Jan. 17, 1907 



American ^Qe Journal 



nothing ; but as to Ontario and Que- 

 bec, I have heard of only one instance 

 where bees have been reported as 

 working- on alfalfa. This report came 

 from Mr. Adams, of Brantford ; and 

 while Mr. Adams is a reliable source of 

 information, yet it is a question in my 

 mind if he finds the same thing to hap- 

 pen very ojten in his locality. 



For 10 years we had about an acre of 

 alfalfa within a few rods of the home 

 apiary, and while it was in all stages 

 of bloom through the season (being 

 cut from time to time for green feed), 

 yet I don't remember ever seeing a bee 

 on the blossoms, even when there was 

 a total drouth of honey, and the alfalfa 

 was in the height of bloom. 



Clr. n^st/s 



The' 



Old Reliable " as seen through New and Unreliable Glasses, 

 By E. E. Hasty, Sta. B. Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



Requirements for Swarming. 



I feel like driving a " coach and six " 

 right through C. W. Dayton's three 

 requirements for swarming. These 

 were old queen, populous colony, and 

 honey-flow. One may have the young- 

 est kind of a queen, only a few hours 

 old, a colony not nearly populous 

 enough to do good work, and decided 

 dearth of nectar in the fiowers ; and 

 yet with a swarmy strain of bees, and 

 a swarmy location, and the cell build- 

 ing half of a recently divided colony, 

 there may be a natural swarm. When 

 bees get the swarming fever furiously, 

 and are compelled to wait because they 

 have no queen out yet, the fact that 

 the honey-flow has ceased and famine 

 times have begun, is not always suffi- 

 cient to halt them. Influences in that 

 direction, but not always sufficiently. 

 Page 999. 



Methods of Foul Brood Treatment. 



And the world will move. We had 

 become settled that shaking bees onto 

 clean foundation or starters (repeat- 

 edly, if necessary) was the way to 

 cure foul brood. Now we learn that 

 both in California and in Texas cura- 

 tive methods are being abandoned in 

 favor of total destruction. And we 

 also (wrathfully) read of the inspector 

 who gets his pocket instrument well 

 loaded with the virus of foul brood in 

 one apiary and plants the same in the 

 next apiary which happens to be clean. 

 Page lOLO. 



Seal for Guaranteed Honby. 



Then hurrah for the brother that can 

 invent the most convenient seal for 

 guaranteed honey ! But it must be 

 thoroughly rascal-proof, else a less 

 convenient kind that is proof would be 

 greatly preferable. Right at this point 

 the oft-recurring need of reliquefying 

 may be bothersome. Who'll give us a 

 seal that will hang tight to its duty 

 while the package is being reliquefied ? 

 Page 1004. 



Valuable Quality of Caucasian 



Bees. 

 Frank Rauchfuss certainly puts in a 

 valuable additional quality for the 



Caucasian bees. Virgins stand 30 days 

 caging without companions. Not alto- 

 gether clear whether immersed in bees 

 or away from the bees. Surprising 

 any way. Yet virgins of Homo sapiens 

 consent to 30 years' caging, and seem 

 to like it ! But there must be a well- 

 chosen companion. Page 1013. 



How to Shake Bees Off Frames. 



Mr. McMurdo is "a man after my 

 own heart " when he takes a shot at 

 the "patent"' ways of holding and 

 shaking frames which have been pub- 

 lished. And he's O. K. when he tells 

 you to let the projections alone and 

 grip well down on the end-bars. The 

 way to shake bees off' is to shake — 

 shake good and hard — shake like Marco 

 Bozzaris wanted his men to strike. 

 And, eke, put some brains in the per- 

 formance, and learn for yourself a prac- 

 tical movement that works. Quickness 

 counts more than elephantine force 

 apparently; and peculiarities of mo- 

 tion count for something. Butnoneof 

 your holding the end-bar between first 

 and second fingers like it was a lead- 

 pencil. Page lOlh. 



