(Entered at the Post'OCQce ut Cbicago as Second-Class Mall-Matter.) 

 Published Weekly at $1.00 a Year, by George W. York & Co., 334 Dearborn Street. 



GEORGE W. YOKK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL., FEBRUARY 28, 1907 



VoL XLVII— No, 9 



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editorial ^ofes 

 and Comments 



:----U' 



Miniature Sections 



Considerable interest has been aroused 

 among readers of the British Bee Journal as 

 to getting out sections of honey weighing 1 

 ounce each, to be sold at IS cents a dozen, a 

 number of beekeepers having united in or- 

 dering these little sections to the total 

 amount of more than 4000. Years ago some- 

 thing of the kind was tried in this country, 

 but it was found that it would not pay unless 

 a much higher price per pound could be ob- 

 tained than for Ipound sections. At 18 cents 

 a dozen the price would be 24 cents a pound ; 

 but as 1-pound sections can be sold in Eng- 

 land at that price (Gleanings claims that best 

 comb honey can be sold in England at 50 

 cents a pound), it is not likely that the suc- 

 cesses of these miniature sections will be 

 greater in England than it was in this coun- 

 try, 



^ 



A Word to Each Illinois Bee-Keeper 



If you have not already done so, you should 

 get busy at once in writing to one or more of 

 the men at Springfield that represent you in 

 making the laws of the State. The danger is 

 that you will think that the matter of mak- 

 ing the laws that Mr. Dadant tells about 

 on page 65, will be attended to without any 

 word from you, and that it doesn't matter 

 whether you write or not. But numbers 

 count, and it is so important to bee-keepers 

 to have these Bills passed that no one should 

 begrudge the little time and trouble to write, 

 if it be only a card asking favorable attention 

 to the Bills referring to bees and to spraying 

 fruit-trees when in bloom, which we pub- 

 lished last week. To be sure, it may do more 

 good to write something more than a card, 

 perhaps referring to matters directly in your 

 own vicinity, as in the following, which is an 



actual copy of a letter written to a Represen. 

 tative at Springfield by a bee-keeping consti- 

 tuent : 

 Hon. . 



Dear Sir : — For several years it has been 

 the practise of Mr. to spray his fruit- 

 trees when in bloom. That means a lot of 

 dead bees for me, although he is under obli- 

 gation to those bees for setting this fruit. The 

 Experimental Stations say that it injures the 

 crop to spray while in bloom, but he says he 

 can't get through unless he begins before the 

 bloom is over. When so straight and intelli- 

 gent a man as Mr. does that sort of 



thing, you will easily see the need of a law 

 not only for my protection, but to protect 

 him against himself. Illinois should not be 

 behind New York or any other State in this 

 respect. 



Twelve miles from here there is — at least 

 there was — a man having bees afflicted with 

 foul brood, and any day there may be a case 

 within a mile of me. If it should be in the 

 hands of an ignorant or stubborn man, it 

 might easily mean disaster to me, for foul 

 brood is to the bees as bad as yellow fever and 

 cholera combined to the human race. A law 

 is needed that will compel that man to kill or 

 cure his bees. 



I think you see the reasonableness of such 

 laws as these, such laws as have been satis- 

 factorily in operation in several other Slates, 

 and ask your favorable consideration of the 

 Bills now before the Assembly referring to 

 bees and the spraying of fruit-trees when in 

 bloom. . 



If you can refer specifically to your own 

 case, as in the foregoing, well and good ; but 

 as said before, if you can do no more than to 

 write two lines on a postal card, do it, and do 

 it at once. 



Don't make the mistake of thinking that 

 because you did not vote for a man he will 

 therefore not heed your word. You are one 

 of his constituents, and you may be sure that 

 your word will hn\e its proper weight. 



There may be other States where the fore- 

 going suggestion.s will apply also. 



Calcium Chloridejn the Bee-Cellar 



Standing on the platform that " .\ dry at- 

 mosphere in the bee-cellar is almost a certain 

 guarantee that the bees will winter success- 

 fully," Allen Latham has been doing some ex- 

 perimenting, as a result of [which he says in 

 the American Bee-Keeper : 



Let some one who has a rather damp cellar, 

 and whose bees generally come out in spring 

 weak, and then grow weaker by spring dwind- 

 ling, act as follows: Let him purchase about 

 100 pounds of crude calcium chloride, not 

 chloride of lime so-called, but the real calcium 

 chloride, fused. Let him purchase a dozen or 

 so of galvanized pans, and enough galvanized 

 netting, 6 mesh or so to the inch, to furnish 

 a piece to rest over the pan. I^et him put a 

 pound or so of the salt on each piece of net- 

 ting, and salt here and there in the cellar, 

 some above the hives, but many below the 

 hives. 



If the cellar is very damp the salt may get 

 all dissolved in a tew weeks. In this case, 

 the pans must one by one be set in the stove- 

 oven for an hour or so until the water is 

 driven out, the salt again placed on the net- 

 tings, and the pans replaced in the cellar. 

 The salt can be used again and again, requir- 

 ing only a moderate baking to bring it back 

 to its original state. 



There can be no doubt that a cellar can be 

 kept very dry in this way, and need have 

 almost no ventilation. Bees need very little 

 air indeed if the air be dry air. Their need of 

 fresh air is like our need of fresh air ; that is, 

 plenty of oxygen. They need fresh air 

 mainly that its drying power may help them 

 to get rid of the water which keeps accumu- 

 lating in their bodies. 



The editor adds: Fused calcium chloride 

 costs, in 10-pouud cans, 15 cents per pound, 

 and in 100-pound lots, 10 cents per pound. 



The Loose- Hanging vs. Self-Spacing 

 Frames 



Editor Hutchinson is out-spoken in favor 

 of loose-hanging frames of the old-fashioned 

 sort. He says in the Bee-Keepers' Review : 



I want no attachments on a frame— just a 

 plain, straight, smooth, even, X frame all 

 around. It seems a pity to me that bee-keep- 

 ers will pay for these extra fixings on frames 

 when said fixings only make the frames less 

 easy of manipulation. Self-spacing frames 

 staples, etc., are all right when an apiary is 

 to be moved, but I would rather fasten the 

 frames, even with nails, if necessary, when 

 the bees are moved, it they are to be moved 

 then to be pestered all the season with all of 

 these oontogglements. 



That sounds as it the chief, if not the only 



