Jan. 17, 1907 



American Hee Journal 



Bee-Stories -Report for 

 1906 



BY WM. STOI-LKY. 



I send a clippiiiK from a St. Louis 

 daily papci', aiul the translation into 

 Knglisli also. Here it is; 



Bees in a Funekal Procession. 

 Dcs Moines, Iowa, Nov. 13. — Bees at 

 Wall Lake, Iowa, have sliown that they 

 are capahle of being attached to their 

 keeper, when Oliver J. Seer died, in a 

 very reniark;d)le way. Seer was a bee- 

 keeper and habitually worked among his 

 bees w'ith bare hands and unprotectcii 

 face. His bees followed him wherever 

 he went ou' his premises and into his 

 workshop, without attempting to sting 

 him. In winter, when winter stores 

 gave out, Seer fed them witli sugar sy- 

 rup and rye-meal, and covered them with 

 woolen blankets to keep them warm. On 

 the day when Seer was buried, his bees 

 swarmed about and around the hearse 

 and thousands of them followed the 

 hearse to the graveyard. Several colo- 

 nies swarmed out of their hives and 

 were found on trees in the graveyard 

 near the grave of Seer, their former 

 owner. — ircsllichc Post. 



Now, what next? Here it is: 



The foregoing seems hardly to be 

 taken as truth, but I can pen another 

 story about my ow-n bees, that is — every 

 word of it — as true as the above, and I 

 think, proves beyond a reasonable doubt, 

 that bees, even if they are not of the 

 superior Red Clover "strain" are pos- 

 sessed of not only keen discrimination, 

 but they morally entertain lofty no- 

 tions, and by their actions prove that 

 they hate liars. 



Among the many people who visit 

 my place, and quite often take a look 

 at my well-kept apiary in the summer 

 season, it sometimes happens that a 

 newspaper reporter is among these visi- 

 tors. And strange as it seems to be, 

 my bees seem to know at once when one 

 of them is about. Yes, it is a joy to see 

 the bees go for these fellows. 



We know that bees are prompted a 

 good deal in their action by their sense 

 of smell, and that explains probably that 

 they recognize the reporter at once as 

 soon as he has entered the bee-yard. 

 I am somewhat inclined to think that it 

 is the liar's smell that enables the bees 

 to hit the right man. My bees at once 

 swarm about the head and right hand of 

 a reporter, and I have seen one of these 

 chaps with a light, sandy mustache, 

 where the bees covered it in a big 

 cluster so that it appeared as a big 

 black Russian beard. The bees were evi- 

 dently all scrambling for a chance to 

 put their stingers into that fellow's 

 tongue. His right hand was just brist- 

 ling with stingers, and for two weeks 

 he could not write and report absolute 

 nonsense to his newspaper; but after he 

 got over it, so I learned, he went on 

 lying as usual. 



Report for the Season of 1906. 



When my report reaches you in Chi- 

 cago, I hope that you. Mr. Editor, have 

 returned to your sanctum all right, with 

 sound limbs, invigorated and refreshed 

 in spirit, and that you and your bee- 

 keeping traveling-companions, have en- 



jojcd your inp South, relished the vari- 

 ous Mexiciii spicy dishes, and were pru- 

 dent cnoUKh to avoid drinking the 

 "cistern w.iiers" to appease your thirst, 

 naturally ere.ited by these highly-sea- 

 soned meals. I refrain from suggest- 

 ing other drinks instead as very whole- 

 some, for fe.ir that that might hurt my 

 reputation, but I am sure that I know 

 something more .safe and palatable to 

 take. However, if you did drink cistern 

 water, while down in Texas, I hope 

 you escaped carrying home malaria 

 fever and t.ipe-worms. I am very well 

 acquainted with Southern life, and I am 

 free to say, "1 like it." 



I very much regret that unavoidable 

 circumstances prevented my going, as 

 much as I would have liked to be with 

 you and participate. Well, soon "the 

 Old Reliable" will divulge, I siippose, 

 and tell us about all that was going on 

 down there in San Antonio, and, no 

 doubt, it will be interesting reading 

 for us who had to stay at home. Many 

 will enjoy reading it when zero weather 

 rules supreme, and the snow - storms 

 sweep over this Northern section of our 

 great country. 



My report for the last passed season 

 of 1906 will be short and to the point. 

 After selling 5 colonies for $40 last 

 spring, I had but 27 colonies left. These 

 I increased by the nucleus plan to 42 

 fine colonies, rearing at the same time 

 31 first-class young queens. 



I took 2710 pounds of honey, of 

 which 235 pounds were in sections from 

 3 colonies. The rest was all extracted. 

