Oct. 18, 1906 



883 



American Ttec Journal 



ist. aa. 



Golden Italian bees and queen, all in 



single-story observatory bive6 $ 5 $ 3 



Three-banded Italian bees and queen.. ?> S 



Carniolan bees and queen - 5 3 



Caucasian bees and queen 5 3 



Cyprian bees and queen 5 3 



Holy Land bees and queen 5 3 



Black bees and queen 5 3 



Best display of bumblebees 5 3 



Best .display nf banded bees 5 3 



Best and largest display of bees of va- 

 rious race6 in observatory hives. .. . 10 G 

 Best and largest display of queens of 



various races in mailing cages 5 3 



Best case of white section honey, 18 



pounds or more 3 2 



Best case of light amber section honey 5 3 

 Best and largest display of section 



comb honey 5 3 



Best display of special designs of comb 



honey 5 3 



Best 12-lb. friction-top pails of white 



bulk-comb honey 3 2 



Best 6-lb. friction-top pail of white 



bulk-comb honey 3 2 



Best 3-lb. friction-top pail of white 



bulk-comb honey 3 2 



Best display of bulk-comb honey 5 3 



Best dozen jars white extracted honey 3 2 

 Best dozen jars light amber extracted 



honey 3 2 



Best display of extracted honey 5 3 



Best display of extracted honey in 



granulated form 3 2 



Best sample cake of bright yellow bees- 

 wax, not less than 2 pounds 5 3 



Best and largest display of beeswax ... 5 3 



Best display of special designs in bees- 

 wax P 3 



Best display of fruit preserved in 

 honey j> 8 



Best honey-vinegar 3 2 



Best instructive display in apiarian 

 products and the various uses made 

 of honey and beeswax 20 10 



Best and largest display of bee-keepers' 

 supplies Diploma. 



San Antonio National— Nov. 8, 

 9, and 10 



Car-loads of bee-keepers from the 

 North, and East and West 1 With such 

 an attendance from those sections, and 

 a full quota from the South, the Texas 

 National Convention should be a good 

 meeting. 



All bee-keepers of the South, who 

 possibly can, should make it a point to 

 be in San Antonio on these dates. 

 Don't forget them ! And all who do 

 come should become interested enough 

 to join, not only the National, but the 

 Texas bee-keepers should join the 

 Texas Association, too. 



.Kir. ifasftfs 

 flfferfhou 



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

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



Bees Carrying Water at Night. 



"Live and Learn " is a good motto. 

 But as to some things, it is better not 

 to learn too easily. D. J. Pawletta 

 does not fully convince me that his 

 bees bring water at night ; but I gladly 

 receive the preparatory lesson that 

 might result in conviction later on. I 

 suspect that bees coming out of the 

 hive to die misled him. Also, it is 

 nothing unusual to have occasional 

 bees follow and butt at a lantern, in a 

 semi-infuriated state of mind, on a hot 

 night. Mine do so. And I have often 

 wondered, seeing there are so fre- 

 quently from one to three after my 

 lantern, why it never happens that a 

 whole tribe of them follow. What 

 causes the limitation ? It is bees of 

 this kidney, I take it, that occasionally 

 enter a lighted room some distance 

 away. But how about his seeing bees 

 coming back with water? That's the 

 stickler. Just at present I can't do 

 much better than this. With several 

 hundred bees on the alighting-board 

 and front, and light enough to observe 

 them by, I can imagine that stir in 

 the vicinity might stir some of them up 

 to fly ; and after flying awhile they 

 might alight so regularly on the board 

 as to deceive saints. Am quite sure I 

 should want to observe the watering- 

 place and see the bees load up and start 



for home. When he has done that, 

 then it will be time enough for us to 

 think about taking on the new idea. 

 Page 723. 



The Laying of Queens. 



