^ BEE:PAPe^ 



-/N AMER^C^:^^ 



42dYEAR. 



CHICAGO, ILL,, AUG, 7, 1902, 



No, 32, 



Editorial. % I 



I'w^w^^pT^'r^jr^^^^prw^ww^^^'^K 



We Invite You to Subscribe for the 



American Bee Journal. 



This invitation is extended to the thousands 

 who will f;el this copy as a sample. We only 

 wish those who know and appreciate the 

 value of the American Bee Journal could visit 

 all who will receive this number and who are 

 not now subscribers, and tell them just what 

 they think of it. It that could be done, we 

 believe that our subscription list would be 

 doubled in a month. 



But, of course, it won't do for wx to " blow 

 our own horn " loo hard. We will simply ask 

 you to examine this number carefully, and see 

 if you don't think it is irurlli till of two vmts. 

 That is just what it costs when you pay us 

 $1.00 tor a whole year's subscription, or 52 

 numbers. 



Shall we not have your name and address 

 tor our list rijjht away * 



Supersedure the Invariable Rule. — 



It seems hard for some to believe that super- 

 sedure is anything but exceptional, and when 

 a queen is superseded it is considered some- 

 thing out of the usual. The beginner should 

 have it impressed upon his mind that in the 

 ordinary course of events every quee?i at tin 

 ti-ntiintitioii of Iter life is superaedecl. It is the 

 invariable, the inevitable thing. Lately a 

 correspondent wrote : 



"Of the clipped ones I think fully 10 per- 

 cent have been superseded, while not one of 

 the undipped, .so far as I know, have been 

 disposed of." 



If only 10 percent of his clipped queens are 

 annually superseded then he has no reason to 

 find fault with clipping, for that means that 

 the average lite of his queens is 10 years, and 

 10 years is a longer term of lite for a queen 

 than has ever before been reported. The rea- 

 son that he has not observed much supersed- 

 ing among his undipped queens is that the 

 superseding queen looks so much like the old 

 queen that he does not recognize any super- 

 seding. If he will observe carefully, he will 

 probably find thatabout a third of his queens, 

 whether clipped or undipped, are superseded 

 annually. In other words, the average lite of 

 a queen does not exceed three years. 



The Keputation of Extracted Honey 



is a very varying quantity ; that is, it varies 

 greatly in different localities. Some bee- 

 keepers say they can get as much for ex- 

 tracted as for comb, while others can scarcely 



dispose of extracted at any price. Whatever 

 other reasons there may be for this, one all- 

 Rullicient reason is the varying character of 

 the product itself. In some cases extracted 

 honey is so well ripened, so rich, and of such 

 line body, that some prefer it to comb honey 

 at the same price, especially tor some uses. 



As there arc always new comers on the 

 tield, the advice to be scrupulously careful as 

 to the character of extracted honey is always 

 timely. Small wonder that people do not care 

 for honey that is thin, raw, and inclined to 

 sour. Some extract when a part of the honey 

 is little more than nectar, because they will 

 get more pounds than if they wait till the 

 honey is thick. They will have more pounds 

 of honey anil water, but not more pounds of 

 honey, and although they may get more 

 pounds, they will not have so much money in 

 the long run. 



There is a difference of opinion as to 

 whether honey may be ripened artificially to 

 equal that ripened by the bees. In any case 

 it is well for the beginner to be on the safe 

 side, extracting only that which is sealed. 

 The practice of some is to extract only at the 

 close of the season. It is a safe plan. 



Let the beginner remember that a single 

 sale of honey that is not thoroughly ripened, 

 of good flavor, and scrupulously clean, can 

 have its evil effects neutralized only by many 

 subsequent sales of the proper article, if in- 

 deed such subsequent sales can be made at 



all. 



,^ 



Vinegar for Bee-Stings. — A Canadian 

 subscriber writes: 



" Rub on a little good vinegar. You will 

 find almost instant relief. Try it." 



May be /(o/if;/-vinegar would be best to sub- 

 due the pain caused by a bee-sting! 



Prevention of Swarming. — Editor 

 Root says " the bee-keeping world would give 

 thousands of dollars to get hold of a plan by 

 which it could put strong colonies with small 

 brood-nests at out-yards and leave them 

 there with a reasonable assurance that those 

 colonies would not swarm;" and be thinks 

 that two plans offered by Dr. Miller do not 

 fill the bill. Dr. Miller says : 



One is to take away all brood about swarm- 

 ing-time, and the other is to get the bees to 

 rear a young queen about swarming-time. 

 Giving a young i|ueen reared elsewhere will 

 not answer. I've had a swarm issue with a 

 young queen that I had given not a week 

 before, she having just begun to lay; but 

 when a colony has itself reared a young 

 queen, and that (|ueen has begun to lay, I 

 never knew or heard of such a colony swarm- 

 ing till the next year. Grayenhorst gave this 

 as reliable without being able to explain why 

 the young queen must be reared in the hive 

 itself. 



Bleaching Honey.— Mr. J. E. (Jrane, In 

 (ileanings in Hee-Culture, gives his experi- 

 ence in bleaching honey .so as to change No. 2 

 honey into No. 1, and No. I into fancy. His 

 success has been such that he has added to 

 his honey-house a permanent structure 10x13 

 feet, with gable roof, and mostly glass sides. 

 He says: 



I ran some iLtOO combs the past year through 

 the bleaching process with very satisfactory 

 results. Combs that are only a little oft 

 would come out almost as white as snow, 

 while those a little darker would be greatly 

 improved. A few hundred, however, had 

 so much propolis mixed with the cappings 

 that no amount of bleaching would make 

 them white, as I held some of them to it for 

 three months, and finally concluded I might 

 as well try to change the skin of an Ethio- 

 pian. It takes more time at best than one 

 would expect. Even those combs that are 

 but slightly stained usually require several 

 days to make them look bright. 



In closing, he wisely suggests that it would 

 be much better to produce comb honey with- 

 out stains. 



" Pollen-Clogged Combs in wired 



frames cleaned, 4s. per doz., standard frames.'* 

 So runs the beginning of an unusual adver- 

 tisement in the British Bee Journal. A dollar 

 a dozen seems a pretty good price, but the 

 work is done at least promptly, as the adver- 

 tiser says he will send back the cleaned 

 combs by return mail. It is much better, 

 however, to try to have pollen used by the 

 bees, in some eases pollen being worth more 

 than an equal weight of honey. 



Uniformity of Hives and Fixtures 



is a thing whose importance is keenly felt by 

 the experienced bee-keeper. Not always — 

 perhaps not often — by the beginner. Indeed, 

 one of the first things with a large number of 

 beginners is to try to make some change in 

 hiyes or fixtures, later on to find that what 

 was supposed to be an improvement was any- 

 thing but that. It is safe to give to the aver- 

 age beginner the advice : Don't invent. 



After some experience the bee-keeper be- 

 comes aware of the nuisance of different 

 measurements when perhaps he finds himself 

 in possession of frames of two kinds so that 

 they can not both be used in the same hive. 

 Then he falls to belaboring the manufacturer. 

 In some cases the manufacturer may be to 

 blame for encouraging changes, but generally 

 it is money in his pocket to have as few 

 changes as possible. If all the bee-keepers in 

 the country would agree upon one kind of 

 hive, one kind of frame, one kind of every- 

 thing, the manufacturer would never need to 

 have on his hands dead stock out of style. As 

 matters now stand, a set of bee-keepers in one 

 locality insist on a certain kind of goods, a. 



