March 6, 1902. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



151 



been glad I knew soniclliiiig about tlic harness, as I slioiiM 

 have been in a had plight if I had not. 



A beginner nf lo-day has sneh an advantage ovii .i 

 beginner of say 40 years ago. Almost everything then hid 

 to be learned by actual experience, and some of the .\ 

 periencc was costly. I venture to say that some of ihc 

 veterans would have paid a good price to have had some 

 of their questions answered 40 years ago. Now, all iIk- 

 beginner has to do is to send the i|ueslion to the Amcr 

 ican Bee Journal and hack comes the answer. And jiivl 

 think of working with bees without a smoker and all 

 the modern conveniences we have to-day! So, beginner, 

 whoever you are, count your many blessings, and do noi 

 forget under what bright prospects you are starting your 

 venture, and don't you dare to get discouraged. If you 

 are tempted in that direction, just think back what it would 

 have been 40 years ago, and all your discouragements will 

 vanish like smoke. 



Who knows what bright prospects the bee-keeper of 

 40 years from now may expect ? With bees with long 

 tongues, and a non-swarming strain (I certainly hope they 

 will reach that point during my lifetime), bee-keeping 40 

 years from now may be a perfect dream of bliss, even if at 

 present it is not. 



There are so many and such good books and bee-papers 

 that a thorough study of them will give you a pretty good 

 foundation to start on. But there are some things that 

 you must get directly from the bees themselves. 



Suppose you start with a very few colonies. That will 

 give you a chance to experiment with the bees, and gain 

 experience. Then, if you do have some loss in learning your 

 lesson, it will not be as heavy as if you had a larger number. 



I don't see why a woman is not in every way qualified 

 to keep bees as well as a man, if she has the brains and 

 knows how to use them. To be sure, in the matter of 

 strength man has the advantage, but it is usually more 

 than balanced by a woman's power of endurance, patience 

 and perseverance. 



Let us hope that if you are going to keep bees you are 

 in a good locality. That has so much to do with your 

 success or failure. It seems to me that in bee-keeping more 

 than any other business there are so many elements entering 

 into it over which you have no control. You may have 

 your colonies ever so strong, all ready for the harvest, 

 and yet not get any crop — because there is no nectar in 

 the flowers. Or, the weather may be too cold. Or, it may 

 be too wet, or too dry. or there may not be any clover, 

 etc. Well. I always feel better reconciled to a failure of 

 that kind than I would to have an abundant flow of nectar, 

 and not have the bees ready for it. 



Unless you have some capital to fall back on, it is well 

 to make the bees pay their own way. I am not sure but 

 it is a good plan to make them do it any way. capital or 

 no capital. You may not increase your colonies quite so 

 fast, but you are on pretty safe ground. If you keep a strict 

 account of what your bees cost von. and what they bring 

 in, you are a good deal more likely to make money on 

 them than if you run on the haphazard plan, because you 

 will be more careful of your expenditures, and buy only 

 vv-hat you really need. 



Another very important item is that you have good stock. 

 It costs just as much to keep a poor colony of bees as a 

 good one. They may be equally strong and one colony 

 give you 50 pounds of surplus honey, and the other only 

 15 pounds! You will readily see that the is-pound colony 

 is not a profitable investment. What will you do about 

 it? The first thing to do is to kill the queen of the poor 

 colony, then give them a queen reared from your best 

 colony. You may not get as good a queen as its mother, but 

 you are not likely to get as poor a one as the one vou killed ; 

 and by breeding from your best queens, and killing your 

 poor ones, in time your stock must be improved ; and good 

 queen s mean more dollars and cents every time. 



What do we mean by good queens? We mean the ones 

 that produce workers that are hardy, and are good honey- 

 gatherers. When we have queens that will produce that 

 kind of bees, we call them "good queens." We don't care 

 whether they are yellow, leather-colored or black : whether 

 their bees are three-banded or not. only so they get the honey. 

