(Entered at the Post-Office at Clilcago as Becond-Clasa Mall-Matter.) 

 Published Weekly at $1.00 a Year, by George W. York & Ci>., tl« W. Jackson Blvd. 



GEOKGE W. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL,, JUNE 6, 1907 



VoL XLVn— No, 23 



!diforial vNoi 

 Commeiifs 



Improvement of Bee-Stock 



Considerable has been said in these col- 

 umns in this regard, and more is likely to be 

 said so long as the need is so urgent. Re- 

 enforcement of the views given may be found 

 in an earnest article in the British Bee Jour- 

 nal, not written by any radical hot-head, but 

 by that canny Scotchman, D. M. Macdonald. 

 His closing paragraph contains the following 

 summing up: 



Now this I say without fear of contradic- 

 tion : While we have men who rear so few 

 queens that they have to keep customers 

 waiting we shall never have selection ! Every 

 queen of every batch goes out, no matter 

 what defects she may possess, if they are not 

 over-patent. That it may not be supposed 

 that I am a voice " crying in the wilderness " 

 on this subject, I should like to quote a few 

 authorities showing that improvement is 

 urgently desired by others : 



Mr. McEvoy, of Canada, says: "Ninety 

 percent of the queens on the American Con- 

 tinent want killing," 



Mr. Green considers " too much of our 

 breeding has been done haphazard, and with- 

 out any intelligent direction. My own ex- 

 perience with superior stock has been very 

 disappointing." 



Mr. SchoU's opinion regarding our queens 

 is : " The best of them is none too good. Too 

 little attention is given this subject, and if 

 more were given better strains would be 

 found than the run-down strains that are not 

 yielding the profit that could be obtained." 



Mr, Hutchinson's opinion is that "well- 

 directed efforts at improving stock will prove 

 the most profitable of any which a bee-keeper 

 can pursue. The wonder is that it is so 

 greatly neglected." 



The American Bee Journal has again and 

 again quite recently devoted short editorials 

 to the subject of improvement of stock, and 

 has emphsized the pressing need there is for 

 securing better queens. It has even the 

 gravest doubts whether the belauded " tested 

 queens " really conform to the guarantee 

 given by queen-breeders. 



In addition to what I have quoted, a very 



large bulk of further evidence eould be pro- 

 duced from both sides of the Atlantic, to 

 show that the subject deserves the gravest 

 consideration if bee-keeping is to take the 

 prominent position which is its due. 



Self-Spacing Frames— and Fairness 



On page 349 appears a review of the Re- 

 view's view of self-spacing frames. While 

 thinking that the arguments in reply were 

 the best possible in the case. Editor Hutch- 

 inson deems it unfair that the last paragraph 

 of his article was utterly ignored, which 

 paragraph reads as follows: 



When it comes to the production of ex- 

 tracted honey, the frames with staples and 

 projections, "excrescences," I call them, are 

 simply not " in it." For several reasons it is 

 better to space the combs wide apart in the 

 supers, when the self-spacing arrangements 

 come to naught. The same can't be said of 

 them, however, when it comes to using the 

 honey-knife. 



Editor Hutchinson admits that he read the 

 arguments through with just the shade of a 

 twinkle in his eye as he wondered what 

 would be said in reply to that last paragraph. 

 Which is much the same as saying that in the 

 said paragraph he felt he held an impregna- 

 ble position, and was enjoying in advance the 

 discomfiture of the enemy in attempting to 

 attack it. Well, now, when a military com- 

 mander comes up at'ainst something that he 

 knows to be utterly impregnable, what is the 

 use of his wasting good shot by firing at it? 

 But that Mr. Hutchiuson may not feel too 

 much aggrieved at the neglect of his pet 

 paragraph, it shall liave, here and now, the 

 benefit of the best shci m the locker. 



First, it may be wel. :o note the limitations 

 of the argument. Evi Icntly it can not apply 

 in any way to that cl.iss of bee-keepers who 



produce comb honey exclusively; not such a 

 very small class. Neither can it apply to the 

 brood-chambers of those who never use brood- 

 combs and extracting-combs interchangeably. 

 Indeed, from the wording of the paragraph it 

 was intended to apply only to those frames 

 which, with "excrescences" which space 

 them properly tor the brood-chamber are still 

 used in the extracting-super. 



When thus used "the spacing arrange- 

 ments come to naught." Correct ; they are a 

 negative quantity, doingno good, and equally 

 doing no harm. 



" The same can't be said of them, however, 

 when it comes to using the honey-knife." Let 

 us see about that. Self-spacing frames may 

 be divided into two classes. The first class, 

 as the Hoffman, has the projections for spac- 

 ing on each side of the end-bar. Bees seal 

 their combs with a space of 3^ inch or more 

 between two opposing surfaces. Move the 

 frames apart V inch more than in the brood- 

 chamber, and the comb will be flush with the 

 projections. That would be spacing 1"^ from 

 center to center, and as " it is better to space 

 the combs wide apart in the supers," 1 •5;' is 

 probably none too much. Indeed, it is less 

 than many use. Even if the knife should 

 occasionally strike a spaeer, the knife would 

 be little hurt by striking wood. 



The second class embraces those which 

 have a spacer that projects at one side of the 

 end-bar, such as the Miller frame or those 

 spaced with staples. To have such spacers 

 on a level with the surface of the comb, the 

 spacing must be 1% from center to center. 

 Even with such wide spacing, unless the bees 

 built their combs with the utmost exactness, 

 the knife would sometimes strike a spacer 

 and as spacers in this class are mostly of 

 metal, there would be trouble. Even so one 

 need not despair, for self-spacing frames of 

 the second class have the spacers at only one 

 end on each side, and if one always begins 

 with the knife at that end there ought to be 

 little chance for trouble. Besides, if intended 

 for extracting, spacers in this second class 

 need not be such as will hurt the knife. Very 

 satisfactory ones have been made of wood, 

 and only lately C. S. Lord has brought out a 

 spacer with a head of type-metal which should 

 answer excellently. 

 There, Mr. Hutchinson, that is the best, the 