Bees After Meal in Red-Pepper, 

 Perhaps. 



Sister Wilson, that red-pepper was 

 badly adulterated with meal, I reckon, 

 60 percent or so. The bees went for 

 the meal at d succeeded in ignoring the 

 fiery stuff mixed with it. Very re- 

 markable, and worth some study, that 

 they should be able to ignore red- 

 pepper for the sake of the meal. Still 

 it may turn out that bees like red- 

 pepper, for its own sake; and that 

 would be more remarkable still. Babies 

 in hives where cayenne takes the place 

 of pollen would never need any of 

 Perry Davis' Pain-Killer. Page 1018. 



A Good Bye and Some Advice to 

 MORLEY Pkttit. 



And so we must say good-bye to 

 Morley Pettit. Well, parting is a 

 more tolerable kind of sorrow when 

 our brothers do not "pull a tombstone 

 over their heads" when they go. 

 Wanting to do more for the good of 

 man is certainly a noble reason for 



making a change ; so we will applaud 

 instead of scold. By the way, however, 

 the man who has a department in a 

 journal of world-wide circulation, has 

 no right to say, " I am a dry tree " so 

 far as opportunities to do good are 

 concerned. Christian preaching not 

 so scarce as Christian writing — Chris- 

 tian writing to the extent of earnest 

 watchfulness to get in a word for the 

 right whenever an opportunity occurs. 

 I'll take a dose of that myself right 

 now. Here's advice to him as he goes : 

 Don't follow the new and awfully 

 prevalent style of preaching humani- 

 tarianism to the extent of forgetting 

 that man has a soul. Man has a soul 

 that dreadfully needs discovering and 

 cultivating — never so badly as now. 

 Don't agonize much to mend biblical or 

 theological broken eggs. There are 

 still some valuable eggs left that are 

 not broken. Hatch 'em. Page 1031. 



Prof. Wiley and Pure Food Law. 



Yes, as we have much that's ill to re- 

 member of Prof. Wiley, we might in 

 justice remember that he was very 

 prominent in the fight for the Pure 

 Food Law, which, after many defeats, 

 finally won out. Page 1029. 



Send Questions either to the office of the Am- 

 erican Bee Journal, or Dr. C. C.Miller, 

 Marengo, 111. (Dr. Miller does iwt 

 answer Questions by mail.) 



Getting Candied Honey Out of Combs 



I left the top supers on full of honey last 

 fall, so that the bees would not starve, and 

 from the way it looks it will last all next 

 summer. How do you get the bees to work 

 the candied honey over so as to get it out 

 without destroying the comb? Utah. 



Answer. — I don't know any very good way. 

 Perhaps you may do it in this way: Uncap 

 any that are sealed, and sprinkle all the sur- 

 faces with a fine spray of water. If you hav© 

 nothing better, you can use a whisk broom to 

 sprinkle the water. As fast as the bees clean 

 it up dry, sprinkle again till the honey is all 

 out. They will do it more surely and more 

 rapidly if you set the honey away from the 

 hives, instead of letting each colony keep its 

 own super. But in that case you must allow 

 a passage so small that only one bee at a time 

 can enter the super, or else the bees will tear 

 the combs to pieces. Of course, if neighbors' 

 bees are plenty, and close by, they may get 

 more than your Dees. 



Wintering Bees on Cakes of Sugar 



I had 2 colonies of bees that were almost 

 entirely out of stores for the winter. So on 

 Thanksgiving Day I put a cake of sugar on 

 top of the frames of each of them, just above 

 the cluster of the bees. To one I gave a cake 

 made of granulated white sugar and the other 

 of brown sugar. Each cake was made by 

 boiling 5 pounds of sugar with a pint of 

 water until it would grain so as to form a 

 cake by putting it in a shallow tin pan and 

 letting it cool. Now what I want to know is, 

 How long do you think that sugar will last 