 To be sure, if we could have their good qualities, and 

 the golden yellow bands combined, we would like it, but 

 we are not going to give up the good workers for the 

 sake of having yellow bees, no matter how pretty they 

 are. It is honey we want. I would pay three times as 



nnich for a tested quccii that had been tested as to the 

 (luaiity of her bees as homy gatherers, as 1 would for a- 

 tested (itieen that had been te-.ied merely as to the number 

 of band.s her bees had. 



Moldy Brood-Combs Bens Fed In Winter Cluster. 



I)Y O. M. IJOOI.ITTLE. 



".\s I have read your answers to questions in the 

 American Bee Journal for (jthers with great interest, 1 

 have been wondering if you would answer one for me in 

 the same paper. What 1 wish to know is something: re- 

 garding moldy combs. I fear, by the appearances of things, 

 ».hat 1 shall have moldy combs -.n the spring, as my cellar 

 is very damp and I can smell the moldy combs already. 

 What will be best to do with them in the spring, should 

 any be very moldy?" 



I do not think that you need wonder about your ques- 

 tions being answered through the columns of the American 

 Bee Journal so long as you will ask questions which will 

 interest the readers of that pajjcr, for even the most ad- 

 vanced apiarist often runs on little kinks when reading 

 replies to (pieries which he has not thought of before — kinks 

 which often prove of great value to the one who wishes 

 to do the most possible that he may succeed in his under- 

 takings with the bees. 



Regarding the moldy combs; we will hope for the best, 

 thinking that your fears may prove unfounded. But should 

 the combs come out moldy, probably not more than one 

 out of five or six will be very bad. Those which have 

 but little mold on them can be left in the hives, where they 

 will soon dry out enough so the bees will make them sweet 

 and clean. If any are from one-third to covered all over 

 with mold, it is well to take them from the hives and 

 hang them in some dry, airy room till they are thoroughly 

 dried out and needed by the bees. Do not attempt giving 

 them to the bees while they are all wet and slimy, for 

 nothing seems to discourage a colony of bees so, as nasty, 

 wet, moldy combs. 



When they get all dry, and the colonies from which they 

 are taken are needing more combs, take the now dried 

 combs down, and, with a rather stiff brush-broom, made 

 from broom-corn, brush them off thoroughly (.but not hard 

 enough to break the cells, when you can put them into 

 the colonies, one at a time, and the bees will clean them 

 up so nice that, should you look for them two days after, 

 you could not tell which they were, unless you marked the 

 frames or the place in the hive where you put them. It 

 is best not to give any colony more than one at a time, 

 unless the colony is a very strong one. In three or four 

 days you can give another, and so on till you have them 

 all in the hive. 



I never yet saw a comb so badly molded but what the 

 bees would make it apparently as good as ever, if the above 

 plan was followed. 



Some say, melt up such combs; but so far as I have 

 tried, the mold will absorb the most of the wax so that 

 very little is obtained when melted by any process, and 

 scarcely none at all when melted in the solar wax-extractor, 

 as the fibre of the mold absorbs what litde wax remains. 

 If I were to melt up such combs I would calculate it 

 would pay me to have them cleaned up by strong colonies 

 before melting, through the extra amount of wax which 

 could be obtained. 



HOW ARE THE LOWEST BEES IN THE CLUSTER FED DURING 

 WINTER? 



"I have kept bees but a little while, so I do not claim 

 to know much about them, but I am anxious to learn. 

 One of my colonies in the cellar has bees hanging below 

 the frames and I have been wondering how these lower 

 bees are fed during the winter. A neighbor tells me that 

 these lower bees go up into the cluster, and on the combs, 

 every little while, so that they may have access to the 

 honey. Is this right? An answer through the columns of the 

 American Bee Journal will be appreciated." 



The story of your neighbor is one that has been told 

 a great many times, and is based on the very reasonable 

 supposition that each individual bee must help itself to 

 honey directly from the cells containing the same. But, reason- 

 able as it may appear, I am led to believe that the story 

 has no foundation in fact. I have just been into my bee- 

 cellar to see if I could not discover something of the 



