(Entered at the Post-Offlce at Chicago as Second-Class Mail-Matter.) 

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



O.BORUE W. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL, APRIL 19, 1906 



VoLXLVI— No, 16 



^ 



(£bttonal Hotcs 

 anb (Comments 



J 



Apiarian Experiments in Canada 



Prof. H. R. Rowsome, Lecturer in Apiculture, Ontario 

 Agricultural College, in his reports gives an account of 

 three experiments, none of which was a howling success : 



Simmins' Plan for Prevention of Swarming, 



which consists in keeping constantly unfinished combs be- 

 tween the brood-nest and the entrance, was tried with S 

 colonies. All 5 swarmed, although there was partial excuse 

 in the fact that it was a bad season for swarming. In 

 speaking of the plan, Prof. Rowsome says : 



The inference is that a colony (the queen being young) will not 

 swarm when the parent colony can not be easily protected against 

 robbing, and a colony can not be easily defended when there is a large 

 empty space at the entrance of a hive, as is the case when the first 4 or 



5 frames contain starters merely and not combs. 



Is this not a new theory ? 



The Townsend Super-Plan, 



having both sections and extracting-combs in the same 

 super, was tried with separators over 3 hives, and without 

 separators over 3 others : 



The honey-flow was extremely good. Where there were no sep- 

 arators some sections were not touched at all, the sections and combs 

 on either side of them being built out into these sections. Those sec- 

 tions that were built out unduly were apparently nearly V ., inches 

 thick in the middle, and were badly filled at the edges. The bees were 

 very slow in working on the sections, doing so only when they had 

 filled the extracting combs. 



Painting Travel-Stained Sections. 



With regard to these. Prof. Rowsome reports : 



I had hopes that a very thin coating of wax applied to the surface 

 of dirty comb honey would improve its appearance. I tried painting 

 hot wax with a varnish-brush upon comb honey, but the wax, instead 

 of leaving an equal coat upon all the indentations of the cappings 

 filled up the hollows and left a smooth surface, which also looked 

 mus6y and more unmarketable, but it certainly did cover up the travel- 



6 tains. 



Queenless Colonies in Spring 



If you are a beginner, anxious to increase the number 

 of your colonies, you will be distressed to find that one or 

 more are queenless. Perhaps you may find one of your very 

 best coloDies contains no brood at the opening of spring, 

 when all other colonies contain brood, and after watching 

 and waiting in vain for any appearance of eggs or brood, 

 the unwelcome truth is finally forced in upon you that the 

 colony is hopelessly queenless. 



It is a moral certainty that to such a colony you will 

 give a frame of brood from some other colony, so that the 



queenless bees may rear therefrom a queen. Left to your 

 own experience, it will take years for you to learn any better, 

 if indeed you ever learn better. But if you trust to the ex- 

 perience of others, you will not fool away time trying to 

 have that colony rear a queen. It may do later in the sea- 

 son, but not in spring. Of course you can keep up the 

 strength of the colony by giving it brood from time to 

 time ; but that's robbing Peter to pay Paul. The loss of 

 brood will do more harm to the other colonies than the gain 

 to the unfortunate. At so early a time the chances of suc- 

 cess in rearing a queen are not the most brilliant. The 

 attempt to rear a queen from the first brood given may be 

 an utter failure ; a queen may be reared only to disappear 

 in some mysterious way ; and if you are as successful as to 

 get a young queen to laying, it will be only to find later on 

 that she is practically worthless. A good queen may be 

 reared early in spring ; but a good queen rarely is reared in 

 spring. 



If you are wise, the first hard work you do when you 

 find a colony queenless in spring is remorselessly to break 

 up the colony and distribute its parts to other colonies. The 

 words " hard work " are used advisedly, for it is hard work 

 for the beginner to reduce by one the number of his colo- 

 nies ; but it is the profitable thing to do. He may have one 

 less colony ; but he will have more bees ; and at the close of 

 the season more colonies. 



Don't fool with a queenless colony in spring ; break 

 it up. 



The Sting-Trowel Theory 



After slumbering more or less quietly for a few years, 

 the romantic tale that the bees drop into each cell of honey 

 a small drop of poison from the sting before sealing up the 

 cell, using the sting as a trowel to work the wax, seems to 

 have started anew its round of the public press. To any 

 who have sent in clippings of the kind, possibly wondering 

 what foundation there may be for the yarn, it may be said 

 that it is all a work of imagination, its originator appar- 

 ently seeming to think it true, but never offering a particle 

 of proof. Of course, none of the papers that give it cur- 

 rency will bother themselves with a contradiction, and the 

 only thing that can be done is patiently to allow it to run 

 its course and die out, only to be resurrected 7 years later 

 by some penny-a-liner who has nothing else sensational on 

 hand. 



Wouldn't Call an Italian-Black a Hybrid 



We have received the following from R. F. Holtermann, 

 who attended the Michigan Convention, the report of 

 which began on page 302 : 



Friend York: — After reading the report of the Michigan State 

 Convention, I felt as if I had just grounds for having some one up, or 

 some Journal up, for defamation of character. It says: 



"As to race of bees, Mr. Holtermann prefers a hybrid of about 

 three-quarters Italian and one-quarter black." 



It seems to me it was made pretty clear (very clear) that it was a 

 itoss between Italian and Carniolan. If that is the " black " blood 

 referred to, it would be all right, but by •' hybrid " we generally un- 

 derstand something else. 



By the way, would it not be well to have all bee-keepers and the 

 publishers of bee-literature (who can watch and control the matter) 



