Aiif. 21, 1902. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



533 



tant works which established his reputation, he retired at 

 the a.KC of dS years. But he liad too much activity of spirit 

 to rcuiaiii idle. An amateur experimenter with bees, he 

 devoted his robust old age to the advancement of apiculture. 



He became. In 1.S6H, one of the founders of Iv'Apicoltore, 

 and worked for that journal assiduously till his death. I'li- 

 derstanding several languages, he kept abreast with apicul- 

 tural literature, and published monthly, under the name of 

 Spigolature Apistiche, an analytical review of foreign jour- 

 nals, wliich was greatly appreciated, as were all the rest of 

 his contributions to the journal. He left a very complete 

 treatise, "The ISec and Its Management," which has gone 

 through two editions. 



The loss of this gifted man and untiring worker, one of 

 vast erudition which he devoted to the service of others, 

 will beJ<eenly felt in Italy, and by all outside of Italj', who, 

 like ourselves, have had the privilege of knowing personally 

 the man, or who have been able to appreciate his vyorks. 



^ Contributed Articles, l 



Bee-Keepers' Associations and Conventions. 



BY C. P. D.\DANT. 



I have often wondered at the greater success of the bee- 

 keepers' associations in Europe than in this country, and 

 especially at the greater attendance at conventions, whether 

 local or national, and I have tried to explain the thing in 

 several ways. We feel ahead of the Old World bee-keepers 

 in practice and pecuniary success in bee-culture, but it is 

 only accidentally that we can have a bee-keepers' meeting 

 that is well attended; and whether our associations are 

 local or represent entire States, we can readily see that it is 

 only exceptional that the bee-keeper belongs to them or at- 

 tends them. The greater distances, also the higher railroad 

 fares, in this part of the world, would partly explain the 

 lack of attendance ; but money is more plentiful here, and 

 our citizens spend a dollar as easily as a European spends a 

 franc. So this is not the whole explanation. 



I have been reading, lately, some of the programs and 

 reports of meetings, and it strikes me that there is a conge- 

 niality and unconventionality about their meetings which 

 are absent from many of ours. It seems to me that we are 

 too stiff, too matter-of-fact ; we are too fond of parliamen- 

 tary rules, essays, and addresses ; we do not put enough 

 free, neighborly intercourse into our meetings. We do too 

 much bee-keeping and do not mix in enough pleasant social 

 intercourse, which enables the members to get acquainted. 



Let me read to you the program of theSociete Romande 

 d'Apiculture, of Switzerland, which was to meet May 12 

 and 13, as I find it in the Revue Internationale : 



Official meeting: at 10 o'clock, a.m. 



At 1L':30, dinner at Hotel de I'Ange; price, 40 cents. 



At 2:15, departure in carriages (20 cents) to visit the apiaries of 

 Messrs. Sautter and Odier. 



At .t:45, lunch at the apiary of LaRippe. 



Return to Nyon in the evening, unconventional meeting. 



Rooms at the Hotel de I'Ange, 30 cents; breakfast, 20 cents. 



The l;^th, at 7:15, if the weather is good, excursion to the Jura 

 mountains. Ipon the return, visit and lunoh with Mr. Berlrand. 



In the evening, adjournment. 



Now for the report of the meeting of Feb. 17 : It ap- 

 pears that this Romande Society is divided into sections. 

 each section being expected to make regular reports of the 

 condition of the bees, and in each section some bee-keepers 

 are provided with scales at the expense of the Society and 

 are expected to make monthly reports of the weights of 

 hives, with meteorological observations, and all remarks 

 that may be of interest to the apiarian public. At this meet- 



ing in February, one apiarist is reported as failing to make 

 his reports regularly, and it is decided to take away his 

 scale and give it to some one who will be more prompt. It 

 appears also from the reports that the Romande A.ssocia- 

 tion is a member of the Federation of Agricultural Associa- 

 tions of Switzerland and that this latter national body al- 

 lows the Romande a certain sum each year for experiments, 

 etc., requiring a condensed annual report. 



The statement of the treasurer shows that the Associa- 

 tion is in detjt, but that the receipts for I'JOl have been 1656 

 francs. It appears also from the report that the annual 

 membership fee is only one franc — 20 cents. 



We see, also, that the Association appoints a member 

 each year to visit apiaries, give instructions or suggestions, 

 and deliver lectures when desired. 



All the foregoing, although showing that there is more 

 social intercourse among the members of an European As- 

 sociation than in this country, also shows that more pains 

 are taken to diffuse information in diffenent ways. But the 

 important point that I wish to notice is the more steady con- 

 dition and better attendance at these local meetings than is 

 usually found in the United States. The Germans are, if 

 anything, still more enthusiastic in their meetings, and 

 their National Congresses are attended by hundreds upon 

 hundreds of jovial and happy members. 



If our apiarists will look back upon our experience in 

 bee-keepers' associations in this country, they will see that 

 we have been successful in proportion as we have made our 

 meetings attractive, not only by some practical discussions 

 in the meeting, but also by social and familiar intercourse 

 between members, visits to apiaries, exhibitions, banquets, 

 and, in fact, by such enjoyable performances as would make 

 the absent member wish that he had been there, %vhen he 

 reads the report. 



I know that some of my friends will say, as I have 

 heard them say : " I do not care for all this visiting ; what 

 I want is bee-knowledge, and I want to put in ten solid 

 hours each day, to get all the information I can." This is 

 well and good if everybody thought as he does, but for ten 

 who feel thus, there are hundreds wlio want a little pleasure 

 mixed in with their attendance at a convention. Besides, 

 some of you have probably experienced what I did. I have 

 learned more, at conventions, from a private talk with an 

 individual whom I had singled out of the mass, than I have 

 learned from discussions where we often hear a man make a 

 long talk about something that you and I learned perhaps 

 long before he did. 



In my opinion, Mr. Editor, the Chicago meeting last 

 fall, which was so pleasant, derived as much of its popular- 

 ity from the humble banquet in the evening, as from any 

 and all of its discussions. Hancock Co., 111. 



No. 2.— How to Rear tlie Best Queen-Bees. 



BY HENRY .\LI.EY. 

 iContinued from pag-e 51*?). 



I have looked over Dr. Gallup's article on page 470. 

 They are good articles, interesting, and to the point. I 

 want to take up a few points in one of Dr. Gallup's article. 

 He says : 



" When I first began the nucleus plan I reared them 

 small, inferior, and, as Mr. Benedict said, as black as crows, 

 but I jumped out of that boat long ago." I never reared 

 queens by any nucleus plan, always using the strongest 

 colonies in my apiary for that purpose. But I want to tell 

 Dr. Gallup, and all others, that the best queens I ever saw 

 were reared in a small box 5x5x6 inches, and on 4 small 

 combs. Not only do I make the above assertion, but I now 

 have a dozen queens in my apiary that were so reared. Now 



