552 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Xlie American Apiciiltitrist for 



May was, as usual, the first of the bee- 

 papers for this month to put in an appear- 

 ance. It reached our oflBce on April 26th. 

 Bro. Alley " gets there " on time, which is 

 something we can appreciate, for we are 

 great believers in promptness, as our readers 

 well know who have from week to week 

 received the Bee Journal so regularly for 

 so many years. 



Bro. Alley devotes his May number to a 

 thorough consideration of the " Queen-and- 

 Drone Trap,'' in comparison with self- 

 hivers. Bro. A. says: " It must be evident 

 to all that there is no particular need of 

 self-hivers in the apiary. The queen-trap 

 will do all the work." He quotes a great 

 deal from the Review for March and April, 

 and concludes that "Editor Hutchinson 

 strongly decides in favor of the trap as the 

 most practical arrangement for managing 

 bees at s warming-time." 



Frame Size ibr Queen-Rearing. 



— Mr. G. M. Doolittle, in a carefully written 

 article in Oleaniugs, in answer to " What 

 size of frame shall we use in queen-rearing?" 

 says that after years of trial he has failed 

 to find any special advantage in a small 

 frame, but rather disadvantages. In view 

 of this, he advises using the same size frame 

 in the nucleus hive as has been adopted for 

 general use in the apiary. 



i^ome Queen-Kearing' ]L<essous 



will soon be given by Mrs. Atchley in her 

 department of the Bee Jouknal. It will 

 form a portion of the lessons of " Our 

 School in Bee-Keeping " series, and will be 

 mainly a recapitulation of the "Queen- 

 Rearing Dialogue " published last fall. A 

 number of the new subscribers have 

 urgently requested that this be done, and 

 while it will benefit them, it will at the 

 same time refresh the minds of the older 

 readers. 



Candy ibr Spring- Fee<ling. — In 



Gleanings, Mr. J. O. Leinhart, of Clinton, 

 Tenn., gives this method of fixing candy 

 for feeding bees in the spring : 



In the spring, lay a newspaper on the 

 floor or table, and form a box by putting 

 square sticks under the edges of the paper. 

 Pour in the candy ; when cool, break it in 

 pieces, and put it into your basket, and go 

 to the apiary and pull back the quilt from 



over the cluster ; give a piece according to 

 your colony, with the paper side up, and 

 you can tell when it is gone, by the bees 

 carrying the paper around the entrance — 

 that is, if they can fly. 



In a foot-note, following the above, Bro. 

 Root says: " Bees carrying paper out at 

 the entrance would certainly indicate 

 whea the food was used up. A rather 

 bright idea." 



Xlie End of tlie Rope has not yet 



been reached in apicultural things, says Mr. 

 H. P. Langdon, of house-apiary fame, in 

 the last Review. He is • ' astonished that 

 some of our head-lights should think and say 

 that bee-keeping has reached the climax of 

 perfection, or ' reached the end of the rope.' 

 Why, last year came self-hivers, and next 

 will come non-swarming without extra 

 work, and with more and a better quality 

 of honey; this I know to be a fact. 

 Watch for it." Verily, there is to be some- 

 thing "new under the sun." Keep your 

 telescopes in good repair, and examine all 

 the " stray straws " you may see, for 'tis 

 said that " straws show which way the 

 wind blows." 



Xlie Illinois Convention Report 



— Mr. Jas. A. Stone, of Bradfordton, Bis., 

 the Secretary of the Illinois State Bee- 

 Keepers' Association, desires us to an- 

 nounce that the postage provided for the 

 sending out of the First Annual Report of 

 the Illinois State Bee-Keepers' Association 

 is exhausted, though he still has on hand 

 about 500 copies. The Executive Commit- 

 tee have decided that any party living in 

 the State of Illinois can have a copy of the 

 Report by forwarding, with their address, 

 6 cents in stamps to pay postage on the 

 same ; and from those living outside of the 

 State, 20 cents in stamps will be required. 

 Send to Secretary Stone at once if you 

 would like a copy. It wiU pay you to do so. 



Bees antl 1^'atering Xronglis. — 



It has been a question with some bee-keep- 

 ers how to keep their bees away from 

 watering-troughs, as they often annoy 

 horses and other farm stock that drink 

 from the trough. Mr. Edw. Smith, of 

 Carpenter, Ills., in Gleanings, recently said 

 that he greases the tops of the watering- 

 troughs with any kind of old grease, with 

 a little kerosene mixed with it, and has not 

 had a bit of trouble with bees in them since. 