And now the matter of the laying of 

 queens (somewhat akin to that dis- 

 cussed by the cats on the fence) is 

 handled by Mr. Doolittle, the premier 

 of us all. By the way, the consequences 

 of being acknowledged first in any 

 profession are not quite all of them 

 pleasant. The "easy chief" might, 

 we imagine, get tired of the thickly- 

 plastered-on encomiums of beginners 

 and those with small experience, while 

 those with large experience are prone 

 to keep silence when they agree, and 

 argue pretty sharply when they dis- 

 agree. And the present fellow with 

 long experience (not saying anything 

 about large wisdom) may be just a 

 trifle in the " cat-on-fence " frame of 

 mind. So here goes now. 



" Hold yer hosses," brother, about 

 your using as small a brood-chamber 

 as any one in the U. S. You use 9 

 Gallup frames. I have kept an apiarv 

 of 100 colonies, more or less, for 27 

 years, a goo 3 third of them on 7 Gallup 

 frames, and most of the others on 7 

 Langstroth frames. (My way of meet- 

 ing the necessities of a location which 

 has an ocean of flowers and a shock- 



ing tendency to have no honey in the 

 flowers.) And even on 7 Gallup frames 

 the total amount of brood reared in the 

 two outside ones is rather small. 

 Pretty lively work to get that 242,000 

 eggs a year into 5 frames. And are we 

 to suppose that Doolittle is as far " off " 

 about what goes on among the bees as 

 he was this one time about what goes 

 on among the bee-keepers ? 



Suppose we put it in this shape : 

 What might the fellow with a tendency 

 t'other way say in answer to Mr. Doo- 

 little's figures ? Well, the prime swarm 

 takes the bees which emerge for 42 

 days, less a very moderate fraction 

 that stay behind. This, according to 

 his figures, would be 80,000, or nearly 

 18 pounds of bees. Allowing between 

 2 and 3 pounds of bees to stay in the 

 hive, this calls for 15-pound swarms 

 at the Doolittle yard. Some of us are 

 not inclined to believe it. Fellow with 

 tendency t'other way remarks that 4 

 pounds is a tolerable prime swarm, S 

 pounds a good one, 6 pounds "real 

 nice," and 7 pounds unusually large. 

 (Presumably not unusual in yards 

 where large brood-chambers are run.) 

 And are not Mr. Doolittle's grand to- 

 tals a bit like the enormous crops ama- 

 teur and going-to-be farmers figure out 

 from the product of a single select 

 plant ? 



Or let's get at the thing in detail, 

 dividing the year up into broods. 

 Practically the broods overlap, but 

 mathematically they can be considered 

 as if separate. I would put the first 

 brood in the latter part of February 

 rather than in January. If so, the year 

 has not far from 12 broods covering 

 252 days and leaving 113 days of inter- 

 val. First brood 1000; second 2000; 

 third 6000; fourth 12,000; fifth (first 

 part of May) 25,000; sixth 25,000; 

 seventh (June after swarming) 12,000 ; 

 eighth 20,000 ; ninth 15,000 ; tenth 

 15,000; eleventh 8000; twelfth 6000. 

 These figures are somewhat off-hand, 

 but are checked by reference to the 

 records of many actual censuses. The 

 total of the above is 147,000, as against 

 Doolittle's 242,000. The very common 

 sort of locality, with no surplus in 

 August and September, would tend to 

 decrease the 147,000, while a larger 

 brood-chamber than I use would tend 

 to increase it. With a hand-to-mouth 

 honey-flow we might expect, say, 

 eighth 15,000 ; ninth 7000 ; tenth 5000 ; 

 eleventh 4000 ; twelfth ::000— a falling 

 off of 31,000 in all. 



And one thing which I think Mr. 

 Doolittle should mention before speak- 

 ing so severely against superseding, is 

 that some supersede not at all because 

 they doubt the queen's capacity to lay, 

 but because it is hoped that young 

 queens will be some help in the strug- 

 gle against the swarming nuisance. It 

 does not take so much time or cash to 

 have a young queen in each hive that 

 one must let them serve until they fail. 

 Page 735. 



Hive Roofs and Shade. 



If Mr. Dadant has kept an apiary in 

 15 different spots of widely varying 

 sort, manifestly he is qualified to speak 

 of shade and shelter. Water-tight 

 hive, with movable and much larger 

 roof above it — never mind if it isn't 

 quite water-tight — seems to be kis 



