536 



June 20, 1907 



American ^ae Journal 



square piece of silk tulle being sewed 

 in the veil so it will come in front of 

 the wearer's face when worn. This is 

 the kind I have used most, but the silk 

 facing is not desirable enough, and 

 soon wears out, like that of the all-silk 

 veils. 



Needing a number of new veils this 

 season, I looked around for some mate- 

 rial that would be better suited for the 

 purpose than the cotton tulle espe- 

 cially made for bee-veils— something 

 that would not interfere with the vis- 

 ion as much — and it had to be stronger 

 than the silk veiling. 



The only thing "on the market" 

 was different grades of bobbinet, com- 

 monly used for " mosquito-bars," but 

 this material was "all white." The 

 prices ranged from 20 cents to 30 cents 

 per yard, the material being over 2 

 yards wide. The 20 cent material gave 

 me enough for 3 large veils for 30 cents, 

 or 1^2 yards. This made the veils long 

 enough to come well down over the 

 shoulders, which most of the finished 

 veils do not do. 



Five cents worth of black diamond 

 dye made this white material as nice 

 for bee-veils as could be desired. After 

 coming out of the dye the piece of bob- 

 binet, still uncut, is stretched to dry. 

 This leaves the meshes large and open, 

 and the threads of the material well 

 stretched, making the finished veil 

 much more open to the eyesight and 

 cooler than the regular black cotton 

 tulle, more durable, and very much 

 less expensive than the silk veils. 



A plain white cord is sewed in large 

 stitches in the end that comes over the 

 hat, and serves as a draw-string, tied 

 in a bow-knot to adjust to different 

 sizes. A rubber-cord or elastic may 

 be used, but it wears out. Nothing is 

 done with the lower edge, which falls 

 over the shoulders and is pinned down 

 to the front of the shirt with a large 

 safety-pin. My aim is to make these 

 veils " good enough," and as cheap as 

 possible, and I think I have accom- 

 plished this, as 35 cents worth of mate- 

 rial and a little sewing for 3 veils — a 

 dozen cost just $1.40, and a little more 

 sewing. 



shallow hive a thorough trial that ever 

 went back to the Langstroth hive. Let 

 me say to that writer, that I do not 

 know what all the bee-keepers have 

 done, but I do know of a number that 



have given up the shallow hive in dis- 

 gust, and W. Z. Hutchinson is one of 

 them. I could give the name of others 

 if it were necessary. L. B. Smith. 

 Rescue, Tex. 



Shallow Hives 



The plain, sensible way in which Mr. 

 SchoU has recently discussed the shal- 

 low hive, its advantages, etc., makes 

 one almost wish he had his bees all in 

 shallow hives. But the very thought 

 of having so many of these little shal- 

 low hives and frames to put up and 

 handle for extracted honey, to be the 

 equal of say one 3-story Langstroth 

 hive — well, what would we have to do 

 to rig up an apiary of say 100 hives of 

 this class ? Oh, I don't know ; it fairly 

 staggers me to think of it, Mr. SchoU. 



With no desire to get up a hive dis- 

 cussion with any one, I would say to 

 the average beginner to go slow on 

 changing from the Langstroth hives 

 to the shallow hives. They are all 

 right perhaps for the expert bee-keeper, 

 but for the novice I would say, try only 

 a few, and then they will be used only 

 as supers on the standard hives with 

 9 out of 10 in less than 5 years. 



It has been said by some writers that 

 they never knew anyone that gave the 



The' 



Old Reliable " as o^.^;. ^i^rough New and Unreliable Glasses, 

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



That French Record of Swarms. 



Like the proverbial dog barking at a 

 squirrel-hole, I incline to return to that 

 French record of swarms. It is of use 

 to us to fix the degree of temperature 

 below which we need expect only occa- 

 sional swarms. They fix it at 68 de- 

 grees. Only 11 percent swarmed when 

 it was cooler than that. Their bees are 

 more accustomed to temperature be- 

 low 68 degrees than ours are ; so we 

 are not likely to have more than 11 per- 

 cent below that figure. I have no 

 records of temperature with which to 

 compare. 



