l82 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



entitled "The Italian Bee." I can scarce- 

 ly be charged with "setting down aught 

 in malice" when I say that it contains ab- 

 solutely nothing about Italian bees ex- 

 cept a hint that one gets fewer stings 

 ftom them and that the majority of bee- 

 keepers prefer them. The article comes 

 dangerously close to what is sometimes 

 called "padding." 



BEE-KEEPERS OUGHT tO MAKE THEIR 

 OWN HIVES. 



Dr. Miller, Gleanings, 240, although 

 he confesses that he is a good workman, 

 is unwilling to accept Doolittle's advice 

 that a good workman with the necessary 

 tools shonld make all his needed wares, 

 after starting, except sections, preferring 

 rather to sprout potatoes at 10 cents an 

 hour. I think the doctor is decidedly 

 wrong. One cannot afford to keep many 

 bees unless he is a skillful enough work- 

 man to make his own hives, etc., and 

 does it. 



STIMULATIVE FEEDING UNPROFIT.^BI^E. 



Though Ed. Jolley, American Bee 

 Keeper, 66, admits that stimulative feed- 

 ing is a tedious, troublesome job, he 

 takes the trouble to describe and recom- 

 mend a mo.st troublesome, dangerous and 

 ineffectual way of doing it; viz; on plain 

 boards in the open air. By that method 

 those colonies that need it least will get 

 most of the feed; and those that need it 

 get little benefit. But I am satisfied that 

 stimulative feeding does not pay. I do 

 not say that it is of no benefit, but that it 

 does not pay. Each colony ought to have 

 plenty of stores; and, if it has, feeding 

 will add but little to the amount of l^rood 

 reared, and may serve to encumber the 

 brood chamber. 



WHY BEES TEAR DOWN AND REBUII.D 

 COMB. 



R. C. Aikin, Gleanings, 250, having 

 noticed that bees sometimes tear down 

 the cell walls of old combs, arrives at the 

 conclusion that they do it to remove the 

 cocoons that the cells may not be too 

 much diminished in size. I am not ready 



to accept the conclusion. I have fre- 

 quently seen comb torn down in the man- 

 ner mentioned, but it was always, I think, 

 where the comb had been injured by 

 mold or spoiled pollen, or to remove 

 hardened pollen. I am somewhat sur- 

 prised at his statement that in one case 

 " the cells were gnawed down and being 

 rebuilt," "when little or no honey was 

 coming it." Bees do not often do so. 



"FADS" OF CONTRACTION ■.\ND EXP.\N- 



SION. LARGE HIVES DO NOT AL- 



WAVS C.\USE POPULOUS 



COLONIES. 



The editor of Gleanings, 358, dilates 

 upon fads — the contraction fad and the 

 self-hiver fad. He admits having been 

 carried away bj' the former; and my reco- 

 lection is that he found it like pulling 

 teeth to give up the latter. In view of all 

 that, he nevertheless makes an unreserv- 

 ed surrender to the expansion fad. 

 ( Gleaning.s, 141, 298, 358 ). Michigan 

 bee-keepers are given more than any 

 others to contraction, and they are glad 

 to get even 10 pounds a colony, he says. 

 (He prints it "per" colon}- instead of "a" 

 colony — I wonder why) The big double 

 deckers, he goes on, at the out-yard are 

 the ones that went right on minding their 

 own bvisiness piling in the honey and 

 not swarming, while the single-story col- 

 onies scarcely made a showing. He be- 

 lieves that the best solution of the swarm- 

 ing problem is big colonies in two-stor>-, 

 Langstroth hives. In some cases three 

 stories may be advisable. Sometimes I 

 take it he prefers/£)«r stories, for that 

 must be what he means when he speaks 

 (page ^i ) of the "two-story double-deck- 

 ers" getting honey when those in a sin- 

 gle story do little or nothing. So, suc- 

 cessful bee-keeping is all reduced to the 

 adding of two or three stories! But I find 

 an interrogation point asserting itself as 

 to the quality of the colonies at the time 

 some were given extra stories and others 

 left with only one. In other words, was 

 the division between the two fairly made 

 in respect to the strength in the spring? 



