644 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Oct. U, 



order to build up a home market It is necessary to explaiu 

 matters — give only ripened honey for samples. I have talcen 

 some of the best white clover honey and fed it bacli to the 

 bees, and let them digest and cap It a second time, then ex- 

 tracted it again ; this gives it a doubly good flavor. Then, I 

 give away many samples of extracted honey, with also a sam- 

 ple section of comb honey for comparison with it. I tell the 

 consumer to note the difference in the thickness of the ex- 

 tracted honey with the honey that runs out of the comb as it 

 Is cut. This Is usually sufficient to establish the matter, and 

 almost always gives a preference for flavor to the extracted 

 article. 



DRONES AFFECTED BY THE MATING OF THE QUEEN. 



I have sent the editor a sample of drones and worker- 

 bees from the same queen. These bees are from a 5-banded 

 queen that mated with a black drone. The queen is as yellow 

 as gold all over, but you see that some of her drones are 

 nearly black, and vary fully as much as the workers. I have 

 often noticed that when a yellow queen is mismated, her 

 drones will be much darker the second season, but the worker- 

 bees will be the same. This shows that " the blood is the 

 life," and affects the drone progeny as well as the workers. 

 The longer the queen lays, the more does the male progeny 

 resemble that which she was mated with. 



Franklin Co., Iowa. 



[The sample of bees sent by Mr. Faylor were surely quite 

 a medley, varying in color from quite yellow to quite black. — 

 Editor.) 



Mauagemeut of Bees— How Not to Do It. 



BY JOHN H. MARTIN. 



A young man near San Gabriel became possest with the 

 idea that there was a fortune in the management. The idea 

 having a stronghold upon him, we next find the young man In 

 possession of a large number of colonies of bees. They were 

 located not far from a public highway. Some bee-keepers can 

 so manage an apiary that people living near, or passing to 

 and fro, will scarcely be molested. Not so with this young 

 man. He so managed the bees that they possest the country. 



The innocent, plodding rancher, a quarter of a mile 

 away, while speculating upon the probable profits in his 

 watermelon crop, would be rudely awakened from his reverie 

 by a whiz like a bullet, and then a sting. 



After the bees had gotten in some lively work on human- 

 ity, they started In on larger game, and became so proficient 

 that a span of horses were done to death. This proceeding 

 was a little too much for the suffering community to endure, 

 and the young man and his bees and their stings were ordered 

 out of San Gabriel. After paying a goodly sum to the owner 

 of the team, our novice resolved to move his bees far away 

 from men and animals, so that there could be no cause for 

 complaint, and they were accordingly moved to the San Fran- 

 clskeeto canyon. 



The bees were moved during quite warm weather, InsufH- 

 clent ventilation was given, and at the end of the journey 60 

 colonies were found dead. It Is surmised that these 60 were 

 the ones that had a hand — or rather, a tall end — In the death 

 of the horses, and a just retribution followed. 



After the expense of moving, and the loss of the 00 colo- 

 nies, there was still enough colonies left to secure a very good 

 honey-yield, but the move had been made too late to catch 

 the honey-flow, and our bee-master has experienced only dis- 

 aster, where proper management would have resulted in a 

 reasonable profit. 



HOW TO DO IT. 



The proper management of bees consists in having them 

 domiciled in a good hive — a hive that can be manipulated with 

 but little Irritation to the sensitive occupants. 



There should be a careful breeding from the best strains 

 of bees ; when the Intelligent bee-master discovers a colony 

 of bees possessing an even temper, and excellent working 

 ability, he proceeds to requeen his apiary from that colony. 

 For the highest success and the most vigorous bees, the re- 

 queening should be done during the honey-flow. To be sure, 

 good queens can be reared at other times during the season, 

 but manipulation of colonies, and especially the little queen- 

 rearing nuclei, are so much more comfortable and safe from 

 robbers when the bees are fully occupied in the field. 



A large hive full of bees is one that makes the bee-man's 

 heart glad with hundreds of pounds of honey, and knowing at 

 about what time the honey-flow will come, he bends all his 

 energies to get his colonies in proper condition. A little stim- 

 ulating in the spring may be necessary; a little spreading of 

 .the brood now and then ; a little equalizing, making the 

 strong aid the weak. An excellent practice is to leave a 

 goodly amount of honey in the hive toward the end of the ex- 

 tracting season. A few full frames of honey in the hive Is to 

 the little community the same as a fat bank account to a 

 manufacturing company. After a great amount of experi- 

 ence the writer is a firm advocate of that way of feeding bees, 

 be it anywhere from California to Maine. 



The careful bee-man moves his bees at just the right time 

 to catch the honey-flow, and in moving he gives plenty of ven- 

 tilation ; if the move Is be made in warm weather, it is done in 

 the night. This moving of bees ought to pay well, for it is 

 hard labor and attended with much anxiety. The all-night 

 vigil, treacherous chuck-holes that may break an ankle, the 

 wierd cry of the owl and coyote, are all accompaniments. Let 

 those who sneeringly refer to bee-keeping as " fussing with 

 bees," take note, we have some iron-sinewed men who for 

 several months work night and day ; these are the bee-men 

 that know how, and get the big yields of honey. — Rural Cali- 

 fornian. 



Some Experiences of 1897 Described. 



BY REV. H. ROHRS. 



I am well satisfied with my 24 colonies of bees, they hav- 

 ing brought me 2,300 pounds of honey. In the spring I lost 

 some by transferring from 8-frame to 10-frame hives, and by 

 hunting for the queens to clip their wings. All this I shall 

 not do next spring. In the spring, I say most decidedly, let 

 alone, hands off. 



My 10-frame hives I am using now have a plain board for 

 a cover, and a loose bottom. Next spring I will simply lift 

 the hive from the bottom-board, exchange it for a clean one, 

 and all my work is done without disturbing the colony. 



During apple-blossom time I shall not hunt for the queen 

 to clip her wing, and may be lose her. The way I ran my 

 apiary last year and this there is no need for clipping the 

 queen's wing, for my bees don't swarm any more. In two 

 years I did not get a single swarm, but twice as much honey 

 as my neighbors, who had lots of swarms. If my bees don't 

 swarm there Is no need forclipping the queen's wings, I think. 



As I stated before, in the spring I changed from the com- 

 mon 8-frame Grimm-Langstroth l>i story hive to a 10-frame 

 New London hive. This hive pleases me, and I thought, now 

 with my bee-shed and this hive I am well equlpt. As the hives 

 were of many colors, I placed them confidently close together. 

 Good friends prophesied disaster. I heeded not. I liked my 

 shed. 1 could keep the bees, and myself when working with 

 them, in the shade. During winter I packt them on the sum- 

 mer stands. So I was satisfied a single-wall hive without pro- 

 tection is not good for summer or winter — In summer it is too 

 warm, and in winter too cold. A common chaff hive is too 

 clumsy to handle. That was the reason I did not want any — 

 just as Mr. B. B. Tyrrell says on page 546. 



