Dec. 6, 1906 



American Ttee Journal 



1001 



very last man. Some of them make mis- 

 takes, but they all deserve the hearty 

 Support of every bee kei per and every 

 journal. No one has a right to criti- 

 cize them publicly. If he is incompe- 

 tent the law provides for his removal 

 from office, and this should be done; 

 Inn to publish criticisms on the mi 

 of an inspector ft to harm the industry 

 wilfully." 



Mr. L. II. Sch. ill gave a talk on in- 

 ion in Texas anil the methods em- 

 ployed. Shaking "has not proven satis- 

 factory, and the line they now work 

 on is to sulphur the diseased colony 

 at the entrance with a smoker, and then 

 burn the infected combs. 



Mr. J. Q. Smith, inspector for Illi- 

 nois described his method of treatment, 

 which was briefly that of shaking once 

 on starters of foundation, and being 

 careful not to allow any robbing or 

 dripping of honey. He stated that in 

 nine out of every ten yards treated he 

 had been successful. 



Mr. George W. York, Editor of the 

 American Bee Journal, then offered a 



ion thai a telegram of thanks be 



sent to Dr. I., i). Howard, Chief of the 

 Bureau of Entomology, as an expression 

 of gratitude felt by the inspectors of 

 the United States for the assistance of 

 his Bureau in the investigation of bee- 

 diseases. The motion was unanimously 

 carried. 



Dr. Phillips summed up the meeting 

 in a few very interesting and instruc- 

 tive remarks. He stated that he thought 

 it had been clearly demonstrated that 

 no one treatment could be successful in 

 all localities and under all circum- 

 stances. The treatment must be adapt- 

 ed to the locality and the surrounding 

 ci mditions. 



All who were privileged to attend the 

 meeting felt that it was a day most 

 profitably spent, and that such meetings 

 should continue. Bee-inspection must 

 ' 'ine a science, and the contact of 

 one inspector with another, comparing 

 methods and conditions, cannot but 

 broaden him and better fit him for one 

 of the most important of all- branches 

 of apicultural work. R. M. J. 



The' 



through New and Unreliable Glasses, 

 sta. B. Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



Provim*» HJrW.e rjvw Brom s. 



Dr. Miller asks what X iwould advise 

 as to provwftur drones and having 

 them actually eftMufce. I do not feel 

 ■ t I know what to advise. 

 ire, jjjj|fn't exactly fair to 

 dem*iditoi meat this stage of the 

 L-ame. t-ani privileged to say, " You 



: stabtototr the button with your 

 !e tWiere there isn't any hole," 

 ^ ^irst getting positive knowl- 

 edgflps to whether it's more east, west, 

 north or south that's needed to find the 

 orifice. If I am told, " You couldn't 

 sew the button on a bit better your- 

 self," I can reply: "That's so, prob- 

 ably ; and yet my original assertion is 

 the truth." 



This is my best at the present min- 

 ute : Choose a few convenient colo- 

 nies — no need that they be specially 

 high quality ones — and have them for 

 drone-homes. Keep their own drones 

 exterminated as nearly as possible. 

 Give them from time to time very small 

 bits of drone-comb with larvaj in — ■ 

 these, of course, to be of best chosen 

 parentage. I don't think giving just a 

 few newly-emerged drones, or even 

 giving just a few brood about to 

 emerge, would be quite so good as this 

 — yet it might for all that I know. It 

 would be effective to have chosen 

 drones flying first in spring or last in 

 fall — only some colony you are not 

 thinking of actually gets the first 



drones flying in the spring ; and some 

 strong colony you don't know is queen- 

 less is liable to have them last in the 

 fall. Page 814. 



Laying Ability of Queens. 



Here's a sliding scale of voracity. A 

 soldier, eating his rations and nothing 

 else, eats his weight in about 64 days. 