They never could catch a swarm com- 

 ing out when it rained. Same here. 

 In my total experience of some 3000 

 swarms, I have had just one that got 

 on the wing juit before a misty, fine 

 rain began, in which water fell quite 

 fast. It was interesting to see that 

 they paid no attention to the rain — or 

 next to none— took their, own time to 

 cluster. 



Another thing is the same here : 

 Wind has a very repressive influence, 

 although not entirely prohibitory like 

 rain and cold. Their finding is that 

 only 18 percent swarm when it is 

 windy. Don't believe the figure would 

 be quite as high as 18 at my yard ; but 

 of that I'm not sure. Manifestly Ihe 

 figures of this point don't depend 

 wholly upon the bees, nor yet on the 

 continent and nation. At a yard so 

 blest as to have no winds in swarniing- 

 time, the percentage would necessarily 

 be 0. And the yard with stiff breezes 

 every day would have a percentage of 

 100. 



I do not agree with Mr. Getaz that 

 they vitiated their barometer observa- 

 tions by not observing the other points 

 of the weather in the same connection. 

 Something still left. Useful to us to 

 be able to say in the morning : " Ba- 

 rometer high ; this will be a swarmy 

 day — other things being equal ; or, 

 " Barometer low ; this is likely to be a 

 non-swarmy day, as compared with 

 other similar days.'' Page 391. 



Some Things that Influence 

 Swarming. 



Sunshine, cloud and shade are three 

 words to conjure with, and so they pro- 

 ceed to conjure with them. Just to say 

 things off-hand without records, I 



should say sunshine is decidedly pro- 

 motive of swarming, and cloud some- 

 what repressive, but only slightly so if 

 the temperature is high. As to the 

 shade of trees, I think the total num- 

 ber of swarms is decreased but little 

 by it — such shade merely making the 

 swarms a little later in the month and 

 a little later in the day. Still a possi- 

 bility that I'm wrong in that, however. 



Very likely, as Mr. Getaz suggests, 

 young queens in France would show a 

 less swarmy record were it not that 

 their hives are generally very small. 

 But still, I shouldn't wonder if our 

 folks have been overrating quite a bit 

 the repressive influence of a young 

 queen. Some ahnost want to say that 

 colonies with a young queen never 

 swarm. Here's a good point for our 

 boys experimentally inclined to strike 

 in at — and find out just how it is at our 

 house. 



I should call the dictum of Mr. 

 Thibault, that no colony swarms when 

 there are no drones — I should call that 

 a pretty good-sized mistake. Success- 

 fully exterminate, and keep extermi- 

 nated, all the drones of a colony and it 

 would be more likely to swarm than if 

 left alone — if you let me judge. That 

 the colony that doesn't try to rear 

 drones will not swarm — I guess that's 

 probably so. Also another thing may 

 be so : If a colony's own drones are 

 all exterminated, some may come in 

 from other quarters. Of 10 such colo- 

 nies suppose you find S with quite a 

 sprinkle of immigrant drones and 5 

 with none. The 5 that immigrant 

 drones find it pleasant to stay in are 

 the ones that are intending to swarm, 



1 guess. Or is this getting too far into 

 the domains of the fanciful 7 



They found that 30 percent refrained 

 from swarming from hives with about 

 the capacity of a cubic foot, and 70 

 percent from hives with a capacity of 



2 cubic feet. Just about what we 

 would expect over this side — but 

 swarmy locations worse, and some 

 locations better. Page 391. 



Breeding Non-Swarming Bees. 



That some colonies swarm them- 

 selves into tribes in the course of the 

 years, and some other colonies disap- 

 pear, progeny and all— that's one of 

 the least thrashed out. Perfectly cor- 

 [Continued on page 553] 