 My best colony gave tne 153 pounds of 

 extracted surplus, and the queen of this 

 colony was hatched June 10, 1902. I 

 do believe in "long-lived stock," and I 

 never kill a "real good queen" as long 

 as she fills her hive with bees, from 

 early spring and late into fall. I would 

 much rather have a queenless colony in 

 the spring, once in a while, than to make 

 a rule to kill all queens wdien they are 

 but 2 or 3 years old. My queens must 

 show decline and weakness, i. e., ap- 

 proaching barrenness, before I pinch 

 their heads otT. 



I also got 42 pounds of fine bright- 

 colored wax from cappings. 



We had but 20 inches of rain the past 

 season, while we had all of 40 inches 

 in 1905. 



Last spring (1906) I bought 25 

 pounds of what was to be yellow sweet 

 clover seed, and sowed it on March 31. 

 The seed grew well, and I had the very 

 unexpected pleasure to see it begin to 

 bloom on June 8, only 69 or 70 days 

 after I scattered the seed. Soon all w;as 

 a mass of yellow bloom, but — not a sin- 

 gle bee ever visited this strange "yel- 

 low sweet clover bloom." According to 

 what I knew of the yellow variety of 

 sweet clover, it would not bloom the 

 first year, but would, like Melilotus alba 

 (white sweet clover), bloom the sec- 

 ond year and then die, root and branch. 



I have had some correspondence with 

 my highly-respected lady friend, Mrs. A. 

 L. Amos, who is known to have grown 

 yellow sweet clover for years, and this 

 lady wrote to me : "Seed of sweet clover 

 sown in March never blooms until the 

 following season, and then not so early 

 as that bloiimed for you." Mrs. Amos 

 very kindly sent me quite a package of 



the genuine sweet clover seed, which I 

 have sown this day, but I do not ex- 

 pect any bloom of it uiuil the mi<ldlc 

 of the month of June, 1908. 1 suppose 

 that the firm from whom 1 got seed had 

 been imposed upon by some one, who 

 sold this seed to them, and passed it 

 off as "yellow sweet clover seed," and 

 I hope that they will look the matter up. 



The seed sent me most certainly was 

 not yellow sweet clover seed, and since 

 bees seem not to take to it at all, and 

 the plants appear to be dead now, the 

 $3.05 that the seed cost me, is a dead 

 loss, unless it is made good to me. I 

 never saw any kind of seed grow as 

 readily, and bloom so willingly and pro- 

 fusely, and the plant, after blooming, 

 die so speedily, as this new-fangled "yel- 

 low sweet clover seed." It looks and 

 smells all right, but, after all, it is not 

 all right. 



Certain Red Clover queens are report- 

 ed as a "very extraordinary, superior 

 strain of bees." Now, if there is also 

 a strain of "Yellow Sweet Clover 

 Queens" whose workers understand how 

 to get nectar out of this new-fangled 

 yellow sweet clover, I would like to get 

 a queen of that very remarkable strain, 

 provided, however, such a queen is guar- 

 anteed to produce worker-bees that will 

 store honey obtained from this ne\y- 

 fangled yellow sweet clover, and will 

 not cost "more than $100 for one queen! 



I wonder if we ever will find out what 

 kind of stuff that yellow sweet clover 

 seed was. anvhow. 



Grand Island, Neb., Nov. 15, 1906. 



Hive-Lifting Devices 

 Protection 



Super- 



BY GRANT STANLEY. 



Quite a considerable space in the Sep- 

 tember 1st issue of Gleanings in Bee- 

 Culture is devoted to hive-lifting de- 

 vices, of which several illustrations are 

 presented. The bee-industry has grown 

 to such proportions that an invention of 

 this kind is a necessity in the apiary. 

 It is certainly hard work to lift 3 or 

 4 partly filled supers of honey, and place 

 thein on the ground, in order to exam- 

 ine the brood-chainber, and if many 

 colonies are to be thus gone over the 

 work becomes burdensome. It matters 

 little if we can do this kind of work or 

 not ; if we can have an inventioit that 

 will do it so tnuch easier it surely en- 

 ables us to do more work, and in busi- 

 ness of every description men are en- 

 deavoring to invent methods by which 

 the maximum result can be obtained 

 with a minimum of labor. 



But while we are thinking about hive- 

 lifting devices, we should have one pos- 

 sessing as many practical features as 

 possible. W'e not only want an inven- 

 tion to be used in hive-lifting and re- 

 moving supers, but it should be so con- 

 structed that the supers of honey can 

 be wheeled right to the honey-house 

 when removed from the hives, and empty 

 supers wheeled out. We also need this 

 invention in wheeling our bees to the 

 cellar in wintering, and to wheel them 

 out again in the spring. If for anj' rea- 

 son the bee-keeper desires to move colo- 

 nies from one part of the apiary to the 



