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

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



GEORGE \V. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL, JULY 12, 1906 



Vol. XLVI— No 28 



(iforial lAofes 

 md Comments 



Prevention of Swarming With Extracted Honey 



In so complicated an affair as working to prevent the 

 swarming of colonies, it is not strange that there should be 

 differences of opinion as to the emphasis to be put upon 

 different items. The following note is an illustration : 



Editor York : — In the instructive article of G. M. Doolittle, page 

 555, has he not omitted the most important item in the prevention of 

 swarming when running for extracted honey! Is not the great 

 amount of ventilation that may obtain with extracted-honey colonies 

 of more importance than all the other items combined ? 



Hoset-Man*. 



It is the general belief — in which Mr. Doolittle shares — 

 that it is easier to prevent swarming when running for ex- 

 tracted than when running for comb honey, the general ex- 

 planation for which is that more abundant room may be 

 given both in the brood-chamber and the surplus apartment. 

 It is also probably generally believed that more ventilation 

 may be given without interfering with storing in the case 

 of extracted-honey colonies than in that of comb-honey 

 colonies. But is our knowledge with regard to this very 

 full and exact ? 



If a large opening be made in the upper part of a sur- 

 plus apartment, we know that less work will be done by the 

 bees near such opening. In the case of comb honey the re- 

 sult is bad, plainly showing in unfinished sections at that 

 point. In the case of extracted honey we say it merely 

 means that the honey is stored farther away ; unused ex- 

 tracting combs are not as bad as are unfinished sections. 

 But it is certain that there is no real loss of honey in the 

 case of extracting combs if ventilation be excessive ? 



Whatever may be the case, it is claimed by some that 

 there will be little or no swarming with stories enough and 

 large ventilation at the bottom, between each two stories, 

 and under the cover. Who can tell us from actual trial 

 whether this is reliable ? 



Fairness to Advertisers and Subscribers 



It is the earnest desire of the American Bee Journal to 

 treat both advertisers and subscribers with all the fairness 

 possible, as was urged on page 442, but our correspondent 

 " Canada " seems not to see it exactly in that light. He 

 writes : 



The first part ot the advertisement referred toon page 442, cer- 

 tainly leads to the impression that the advertiser was a beginner iu 

 queen-rearing, and now (May 24) you ask, What is to hinder the 

 queens being all right! I answer, to any but the veriest novice the 

 inference would be that when that advertiser bought the black bees 

 there were other black bees in the neighborhood, and he was liable to 

 have some of his queens mated to black drones. I have a queen pur- 



chased late last fall, and her drones are so black as to be unsatisfactory, 

 especially when compared with some (supposed to be^ Doolittle stock. 

 A friend has been buying Italian queen6 2 years or more, and has very 

 few true Italians yet. Like Dr. Miller, he will have to Italianize the 

 whole neighborhood before he can cease to breed hybrids. 



Canada. 



It is hardly worth while to discuss whether others would 

 understand that a man was a beginner in queen-rearing be- 

 cause he advertised reduced prices on bees he had bought 

 and Italianized, as the probability is that all other queen- 

 rearers have been guilty of the same charge when first en- 

 tering the business. The drift of the objection seems to be 

 the danger that queens might be sold that were impurely 

 mated by black drones in the neighborhood. Passing by 

 the possibility that the black bees bought might have been 

 from some distance, one may ask whether "Canada " de- 

 mands that no one shall offer queens for sale unless he is in 

 a locality entirely free from all but pure drones. If that be 

 the view on which he bases his objection — and if not he 

 will kindly tell us more specifically what his objection is — 

 it may be as well to say at once that the probability is that 

 the advertiser in question does not live in a locality where 

 only pure Italian drones are to be found ; and to add also 

 that neither does any other unless he lives on some island. 



The material difference in price between tested and un- 

 tested queens comes from the fact that there is no positive 

 proof that a virgin has not met an impure drone, until her 

 worker offspring emerges. If the queen rearer were posi- 

 tively certain that none but pure drones were in reach of 

 his virgin queens, an untested queen would be just as good 

 as a tested one, and there would be no need to distinguish 

 in price. 



If there be no other objection to the advertisement in 

 question than that it might lead " Canada " to think the 

 advertiser a beginner, and that impure drones were in his 

 neighborhood, the American Bee journal can hardly feel 

 that it has been wanting in consideration for the interests 

 of its subscribers in accepting the said advertisement. 



Legal Rights to Bee-Territory in Australia 



The business of bee-keeping is differentiated from 

 almost all others by the fact that no man can hold an un- 

 disputed title to a given bee-range unless he holds absolute 

 possession of thousands of acres of land. There is a some- 

 what general feeling that priority of location should be re- 

 spected, but all are not agreed upon it, some holding that 

 any man has a moral as well as a legal right to plant an 

 apiary upon any rood of land he can buy or rent, no matter 

 if the territory is already fully occupied. 



One man vigorously advocated, some years ago, the 

 idea that there should be such legislation as would give un- 

 disputed possession of a given territory, so that a bee- 

 keeper might feel just as secure against intrusion as the 

 farmer who holds his ancestral acres. But the idea was not 

 popular, and he was unsupported, it seeming to the general 

 mind that no just legislation could give one man full pos- 

 session of a piece of land for farming purposes while 

 another man should own the nectar upon it. 



Exactly that sort of legislation, however, is what our 

 bee-keeping friends on the other side of the globe have ob- 



