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

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



GEORGE W. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL., JULY 19, 1906 



Vol. XLVI-No, 29 



An Independent Bee=Paper 



The American Bee Journal is absolutely an independent publica- 

 tion, and neither is it nor its editor connected in any way with aDy 

 bee-supply business whatsoever. It stands entirely upon its merits 

 as an educative force in the tiekl of bee-keeping, and as a medium 

 for legitimate advertisers in Apicultural or other lines. It is the 

 oldest, and only weekly, journal of its kind in America. Its 

 publishers believe that it deserves to be in the hands of every 

 would-be progressive, successful bee-keeper in the land. It is in 

 its 46th year, and to-day is acknowledged to be better in every 

 way than at any time during its long and honorable history. 



Cdiforial lAofes 

 and Comments 



When Swarms Cluster Together 



Sometimes the bee-keeper is thrown into despair by the 

 issuing of several swarms at once, all uniting in one huge 

 cluster. C. W. Dayton gives in Gleanings an original plan 

 for managing such cases. He says he wants the swarms to 

 unite, as it makes the work easier. The queens will, be 

 balled, and that makes it easy to pick out the queens. 



The cluster is put into a screened cage or hive for 8 or 

 10 hours, the queens being removed, and he thinks these 

 » hours of uneasiness and queenlessness free them of the 

 swarming mania. Then they are allowed to return to their 

 own hives, not in a body, but singly as queenless bees, each 

 seeking individually its own hive. He says : 



With more than one swarm in a cluster it causes matters to be 

 very unsettled. Then when bees from several swarms are caged to- 

 gether it i6 all the more confusing in their swarming. The more con- 

 fusion the better. It abstracts the bees from their own intentions. 

 When fir6t caged they will buzz and bump against the screen for 

 awhile, but finally settle in a compact, quiet cluster, and the queens 

 will remain quiet. Then the bees can be poured out of the box on a 

 smooth space of ground, and the queens picked up and caged in a few 

 moments. When all the queens are secured, set the box down on the 

 ground, open side down, and in an hour or so the bees will cluster in 

 it again. Then put the screen on to confine them until it is time to 

 let them go home, which should be near night. Wait until the bees 

 find out that they have no queens, then they will want In gel out and 

 return to their own hive, thinking that their own queen did not issue 

 with them. Open the screen only partially so that they can escape 

 slowly. Do not throw them out in a pile on the ground. They are 

 now dissatisfied with the strange cluster they are about to leave, and 

 they will not go in with another cluster of strange bees unless it is by 

 the confusion of a mass of bees together. They will not cluster " on 

 other hives. " 



For many the plan will not be feasible, because it will 

 not be easy to tell to which of the different colonies the dif- 



ferent queens belong. But to Mr. Dayton this is no objec- 

 tion, for he wants the old queens removed, and later on a 

 young queen or a ripe cell to be given. 



Yet even to those who have clipped queens the plan 

 may be of much value at times when two or more swarms 

 without any queen unite. Left to themselves they are 

 likely to make bad work by going in a cluster to the wrong 

 hive. Imprisoned for several hours, and then allowed to es- 

 cape as queenless bees, a few at a time, they might be ex- 

 pected to return, each bee to its own hive. 



Bees and Bee-keeping in Japan. 



Mr. T. B. Blow, a large supply dealer at Welwyn, Eng- 

 land, made a tour of this country some years ago, visiting a 

 number of beekeepers. A little later he married a Japan- 

 ese lady, and settled in Japan. Although having become a 

 bee-keeper in Japan, it seems he had to send to England for 

 honey for his own table. The following extracts from a let- 

 ter in the British Bee Journal will be of interest to those 

 who desire to know more about Japan : 



No sooner did I settle down in this, my adopted country, than the 

 bee-fever was soon on me, and I determined again to keep bees. They 

 are not plentiful in Japan (despite the statistics of the Agricultural 

 Department schedule, the supposed number of colonies which is, I 

 should think, greatly over-estimated ) Honey is not used in Japan 

 for food, but as medicine. The bees are kept in square boxes of about 

 one cubic foot contents, and cubical in shape. There is a door at 

 back, and the comb honey is cut out whenever available, and is 

 crushed (along with the brood, often,) and strained, and in this state 

 sold. Very little wax is obtained, for though wax is used extensively 

 in this country for various purposes, it is vegetable wax, mainly. 



Having got a swarm of native bees into a civilized hive 

 with proper appurtenances, he says : 



And now the troubles began. The Jipanese bees are smaller than 

 the European, and they very reluctantly took to the comb foundation ; 

 undoubtedly the cells were too lar^e for them to deal with well. See- 

 ing the multitudes of flowers around, one would have expected an 

 amazing yield of honey; for instance, in April and May, one may 

 travel for hundreds of miles and see one blaze of yellow from the 

 mustard and rape flowers (the oil-producing plant,) but beyond this 

 there is nothing. Later on the whole country is under rice, which, of 

 course, is useless. But the bees themselves are lazy — there is some 

 food to be got almost all the year round (for we have no cold, wet 

 winter like that of England, ) and the bees certainly do not store much 

 honey, and so, after two years' experience, I conclude that it is 

 cheaper to buy honey than to produce it, and in quality our English 

 honey is vastly superior; so though my bees are still alive and well, 

 I allow them the use of all they gather, or nearly all. 



Correct Nomenclature In Bee-Keeping 



Bee-keepers average up well in intelligence, and so it 

 is nothing strange that when a word has come into use 

 with a wrong meaning, there should be protest. Prof. 

 Cook has protested vigorously against calling the larva of 

 the bee-moth a " wax-worm," insisting that the term shouid 

 never be used. Prof. Cook is a good bee-keeper, yet he is a 

 scientist — an entomologist — before he is a bee-keeper, and 

 so, no doubt, more jealous as to correct names of bugs, 

 worms, and such things than the mere bee-keeper. But if 



