June 27. 1907 



American Hee Journal 



to fasten the nucleus in its hive 2 or 3 

 days, otherwise too many bees will go 

 back to their old home. 



If, however, you prefer to let the 

 bees rear their own queen, here's a 

 good way to proceed : Take 2 or 3 

 frames of brood with adhering bees 

 and the queen and put thera into a hive 

 on a new stand. Most of the force be- 

 ing left on the old stand, the strong 

 force will produce good cells, ever so 

 much better than a mere nucleus 

 would. In s or 10 days you will let the 

 hives swap places, taking all but 2 or 3 

 frames with adhering bees from the 

 queenless hive and giving them to the 

 queen. See that the frames left in the 

 nucleus have one or several queen-cells, 

 and destroy all queen-cells on the 

 combs you give the queen. 



If you have further questions, don't 

 hesitate to call again. 



Another Fairy Bee-Story 



When the manufacturer of news 

 wants something better than common 

 upon which to build, he can hardly do 

 better than to tell what some man can 

 do with bees. Upon the smallest foun- 

 dation of truth he can build and build 

 until his superstructure is 'way out of 

 sight in the clouds. But if you want 

 to see the veracious reporter at his best, 

 just let him get an inkling of what 

 some woman has done, or is going to 

 do, with bees ; as witness the following 

 from the Chicago Daily News : 



Queen-Bees at $300 Each. 



Two score Italian queen-bees, valued at 

 from $50 to $200 each, arrived on Saturday on 

 the steamship St. Paul. They are the prop- 

 erty of Mrs. R. C. Riggs, of Kansas, who ac- 

 companied them. 



Salerno, Italy, it seems, is headquarters for 

 the finest variety of Italian queens, and 

 thither Mrs. Riggs went for the express pur- 

 pose of buying a number of these valuable 

 little insects. 



" The Italian queen," said Mrs. Riggs, in 

 speaking of her purchase, " is much larger 

 than the ordinary bee, and is of a beautiful 

 light gold color. It is worth literally dozens 

 of times its own weight in gold, because of its 

 marvelous productivity. No other bee can 

 compare with it in this respect." 



Of course, having a valuable lot of mer- 

 chandise in her possession — her new bees are 

 valued at $1800— Mrs. Riggs wanted to have 

 them insured. The average person wouldn't 

 know where to go or what to do to get a 

 swarm of bees insured, but Mrs. Riggs did. 

 An Italian company assumed the risk for the 

 tiny creatures on their voyage to America, so 

 that her only danger lay in the journey be- 

 tween New York and Kansas. 



"Of the tens of thousands of people who 

 eat honey, or see bees flitting about among 

 the clover blooms in summer," said Mrs. 

 Riggs, "very few know anything of the 

 trouble entailed in rearing bees, or realize the 

 immense capital that is invested in apicul- 

 ture. During the 16 years that I have been 

 in the business, I have expended something 

 like $125,000 on my apiaries. The returns, 

 however, have been fairly large, as I market 

 my honey in many cities. 



"Bee-farming is not a business out of 

 which the novice can expect to reap much of 

 a harvest. People seem to think any fool 

 can make money at bees. It isn't so. The 

 theoretical and practical sides of apiculture 

 must be thoroughly mastered if one is to suc- 

 ceed in it, and that takes many years. 



" Incidentally, the bee-farmer must not be 

 susceptible to the virus of the sting. Every 

 one who bandies bees, or is with them much, 



must expect necessarily to take a certain 

 amount of stinging, and those who are con- 

 slilulionally not fitted to stand it are seri- 

 ously handicapped In the business. 



Mrs. Riggs declares that she is absolutely 

 immune. ",\ncl yet I have been stung hun- 

 dreds of times at once," she says. " All my 

 assistants are equally immune— in fact, I 

 won't engage an employe permanently who is 

 not." 



One of the funny things about this whole 

 business is that getting " stung " is supposed 

 to be good for the " rheumatiz." Mrs. Uiggs 

 says she actually has people come to her — 

 people who arc tortured by rheumatism —who 

 ask the privilegi; of placing themselves in the 

 way of being badly stung.- Of course, she is 

 always willing to accommodate them. 



