May 23, 1907 

 1 -^^gE^^ 



American ^ee Journal I 



431 



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menced in the sage, butKOOd, warm weather 

 will soon eradicate them. 



Yours sincerely, M. H. Mendlbson. 

 Piru, Ualif., May 2. 



C. P. Dadant, Esq — 



My Ihar Sir:~\ think it very strange that 

 the editors of the bee-papers have not heurd 

 that we are likely to have almost if not quite 

 a total failure of our honey crop. We had 

 abundant rains up to April 1, and every one 

 looked for a record crop. Then the rains 

 cut off short, and we have not had any since. 

 All the time we had cold, cloudy weather and 

 no honey. Bees by the million go out, get 

 chilled and die, so that all colonies are weak, 

 and have very little brood. Then the paraly- 

 sis began April 4, and is killing ofl the bees, 

 I find 2 colonies this morning entirely gone — 

 the first instance I have seen. lam just re- 

 turned from sweeping dead bees with a broom 

 away from in front of the hives. I am feed- 

 ing all colonies. G. F. Merriam. 



San Marcos, Calif., May 9. 



Dear Mr. Meruiam: — Yours of the 9th to 

 hand. Misery loves company, so we hasten 

 to tell you we are having the worst spring for 

 bees that I have ever seen, and I have been in 

 the business for about 40 years. Rain, snow, 

 frost, and no bloom. Had a frost on the 11th. 

 The fruits are about all killed. 



I see the May disease is still giving you 

 trouble. You will remember I wrote to you 

 about it a year or two ago. I take it that the 

 cold, wet weather causes it in some way, and 

 it strengthens my opinion that something in 

 the condition of the honey, either the old or 

 the new, causes the start of the malady. Some 

 have said it was spoiled pollen, but this 

 ought not to make the adult bees sick as 

 much as the brood, and it is the adult bees 

 which suffer. If you see anything in that 

 May disease that interests you I would like 

 to know about it. 



Honey is going to be a good price if things 

 continue as they are. I hope the prospect 

 may change soon. 



The same ccnditions also exist in Europe. 

 I received a letter from Switzerland, and they 

 say that the weather is bad and the bees very 

 much behind. 



Our grapes have been touched by the frost, 

 while the buds were yet small. We thought 

 them all right till the few warm days came, 

 when we found the buds dried up. There 

 will be a few peaches yet. 



Yours fraternally, 



Hamilton, III., May 14. C. P. Dadant. 



Surely the outlook is discouraging for bee- 

 keepers in both the far west and also in the 

 Mississippi Valley. The past has been per- 

 haps the coldest spring known in many years; 

 in fact, it has made a very long winter for the 

 bees, and unless we can have seasonable 

 weather very soon the honey crop will likely 

 be a very short one. 



We think there is no doubt about honey 

 bringing a good price hereafter, and for sev- 

 eral reasons. The pure-food law will prove a 

 great help; and if the honey crop is short, 

 whatever is produced should bring a fair 

 price. 



It is to be hoped that settled warm weather 

 will come very soon to help out the bee-keep- 

 ers as well as farmers generally. Fruit will 

 also be high, in all probability. So much 

 depends upon the weather. 



Our Wood Binder (or Holder) is 

 made to take all the copies of the American 

 Bee Journal for a year. It is sent by mail 

 for 20 cents. Full directions accompany. 

 The Bee Journals can be inserted as soon as 

 they are received, and thus preserved for 

 future reference. Or we will send it with the 

 American Bee Journal a year — both for $1.10. 

 Address office of the American Bee Journal. 



rir^iitiecr! 



I 



Working for Section Honey 



BV G. M. DOOLITTLE 



Having- the wings of queens clipped, 

 and all colonies looked after so they 

 will be in the best possible condition to 

 take advanta|?e of the honey harvest 

 when it arrives, our next thing to do 

 is to see that the supers of sections are 

 all ready to put on the hives at a mo- 

 ment's notice, when the right time for 

 doing this arrives. The time for put- 

 ting the supers in readiness is during 

 the winter months, but if it has been 

 neglected, it should be done now. Do 

 not put this off till the harvest arrives, 

 for if this is done we are often caught 

 by having the best part of the season 

 past while we are getting ready. 

