American Bee Journal, 



DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO BEE CULTURE. 



VOL. ZII. 



CHICAGO, NOVEMBER, 1876. 



No. 11. 



©ur gicliaugcs^ 



Boil it down ! Boil it down! 

 Give us the new and usefuFpoints- 

 The good— and that's enough ! 

 Boil it down ! 



BRITIlSH BEE JOl RNAL. 



At the annual show of the British Bee- 

 Keepers' Association, Sept. 15-18, we notice 

 that friend Abbott, editor of the British 

 Bee Journal, toolc many prizes for his in- 

 genious inventions— among which we might 

 name: movable comb hives, bee feeders, 

 sectional boxes, and his extractor, called 

 the "Little Wonder." 



Mr. John Hunter, exhibited the following 

 American articles: Quinby's smoker; Nov- 

 ice's metal corners, bee-quilt and feeder; 

 Isham's boxes, etc. 



George Neighbour & Sons exhibited quite 

 largely and carried off several prizes. 

 Foul Brood. 



"If a hive should be found to contain foul 

 brood, which may be known by the ragged, 

 sunken, and pierced condition of the sealed 

 (?) cells, and by the foetid nature of their 

 contents, it will be unwise to attempt a 

 cure, for the combs will be worthless, ex- 

 cept for the honey they may contain, and 

 the bees being few and old, will not be 

 worth any labor bestowed on their preser- 

 vation, and it will therefore be good policy 

 (to prevent the disease extending) to give 

 them *a sharp shift,' eitlier with sulphur 

 fumes or drowning, for where the dire 

 necessity arises, a sudden death is the more 

 merciful." 



Bee Food. 



"The cheapest and best form of bee-food 

 with which we are acquainted is composed 

 of live pounds of best loaf sugar and two 

 pints of water, to be boiled together, a wine- 

 glass of vinegar and a pinch of salt should 

 then be added, and the whole boiled for a 

 few minutes." 



LiGUKiAX Bees. 

 It will be remembered that on page 241 

 (September number), while commenting 

 upon an article from the London Cottage 

 Gardner, condemning Italian bees, we 

 asked friend Abbott what proportion of 

 British bee-keepers preferred the black to 

 the Italian bees? His answer is as follows: 



"The barefaced libel contained in the ar- 

 ticle referred to is about on a par with the 



insane assertions made some time since by 

 a positivist named Heddon at the Michigan 

 Bee-Keepers' Association (December, 1875) 

 denouncing bee-ket'i)iiig as a snare and a 

 delusion, kept up by editors of bee journals, 

 and hive and bee-furniture makers, for 

 their own special profit." 



"The man of many assertions who fo- 

 ments trade in England against Ligurian 

 bees, is also deadly opposed to bar-frame 

 hives, and indeed to everything that savors 

 of improved bee-culture honestly carried 

 on. He teaches people how to till 'shoddy' 

 supers witii the contents of the hives called 

 after his own name, than which no others 

 in his opinion ought to exist, and from his 

 dogged persistence in his declarations he 

 undoubtedly believes he is right; and we 

 are content to allow him to enjoy his 

 opinion, and to lead as many others as 

 choose to follow him. The tide, however, 

 sets in another direction, and improved 

 hives, improved methods of managements, 

 and improved bees, are the order of the 

 day; and for results we will point to the 

 glories of the late Alexandra Show, at the 

 piles of supers, tier upon tier, that dazzled 

 the eye with their beauty, at the magnifi- 

 cent exhibits of the cottagers who, having 

 deserted the 'Pettigrew' system, have come 

 into light and celebrity by aid of the bar- 

 frame principle and the Ligurian bee. Can 

 anything in the annals of the skep compare 

 with the results obtained by the bar-frame 

 principle and Ligurian and hybrid bees in 

 the hands of Cottager Walton, as exhibited 

 at our late show? Has anything in the way 

 of supers ever been produced from skeps 

 which can compare honestly with the mag- 

 nificent exhibits of Mr. Cowan, in 1874, 1875 

 and again this year? The boast of the old 

 system is, that sometimes swarms will rise 

 to a hundred pounds weiglit, which system 

 necessitates the breaking up of the stocks 

 to obtain the honey; but the glory of the 

 bar-frame principle is that a hundred 

 pounds can be taken in supers, forty to fifty 

 or more pounds extracted from the stock- 

 hive, and no harm done." 



"Undoubtedly the old skep and its advo- 

 cates have done the country innnense ser- 

 vice with the black bee, and in the hands of 

 those who are content 'to drive slowly,' 

 they will, doubtless, retain a place; but as 

 a matter-of-fact, the bar-frame hive and the 

 Ligurians are driving them out of use, and 

 presently black bees, as a distinct variety, 

 will have ceased to exist. We are perfectly 

 sick of the subject; there will always be 

 some who will rail against what interferes 

 with their own pet ideas, and there will be 

 those who will not see advantages which 

 proclaim themselves trumpet - tongued 

 throughout the world; others that liaving 

 made an assertion, having said a thing, will 

 spend the remainder of their life in sticking 

 to it, be it ever so wrong; and after some 



