762 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Nov. 27, 1902. 



away otie or two sides from some of the sections until they 

 ■will go in. 



2. You cannot tell by appearances ; indeed, it is seldom 

 that you can tell from appearances that a colony is robbing. 

 It merely looks like a colony working very busily. But if 

 you see one colony working very busily when others seem 

 idle, you may suspect that the busy colony is being robbed 

 or is robbing some other colony. It is easier to tell the col- 

 ony that is being robbed. If you find bees flying very 

 busily at a hive, especially if you know that the colony is 

 weak, and you know it is not a time when bees are storing 

 rapidly, you may be tolerably sure mischief is going on. 

 Catch and kill a bee coming out, and one going in. If it is 

 a case of robbing, you will find the bee coming out filled 

 •with honey, and the one going in will be empty. 



Producing Extracted Honey. 



Kansas is not a great honey-State, and the past season 

 has been a hard one on the bees — too cold and wet. I have 

 kept bees for four years, and they have stored a little sur- 

 plus every year. I have run for comb honey altogether, so 

 far. I have at this time (Nov. 3) 28 colonies, having started 

 in the spring with 19 colonies, good, bad and indifferent, and 

 took off between 900 and 1000 sections. Iget 12,'2 cents a 

 piece for them. 



1. I use the 8-frame hive, and think some of running 

 part of my bees for extracted honey. Is that size large 

 enough ? 



2. Will I have to wire all my combs ? 



3. Is there an extractor made that will give satisfaction 

 with section honey ? 



I have taken the Bee Journal for two years, and read it 

 with interest. While there are a good many things written 

 that are hard for us beginners to understand, yet enough 

 is written to help us on the right track ; and then experience 

 is the best teacher, anyway. Kansas. 



Answers. — 1. It is quite possible you might be better 

 pleased with a larger hive, but you can make the 8-frame 

 very large by additional stories. 



2. Combs were used for extracting before wired combs 

 were heard of ; but while combs are new great care must be 

 used in extracting if they are not wired. 



3. Probably any extractor can do the work of extracting 

 sections by using in it wire-cloth pockets to hold the sec- 

 tions. But it is a fussy job, at best, to extract sections. 



Queens Not Successfully Introduced. 



I am not pleased with a queen that came late in August. 

 I introduced her according to instructions on the cage, to a 

 colony that had been queenless and without brood two or ^ 

 three weeks. After four or five days I examined, but failed 

 to find the queen. The colony still remains queenless and 

 without brood. Can you account for her non-acceptance ? 



Utah. 



Answer. — Hard to tell. None of the ordinary methods 

 of introducing queens is infallible, and the safe introduc- 

 tion of queens is still an unsettled question. A plan may 

 succeed ninety-nine times and fail the hundredth time, and 

 yet no one can say why the hundredth time should be any 

 different. It is barely possible that in spite of your not 

 finding the queen she may still be present. Sometimes a 

 queen will be in a hive a good many days before beginning 

 to lay, and sometimes queens stop laying in September, and 

 not very late in September, either. So the queen may be 

 still there, waiting to lay next spring. The colony had been 

 "queenless and without brood two or three weeks." Some- 

 times when queenless so long they become reconciled to 

 their condition, and when a queen is offered they will have 

 none of her. It is just possible that a young queen was 

 reared in the hive, causing the death of the queen intro- 

 duced, the young queen being afterwards lost on her wed- 

 ding-tour. 



Other guesses might be made, but I may as well own up 

 first as last that I don't know why the queen was not suc- 

 cessfully introduced. 



Queenie Jeanette is the title of a pretty song in sheet 

 music size, written by J. C. Wallenmeyer, a musical bee- 

 keeper. The regular price is 40 cents, but to close out the 

 copies we have left, we will mail them at 20 cents each, as 

 long as they last. 



The Afterthought. * 



The '*Old Reliable" seen through New and Unreliable QIasses. 

 By E. e. HASTY, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, O. 



.6380, .6381. .6382, .6383. 



The above, and the six numerals next in succession, 

 stand for the different departments of apiculture, it seems. 

 (Interjections from the boys.) Also, .63833 and .63834 stand 

 for more minutely subdivided apicultural things. If we 

 only go far enough we can find ourselves — instead of losing 

 ourselves, as those who wander far are apt to do. Mayhap, 

 about .63839876543210 will prove to be this here " After- 

 thought " of ours. " Amaziu' I" 



But, really, my mind has not had such a stirring up for 

 quite awhile as it got by contemplating this simple scheme 

 for putting absolutely everything into its own numbered 

 pigeon-hole. I thank Mr. C. P. Dadant for bringing it to 

 our attention. Both advantages and objections seem 

 rather obvious. Very desirable that classification and sub- 

 division should be the best possible, and an iron-clad rule to 

 make just ten parts every time could rather seldom be ex- 

 actly the best. Awkward to divide a clover leaf into ten 

 parts, and simple to divide it into three. As a first division 

 of all human thought, effort and knowledge, I should be for 

 making nearer fifty items than ten. 



Moreover, I think this can be done and will leave the 

 advantages of the system intact. One foundation idea of 

 the system seems to be that decimals can always be added 

 to without affecting the value of previous figures. Adding 

 two figures to simple five makes it five thousand, and we 

 have to think of the great increase in value. That's an ir- 

 relevant idea in this use of figures, and it does not trouble 

 so much on the other side of the decimal point. But putting 

 theyiw/ division on the left of the decimal point does not 

 bring in the difficult — and thereby we can have as many 

 divisions as we want the first time. So doing we can leave 

 some blanks (after the manner of numbering houses on a 

 street) in which the world's future thought can have space 

 to work without so completely abolishing our work. Let 

 me illustrate my scheme, not having seen the other one. 



A. Things pertaining in whole or in part to the soul of man. 



1. Religion. 



2. Evangelism, 

 a. Philanthropy. 



4. Soul Philosophy. 



5. Music. 



Then five blanks left, and continuing — 



B. Things most properly pertaining to the mind of man. 



11. Mental Philosophy. 16. Rhetoric. 



13. Languages. 17. Mathematics. 



13. Literature. IS. Astronomy. 



14. History. 19. Geology. 



15. Logic. 30. Cosmogony. 



And a big lot more. Then many blanks left, and con- 

 tinuing — 



C. Things pertaining for the most part to the body of man. 



101. Medicine. 



102. Athletics. 



103. Agriculture. 



104. Hunting. 

 10.5. Fishing. 



106. Mining. 



107. Engineering. 



108. Transportation. 



109. Navigation. 



110. Defense. 



And a lot more. Thus we get Apiculture as (103.8) in- 

 stead of (.638). 



Coming to our own corner, I suspect that those who 

 look upon Apiculture mainly as a science will refuse to be 

 pleased with any classification which satisfies those who 

 consider it mainly as a means of getting a living — and vice 

 versa. 



I fear a similar trouble will go through pretty much the 

 whole thing. Spiritually-inclined man will say that o/ 

 course things pertaining to the soul must have the most 

 prominent spread. Scientifically-inclined man will say 

 that of course the sciences must have a raging lion's share 

 of the whole view. Bread-and-butter man will want both 

 spiritual and scientific things crowded into small and incon- 

 spicious corners, that the general landscape may be filled 

 with things "practical," as he would term it. 



Also, so many things have a bearing on work-a-day af- 

 fairs, too, that the pigeon-holing of the same thing in two 

 places will be dreadful. Page 647. 