 Always \i3.ve the " dish right side up 

 to catch thehoney." A few days' neg- 

 lect of this will often turn what might 

 be a splendid success into poor returns 

 or an entire failure. 



Having the supers all ready we 

 should ever be on the alert to know 

 just wlien to put them on the hives. 

 They should not be put on until the 

 colony which is to receive them is 

 strong enough in numbers to fill the 

 hive with bees and brood, for if put on 

 sooner they only tend to retard the 

 process of building up, which is the 

 main thing we are aiming at in the 

 early part of the season. 



Again, no matter how populous the 

 colonies, it is little use to put on the 

 sections when no honey is coming in 

 from the fields, for the bees will do no 

 work in them, while with some colo- 

 nies the bees will insist on tearing 

 down the thin foundation put in the 

 sections to help them start, where they 

 cluster in the sections before any 

 honey is coming in from the fields. 

 Keep watch of the bees each day from 

 the entrance, and when you see many 

 bees coming in which strike heavily 

 on the alighting-board ; or the bees 

 which are just outside of the entrance 

 fanning look as if transparent about 

 the locality of the honey-sac, then you 

 may begin to think the time has ar- 

 rived. If you wait until about 4 o'clock 

 in the afternoon, and then put your 

 head near the ground so that the sun 

 will strike the bee as it runs into the 

 hive, having the bee between your 

 gaze and the sun, only so the sun does 

 not shine in your eyes, you can tell on 

 any day as to the amount of nectar the 

 bees are bringing in The bee with no 

 load of nectar will look dark or 

 opaque, while the one with a sac full 

 of nectar will look translucent, espe- 

 ciallay thus with the yellow races of 

 bees. Then this will vary all the way 

 from opaqueness to the most trans- 

 lucent, just according to the size of the 



load the bee carries in tuis way I can 

 tell almost to a half pound what a col- 

 ony on the scales is bringing in. 



Do not be deceived by now and then 

 a bee dropping on the alighting-board 

 being fully translucent, while all the 

 rest are opaque. These occasionally 

 translucent bees are carrying water 

 into the hive ; but where nectar is com- 

 ing in to any amount, at least two- 

 thirds of the bees coming in at this 

 time of the day will show the light 

 through their abdomens to an extent 

 that you may know that they are get- 

 ting more than a living from the fields. 

 When you see this, open the hive occa- 

 sionally, and when the bees begin to 

 build little bits of comb here and there 

 about the hive, and the cells along the 

 tops of the frames are being length- 

 ened with new white wax, the time is 

 ripe for putting on the sections. 



If the super is supplied with " bait " 

 sections — which means from 4 to 12 

 sections partly filled with comb left 

 over from the season previous — you 

 will find that such baits will be pretty 

 well filled with honey within a week, 

 and the comb foundation in the rest 

 well under way. It is then time to put 

 on another super. And where shall 

 this next super be placed ? Under or 

 over the one already on the hive ? Ten 

 years ago I should have answered, as 

 did nearly every one then, and the 

 majority of bee-keepers do so to-day — 

 put this next super under by raising 

 the first one up and putting the last 

 super between the one the bees are 

 working in and the hive. But after a 

 practise of 10 years' trying the matter 

 both ways, I now say put this empty 

 super, except starters in the sections, 

 over every time. In fact, for the past 

 4 years I have always put the empty 

 super over the one the bees are at work 

 in with the most gratifying results, as 

 I not only secure larger yields of sec- 

 tion honey in this way, but the sections 

 are universally better filled. 



With the old way of tiering up, I have 

 come to the end of the season with 

 thousands of sections worked in, not 

 half of which were finished enough to 

 be salable ; but with putting the empty 

 super on top when tiering up, nineteen- 

 twentieths of the whole worked in by 

 the bees were salable, even in the poor- 

 est of seasons. In the old way of tier- 

 ing up, as soon as the first super was 

 from half to two-thirds full, it was to 

 be raised up and the empty one put un- 

 der it, and next to the hive. This was 

 said to cause the bees to work with re- 

 doubled energy to fill up this space be- 

 tween their brood-nest and the room 

 they were at work in above, thus secur- 

 ing much more honey than would 

 otherwise result. But after having the 

 flow of nectarslacken many times soon 



