 

 with us, else we would not advertise for them. Give Crofts 

 & Reed a trial order, and also our other advertisers. Kindly 

 mention the American Bee Journal when writing advertisers. 



The Wisconsin Convention Report is crowded out 

 this week. We expect to continue it next week. 



* (£ontributeb * 

 Special CCrttcles 



How Can We Rear Better Queens? 



DY A. K. FERRIS. 



THE answering of this question should be the study of 

 every queen-breeder and honey-producer who wishes 

 success. 

 The first thing we will consider is the selection of the 

 queen from which to breed. In this we will select 2 or more 

 queens, whose bees excel the others in amount of honey pro- 

 duced, prolificness, whiteness of capping (if comb honey be 

 our object), and vigor — a point too often overlooked. Do not 

 breed from a queen whose bees will allow brood to starve 

 with capped honey in the hive. 



Often a large percent of the brood is only half fed during 

 the slack between fruit-bloom and clover, and what is the 

 result? Some are starved to death, and a still larger amount 

 never have that vigor necessary to good honey-production. 



After having considered the good as well as the objection- 

 able points in selecting breeders, then rear a few queens from 

 the one selected to be the queen-mother, and a batch of drones 

 from the one to be the drone-mother. Mate the queens to 

 these drones, having them isolated from other bees at least 3 

 or 4 miles, or having entrance-guards on all other colonies. 



Carefully keep tab on all hives containing these queens, 

 and if those reared excel the others in honey-production and 

 other desirable points, the choice of breeders has been a good 

 one, and the whole apiary should be requeened from these two 

 breeders. , , 



When we find a queen-breeding queen and a drone-breed- 

 ing queen, whose offspring, when mated, reproduce the desir- 

 able qualities, they are of great value, for such queens have 

 to be at least V/ 2 years old before they are thoroughly tested, 

 and it is hard to find breeders that reproduce the good points. 

 Often the queens reared from an apparently excellent 

 queen and mated to drones of another equally good will not 

 reproduce the good qualities of the parents in a single partic- 

 ular Therefore, when we find two breeding queens that re- 

 produce their excellent qualities, they are too valuable to be 

 disposed of. . Tjr 



The next question that naturally presents itself is, How to 

 rear these queens? I have tried all known methods, and have 

 found none to produce so large a percent of good queens as 

 the Doolittle svstem described in "Scientific Queen-Rearing. 



I find, however, some still argue that queenless bees rear 

 just as good queens as any, and for the benefit of those who 

 are interested. I will give my experience: 



* I purchased from a breeder who emphatically urges the 

 use of queenless bees for cell-building, a $5.00 queen, also the 

 booklet on "Improved Queen-Rearing," and after thoroughly 

 studying it I reared a large number of queens, and as I had 

 made some 35 colonies queenless all the same day, I gave each 

 a cell that would hatch in a couple of days. Twenty-one ot 

 these cells were from the Alley method, and the rest from the 

 Doolittle method. All had been made queenless the day pre- 

 vious to giving the cells; but. to my surprise, all the Alley 

 cells were torn down, while all the Doolittle-reared cells were 

 accepted. This set me to thinking, and I determined to know 

 tlic secret 



So I selected an extra strong colony 3 stories high, and 

 after fixing a solid division in the center. I divided the bees 

 equally and operated one-half on the Doolittle system and the 

 other half on the Alley system, and while it was the bees from 

 the same queen, and all in the same hive, the difference in the 

 cells was apparent, and as these were hatched in cages 1 found 

 that the difference in the queens was noticeable enough to be 

 detected by people who were strangers to bee-keeping. 



I have never had. as a rule, as good queens when reared 

 by queenless bees, and I have had two $5 queens as breeders, 

 and neither thev nor their offspring (when reared by the 

 Alley method) ever occupied over 8 Langstroth frames of 

 brood while queens reared by the Doolittle system from these 

 same two queens occupied from 9 to 14 Langstroth frames 

 witli brood. , . . . ., 



In making artificial cell-cups there is a point frequently 

 overlooked, and that is the inside diameter. Three-eighths of 

 an inch I find to be about right, and in these cells I invariably 



