994 



Dec. 6 1906 



American Ttee Journal 



xhea she comes to the following spring to be 

 named " 2 years.' she may do well, or she may 

 lot." i Exactly what I said.) "I believe 

 ;he wisest plan is to replace her as soon as 

 misible," etc. A wiser plan still, perhaps, 

 irould have been to replace her the previous 

 ' fall " (as you term it), when young queens 

 ivere more easily obtained than in spring. 



As to your remarks on swarming, and in 

 he old smothering 6ystem, you seem to have 

 luite missed the point of my argument. 

 J nder that barbarous smothering 6ystem, to 

 »hich I referred, the " top " or fir6t swarm 

 'containing, of course, the old queen) wa6 

 imothered at the end of the harvest. Only 

 ,he old skep (containing a young queen), and 

 lerbaps a "side" swarm or two, were re- 

 ;ained. Each apiary, therefore, contained 

 renerally nothing but jjueens of the "pre- 

 vious year's rearing, 1 ' when spring came 

 iround. Tour remarks, consequently, on 

 iwarming not changing the age of a queen 

 lave no bearing, seeing that the old queens 

 were dispatched every season. 



In this country apiaries are small, and api- 

 irists only learning modern methods. Per- 

 laps over SO percent of the bee-keepers here 

 lave not more than 4 colonies. The climate 

 s damp, the summer short, the honey-flow 

 irecarious. These facts make bee-keeping 

 iomewhat different from what it is in Amer- 

 ca; but even in that land of huge apiaries, 

 lot summers, and enormous tracts of honey- 

 lasturage. I doubt whether it would not 

 lay better to work generally with queens "of 

 he previous year's rearing," as advocated by 

 learly all our experienced men. 



Bee-keepers here are like brothers. I feel, 

 herefore, glad of an excuse for exchanging 

 emarks with one in far away Chicago — 

 vhere some of my schoolmates are. 



I wish you, and all the fraternity, much 

 irosperily. Yours faithfully, 



T. Maguire. 



Enniskillen, Ireland, Oct. 16. 



We are very glad to get this letter, Mr. Ma- 

 ;uire, and for several reasons. One reason is 

 lecause of the fine quality of good-nature 

 pith which it abounds. Another is because 

 t discloses a misunderstanding on your part 

 hat is not so much to be wondered at, but 

 rhich, when cleared up, will put things in a 

 ifferent light. You say : 



"Almost every prominent writer on bees 

 hat I have read insists on the importance of 

 aving young queens, and I think it is now 

 up to you' to quote those who enlarge upon 

 le virtues of old ones." 



We are more likely to come to an under- 

 anding if your attention i6 called to the 

 tct that the relative value of old and young 

 ueens was not a matter of dispute between 

 s. Please look again at page 685, and you 

 ill see that we did not say a word as to 

 nether you were right or wrong in thinking 

 Dung queens better. We did not dispute 

 3ur view that it was better to replace queens 

 i the end of their first year. What we did 

 uestion was your statement that " the mat- 

 ir is strongly urged in bee-guides and bee- 

 lurnals." 



As to the authorities quoted in the Irish 

 ee Journal, it can easily be now understood 

 iw both you and Editor Digges counted 

 em as supporting your position, for you 

 ■idently had in mind the question as to the 

 ferior value of queeus too old, and each one 

 the authorities quoted most certainly ar- 

 led their inferiority. But with a single ex - 

 ption they most emphatically did not urge 

 at a queen should be replaced at the end of 

 r first year. Replacing a queen at the end 

 her second year is a different thing from re- 

 icing her at the end of her first year. Re- 



ferring to the remarks of Mr. Pettit, page 

 689, from which we quote, it will be seen that 

 he says that as a rule a queen goes through 

 her second seasoo and does well, and that she 

 may do well the third season, or she may not. 

 Can that by any possibility be construed into 

 urging that she be replaced at the end of her 

 first year? When you look again at page 685, 

 and see ju6t exactly what we were talking 

 about, there will surely be no further dis- 

 agreement between us. 



Yes, you are quite right that the point of 

 your argument as to removing old queens by 

 the brimstone method was missed. In this 

 country the rule has been to " take up " the 

 heaviest and the lightest cilonies; the heav- 

 iest because giving the most honey, and the 

 lightest because they would not be likely to 

 go through the winter, and what honey they 



had might as well be taken. By this plan the 

 doomed queens might be young or they might 

 be old. In your country, it seems, the first 

 swarm is always the victim, and that would 

 always doom the old queen. You might ask 

 whether in dooming the heaviest colonies in 

 this country we did not always doom the first 

 swarm, and to this question we can make no 

 positive reply. 