 A swine does much better. A farmer 

 shuts up 10 shoats weighing 100 pounds 

 each and feeds them corn three times a 

 day — half a bushel of ears at a feed — 

 or say 3 pounds of actual corn per 

 shoat. Thus they eat their weight in 

 less than 12 days. But a mouse, I find, 

 makes nothing of eating one-third of 

 its weight in one night. One of mine 

 ate his companion in 3 days, and lots of 

 other victuals besides. With cracker 

 alone they might fall short of one-third 

 their weight of it ; but with apple or 

 sweet potato with cracker they would 

 succeed. Then there's our queen-bee. 

 Food plus water must be, at least calcu- 

 lation, 20 percent heavier than her 

 day's total weight of eggs. I'll guess 

 they do not give a queen pure water 

 enough to affect the figures much ; but 

 I fear we can not be sure of that. If 

 eggs weigh 388 to the grain (I suspect 

 them lighter), then a queen laying 

 2000 eggs a day lays a little over 5 

 grains — say twice her summer weight, 

 or 2J2 times her winter weight. We'll 

 say it takes 6 grains of food to produce 



S grains of eggs. If so, she eats her 

 winter weight in 8 hours. Mr. Carr's 

 queen, mentioned on page l J50, must 

 have eaten her weight about every 4 

 hours. [Aside. No wonder queens 

 (except when chilled) starve to death 

 so quickly.] 



Here's a way that occurs to me to 

 get a founded opinion as to whether 

 they give the queen much water or not. 

 Weigh 100 fresh eggs. Then seek how 

 many thoroughly dried eggs it takes to 

 balance them. If only 120, or there- 

 abouts, then the assumption above is 

 correct. If it takes 200 or more, then 

 they give her water largely. 



Micb Eating Honey Again. 



The mouse experiment mentioned on 

 page 917, I repeated on the same mice, 

 and also on different mice, with the 

 same result. That's evidently sound — 

 they don't want to have honey spread 

 on their favorite viands. Next I gave 

 a piece of comb honey to mice having 

 plenty of various kinds of food and 

 also water. Next morn there was an 

 abrasion on one side which I now think 

 was due to mouse-teeth. At the time I 

 felt in doubt whether they did it, or 

 whether it was there when I put it in. 

 Certainly they didn't eat much of it. 

 This honey was exposed to 2 mice for 

 3 nights. When taken out it was leak- 

 ing quite a bit below, apparently from 

 being jumped on at play. No consid- 

 erable eating. And yet I several times 

 saw them notice the honey — I being so 

 far off that I couldn't tell whether they 

 merely snuffed it or took a slight sip. 

 From the next experiment I didn't get 

 off quite so well — but the above will do 

 for this time. 



Most Money Made With Bees. 



So $22,000 is the high-water mark of 

 money accumulated at honey-produc- 

 tion — and that long ago when prices 

 were high. Record holder, Adam 

 Grimm. Page 815. 



Introducing Qdeens. 



Dr. J. H. Heagy, page 816, evidently 

 has " ideas and things "about queen- 

 introduction. Brand-new cage with 

 no bee-smell in it. Companions all 

 newly-emerged bees from the colony 

 about to receive the queen. These 

 kinks can hardly be anything else than 

 good, and may be quite important. His 

 washing the queen with water held in 

 a camel-hair brush is rather unique — 

 hardly know what to think as to the 

 utility of it. But we'll kindly play 

 that it does lots of good in ridding her 

 of accumulated odors. Humble her 

 pride a little anyhow, and keep her 

 from abusing the infantile bees she is 

 put with. That her companions (on 

 account of tender age) have nothing to 

 feed her, seems to be a weak point. 



Cells for Queen-Larv^. 



Curious. W. C. Gathright finds that 

 cells raw and ragged from the knife 

 are not nearly so acceptable, when 

 larva; are put in, as when first inserted 

 2 or 3 hours in a queenless colony. The 

 result of this latter operation is pol- 

 ished and smooth surfaces ; and a 

 much larger proportion of the larvos 

 will be accepted. Page 816. 



