

^I^ERICA^ 



HE OvStSt BEEHPAPe;,>j 



4 2d YEAR. 



CHICAGO, ILL, JUNE 5, 1902, 



No. 23. 



t^i.^is,ja^is^ia,:is,^ifi,si^ie^v^is,jAM 



>^ Editorial. ^- 



r 



Ho, for Denver! — There seems to be 

 much enthusiasm among Western Ix'e-keepers 

 with regard to the conTention to lie held Sep- 

 tember in Denver. They have had excellent 

 local eouventions in that region, and with the 

 addition of others from outside it is likely to 

 be one of the most notable National conven- 

 tions ever held. 



Honey by 3IaiI. — It seems a little strange 

 to us Americans to see in the British Bee 

 Journal mention made ot improved boxes for 

 sending sections of honey by mail. We 

 couldn't afford it in this country, but, with all 

 our boasting, Johnny Bull is away ahead of us 

 with his " parcels post " to send things 

 cheaply by mail. 



Pear-Blight and Bees.— The Pacific 

 Rural Press contains a report from Charles 

 Downing, who covered trees with netting to 

 note the result. He seems to conclude that 

 the bees are responsible for much of the dam- 

 age, if not all, estimating his loss on his crop 

 of Bartlett pears last season, due to blight, at 

 SIO.OOO, and his loss this season up to the time 

 of the report, at not less than 1000 tons of 

 fruit on 0000 trees. Just how the discrepancy 

 between his view and the views of others can 

 be accounted for remains to be seen. 



Sweet Clover in Ohio.— A bill was in- 

 troduced in the Ohio legislature intended to 

 kill sweet clover in that State. Instead ot 

 sweet clover being killed, it seems that the 

 bill itself was killed, according to the follow- 

 ing item from Gleanings in Bee-Culture: 



The iniquitous sweet-clover bill that was 

 introduced in the Ohio legislature has been 

 killed, and killed so dead that I hope no suc- 

 ceeding legislature will try to pass another 

 measure like it. This only illustrates that 

 bee-keepers, when they are united, and write 

 to the members of their legislature, can exert 

 a powerful influence. It it had not been for 

 the bee-keepers ot New York the new anti- 

 adulteration honey law would not have been 

 passed. 



^ 



Bees Not Carrying Pollen into a hive 

 when other bees are carrying in large loads is 

 generally considered a sign of queenlessness, 

 and that is probably all right; but the con- 

 verse is by no means always true, that when 

 bees are carrying in pollen they have a laying 

 queen. Most bee-keepers have probably 

 noticed that a queenless colony has an unusual 

 amount of pollen in its combs. That would 



not be the case if the bees would stop carry- 

 ing pollen as soon as queenless. Possibly the 

 truth is something like this: 



Bees have some discrimination in the mat- 

 ter of collecting ]>ollen, and it there is an 

 over-supply in the hive they will let up on the 

 gathering, no matter whether they have a 

 queen or not. When a colony loses its iiueen, 

 the workers keep right on gathering pollen 

 just the same, Init when the combs begin to 

 be well supplied with pollen then they desist 

 from gathering. So when a colony is carry- 

 ing in no pollen, it shows that it has been 

 queenless for some time. 



Using Starters, Full Sheets, and 

 Combs for Sivarnis. — Not infrequently the 

 question is asked how to mix these when hiv- 

 ing upon them a swarm. G. M. Doolittle 

 says in Gleanings in Bee-Culture: 



" My advice to all is, and has been ever 

 since comb foundation came into use, to use 

 only starters in the frames in hiving swarms, 

 or else till all frames with foundation, or give 

 all frames filled with comb." 



Italians and Red Clover. — Discussing 

 the question of getting honey from red clover, 

 M. Leger says in Le Kucher Beige : 



"October, ISOO, we received an Italian 

 queen, but she was small, dark, and insignifi- 

 cant to such a degree that it was hard to dis- 

 tinguish her from the workers. However, in 

 the summer ot I'.'OO she built up an enormous 

 population, which, however, gave no more 

 surplus than the Ijlacks. The last harvest 

 came at the beginning of August, and this 

 Italian colonj', which had hung out during 

 the excessive heat, received a super of frames 

 simply furnished with starters. Fifteen days 

 later, upon the visit ot a friend, we opened 

 this super ; it was completely filled. So in 

 two weeks this colony had built 10 extracting 

 combs 13x0';., had iilled them with honey, 

 and sealed them. The combs were beautiful, 

 of an immaculate whiteness, almost trans- 

 parent. Other colonies with black bees had 

 at the most one or two pounds of honey in 

 their supers." 



Circumstances were such as to warrant him 

 in thinking that the great advantage ot this 

 one colony was in its working on red clover. 



Are Long Tongues of Value? — With 

 the passing of time it ought to l^e possible to 

 get an unprejudiced answer to this question. 

 One thing that seems to be settled is that 

 there is a decided difference in the length of 

 different tongues. As to the importance of 

 extra length, opinions have varied from 

 thinking that bees should be valued in exact 

 proportion to the length ot tongue, to think- 

 ing that length of tongue is not worth con- 

 sidering at all. Probably neither extreme is 

 correct. The thing that is desired is to have 

 the largest possible crop of honey; and if it 



should happen that a colony with s)iort 

 tongues should get the larger crop, why 

 not prefer the colony with shorter tongues '. 



At the same time it looks reasonable to sup- 

 pose that wherever there is any plant like red 

 clover with corollas too deep for ordinary 

 tongues— and it is possible that such plants 

 may be found quite generally — extra length 

 ot tongue m jst mean extra storing of honey. 



However great may be the value ot tongue- 

 length, it may be that it will be wiser to 

 measure the crop stored rather than the 

 tongues that stored it. 



L/abeling Honey with the producers' 



name and aildress is the proper thing it the 

 producer retails it himself. It he sells bis 

 crop to a dealer, then he should omit his 

 name and address unless the dealer gives him 

 permission to label it. 



Retail Packages for Honey. — In the 



discussion in the Ontario convention re- 

 ported in the Canadian Bee Journal, the 

 thought seemed to prevail that in the country 

 it was not necessary to have less than from '.'O 

 to 60 pounds in a package, while in the cities 

 half-pound packages were needed. J. B. Hall 

 put the matter tersely by saying, " The larger 

 the city the smaller the package." 



Extracted Honey— Which i.s Right ? 



— In the Progressive Bee-Keeper, Editor Doo- 

 little quotes some withering accusations 

 against bee-keepers, in which they are charged 

 with putting on the market extracted honey 

 so vile in character that it hurts the market 

 more than the adulteration with glucose, and 

 says: 



" Bee-keepers, as tar as I know, take every 

 precaution to put nothing but the best before 

 the public at the present time." 



The difference in these two views is very 

 extreme; both can not be right. Do bee- 

 keepers themselves put on the market that 

 which is unfit to eat, or is there nothing but 

 extracted honey ot the best quality to be 

 found ? 



Low Price for Extracted Honey, 



according to ■■ X-Rays " in the Rocky Moun- 

 tain Bee Journal, is not so much due to adul- 

 terating foes as it is to the bad practices ot 

 bee-keepers themselves. He says: 



Ot course, the presence of large quantities 

 of glucose mixture labeled "honey," and 

 offered eheaii, has a depressing effect on the 

 price of pure honey, especially if the mixture 

 and pure honey bear any resemblance in 

 quality and taste. There is so little difference 

 between glucose honey and thin, unripe pure 

 honey (and that is the character ot much of 

 the extracted honey found in the city mar- 