It was good of you to 6end what you call 

 the " little sketch " as an antidote in a case 

 of " bad humor," but -you may rest assured 

 there was no " bad humor " in the case. If 

 there had been, the reading of that sketch, 

 which will appear in a future number, would 

 certainly have been an effective cure, for the 

 one who can read it through without a hearty 

 laugh must be farther gone in bad humor 

 than is ever allowed " in this locality." 



(Miscellaneous 

 flews - Items 



Dzierzon is Dead ! — An extra leaf in 

 Praktisher Wegweiser has the following an- 

 nouncement: 



Lowkowitz (Upper Silesia in Austria), 

 Oct. 26, 1906. — This forenoon, after long con- 

 finement to a sick bed, departed this life the 

 revered old bee-master, Dr. John Dzierzon, 

 aged 95 years and 9 months. 



The condition of the deceased became so 

 much worse in the past few days that his de- 

 parture was hourly expected. 



Peace to His Ashes! 



Dr. Kuehl and wife have gone to Low- 

 kowitz, in the name of the German, Austrian, 

 and Hungarian Wanderversammhtng to lay a 

 wreath on the coffin of him who has fallen 

 asleep. 



We hope soon to give a biographical sketch 

 of this Prince and Father of German bee- 

 keepers. 



♦ 



Mr. P. R. Hobble, of Dodge City, Kan., 

 called on us last week. He is nearly 70 years 

 old, and from 1? colonies, spring count, he 

 secured about a ton of comb honey, and in- 

 creased his apiary to 30 colonies. 



The winter of 1903-04 was very cold, and in 

 the spring of 1904 there were but 14 colonies 

 alive. I always let them swarm once, and try 

 to cut queen-cells, but that summer they 

 went ahead of me, increasing to 34 colonies, 

 besides obtaining 1200 pounds of honey. 



The spring of 1905 I had 29 colonies, which 

 ncreased to 68, and produced about 2000 

 pounds of honey. 



Last spring I sold a part of my stock, and 

 at present have 69 colonies; but it is a very 

 poor year for honey, and they are doing 

 scarcely anything. 



I have a little foul brood, but in the fall I 

 always " take up" any that show any signs 

 of the disease. 



The photograph shows, besides myself, my 

 10-year-old son Charles, who hived a swarm 

 alone when I was away one day. 



Ellis S. Stenabauoh. 



The Apiary of Ellis S. Stenabaugh, 



shown on the front page, was written about 

 by Mr. S. as follows, on Aug 22: 



I have kept bees for the last 20 years, but 

 until about 12 years ago I knew but very lit- 

 tle about them. About that time I was em- 

 ployed by a man who had 40 or 50 coloni.es. I 

 helped him in his apiary, and with all his 

 bee-work, in fact, and so contracted the 

 fever. So after helping him 8 years I bought 

 bis stock, which, with my own, made 56 colo- 

 nies, and I moved them to their present loca- 

 tion about April 1, 1901. When I looked 

 through them on May 1 of the following year, 

 1 wished they were where they had cume 

 from, as I found only 27 that I considered at 

 all good. Some were queenless, and several 

 had foul brood, but that year I obtained 2000 

 pounds of honey (comb and extracted), and 

 that is a very good yield for this locality. 



The Apiary of H. S. Little is shown 



on the first page this week. He wrote as fol- 

 lows concerning it, Sept. 29: 



I am an amateur bee-keeper, as I started 

 July, 1905, with one colony. I wintered 4 

 colonies — 3 in box-hives, which proved worth- 

 less and were transferred. I have at present 

 11 colonies in my " Brook View Apiary." The 

 bees are mostly hybrids, but I have 4 pure 

 Italian queens and expect to rear enough 

 queens next 6pring to introduce to the hybrid 

 colonies. 



The hives are the 8-frame factory-made 

 kind, and I use 4J-oXl'. J inch plain sectious, 

 as my customers think they are plumper and 

 nicer than the bee-way sections. 



I expect to winter the bees on the summer 

 stands with a chaff super, as they have a 

 sheltered location. 



I exhibited my honey at the Agr'cultural 

 Fair, and took the prize. 



I read 3 bee-papers and have a text-book, 

 and all have paid me more than they cost. 

 H. S. Little. 



In Old San Antonio. — Last week we 

 tried to tell something of the trip from Chi- 

 cago to San Antonio in the special car-load of 

 bee-keepers. On the way some one asked us 



