1897. 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



267 



with you get an untested queen; a 

 colony queenless for some time, espec- 

 ially when honey is not coming in, 

 may, and is somewhat likely to, kill 

 the queen. Never put a tested or more 

 expensive queen into such a colony. 

 So much for the queen. Having a 

 good laying queen in the hive the 

 next consideration is the number of 

 bees. Unless there are bees enough 

 to crowd four Langstroth combs I 

 would unite it with another weak col- 

 ony. I shall not here tell you how to 

 do this, one queen of course must be 

 destroyed and the remaining caged. I 

 would not unite fairly strong colonies 

 or one a little below full strength, 

 with a weak; especially sound is this 

 advice to a beginner. I would con- 

 tract it by means of a board so it can 

 fill the space it has. 



Next for stores, the weakest col- 

 onies require the fullest combs because 

 they will consume about as much as 

 the strong and they can cover the 

 least amount of comb. Give full combs 

 or partially filled combs in perference 

 to feeding syrup. Give them winter 

 stores as soon after September 10th or 

 15th as absence of brood in the ma- 

 jority of the combs will permit, taking 

 out the combs with the least honey 

 and replacing them with full or nearly 

 so. Do not divide the stores at each 

 side of the brood-nest but put the full- 

 est at one side and so on with the 

 least honey at the other side. Next 

 with your knife cut a hole in each 

 comb, put it half way between the 

 two side bars and almost two-thirds of 

 the distance up from the bottom bar. 

 These arc for winter passages and al- 

 low access through the cluster of bees 

 without passing out of it as the bees 

 ' would have to do when passing around 



the comb either top, bottom or sides. 

 Buckwheat honey is good stores for 

 bees, so is any other honey as far as I 

 know. Honey Dew is not honey at 

 all. The bees sometimes gather it. 

 The flavor is generally rank and is is 

 dark in color; to have such stored in 

 a hive is generally an exception and 

 the beginner need not worry least 

 such a condition should exist without 

 his knowledge. Having a colony in 

 this condition the beginner, or any 

 one else has gone a long ways towards 

 successful wintering. 

 Brantford, Canada. 



WHERE BEES HUSTLE. 



A Man Prom California Pays Tribute to 

 the Insects of His State. 



"Talk about honey," said the man 

 from California to a New Orleans 

 Times-Democrat man, '!why, you peo- 

 ple in Louisiana don't known what 

 honey is. Out in my state we go out 

 and plug a dead tree and the honey 

 flows like water from a barrel. All a 

 man needs to start a hive is to go out 

 and play the accordion and he'll have 

 ten swarms buzzing about him in less 

 than a minute. 



"A funny thing happened to me 

 last spring when I went down on my 

 orchard near Pasadema. I was wear- 

 ing a fine silk hat at the time, and one 

 day when the sun was shining brightly 

 and the birds were singing and the 

 air was filled with the hum of insects 

 I went into the field to see about the 

 setting out a lot of budding peach 

 trees. As I was walking among the 

 trees I managed to snag my hat 

 against a tree limb and prod a small 

 round hole in the crown, and fearing 

 that I would completely ruin it I 