" ;\nd, oddly enough," she laughed, in tell- 

 ing about the c|uei;r request, " I have known 

 cases where getting stung really did relieve 

 terrible attacks of the disease — at least, the 

 sufferers declared it did, and they ought to 

 know." 



It would be interesting to know just 

 how much basis there is for this re- 

 markable story. Possibly there were 

 2 or 3 queens with a value of ?2tof-^ 

 each, and no one is likely to be more 

 surprised then Mrs. Kiggs to learn 

 what large proportions her operations 

 have assumed. Think of paying an 

 average price of S9i) each for 20 Italian 

 queens I But that is only in keeping 

 with the general outlay during 10 years 

 —"something like $12.=;,000." That 

 averages annually $7,812..=;o, and to re- 

 coup herself for such an outlay, even 

 if she made a profit of 7 cents on each 

 pound of honey, she would have to 

 produce each year a little more than 

 100,000 pounds. Strange that we should 

 never have heard of these large crops 

 before. And very likely the lady will 

 herself echo, '• Strange that /should 

 never have heard of it before '." 



Rcflectioiiif 



California Bee Keeper 



W. A. i'KYAL, Aklen Statiou, Oakland, Calif. 



Lungs— But Not of the Bee 



Prof. Cook dilates upon lungs, in 

 Gleanings of April 1st. Yes, Califor- 

 nia is a great State for lungs. But 

 few who have real lung-trouble can ex- 

 pect to be cured by coming to the most 

 favored portion of the State. Some 

 may get relief for a time ; better stay 

 near home and get the treatment af- 

 forded by kind friends and dear rela- 

 tives. Doctors tell us that any change 

 is good for those thus afflicted for a 

 time, but after a time when the patient 

 becomes accustomed to the new cli- 

 mate, the system goes back, as it were, 

 to where it was at the beginning of the 

 "cure." I think the day will come 

 when a remedy will be found to banish 

 the lung-bacteria. And it will be one 

 of the greatest boons given to man. 

 And — but pardon me, I am getting 

 away from bees, even if this subject 

 may be excused as a reflection — not on 

 the Professor nor on our climate — but 

 as an observation on our breathing 

 mechanism. 



Churcti Candles of Beeswax, Etc. 



How oft we go wrong when we try 

 to write about the other fellow's re- 

 ligion. And it is hard to be helped, 

 inasmuch as there are so many of 'em 

 — both the fellows and the religions. 

 But let us try to be careful — have due 

 regard for our neighbor's creed, race 

 and politics. 



Once upon a time I had a newspaper 

 detail that took me to the places of 

 worship of Jew. gentile and heathen ; 

 priest, rabbi and minister, I ha 1 to in- 

 terview. But this is neither here nor 

 there. Of course, I had to " post up " 



in matters about the creeds and so 

 forth. It has stood me in pretty good 

 stead since. This is why I am making 

 this reflection. 



The other night in reading up on 

 beeswax in one of the standard bee- 

 books, I noticed a cut of a big candle 

 under which was the title, " A Mam- 

 moth Candle for Sacramental Pur- 

 poses" — a statement which is as in- 

 correct as it is misleading. Candles 

 may be used or lit during the adminis- 

 tration of some of the sacraments in 

 several of the churches, but they form 

 no part of the service, that I am aware 

 of. A lighted candle is used as a sym- 

 bol ; that and nothing more, so far as 

 I know. Every Roman Catholic church 

 uses one of these mammoth candles 

 during a certain season of the year, 

 commencing at the close of Lent. This 

 reminds me that in a late number of 

 Gleanings, the editor, in mentioning 

 some of the uses to which beeswax is 

 put, mentions that the Catholic and 

 Greek churches use large numbers of 

 them on the altars. This would lead 

 the uninformed to believe that all the 

 candles used in such churches were 

 none other than beeswax. The law of 

 the church calls for at least two pure 

 beesivax candles to be lit on the altar 

 during the offering of the mass. From 

 this it may be seen that all others may 

 be of any other material — sperm, tal- 

 low, etc. And the same writer further 

 stated that wax-candles were used for 

 the reason that they did not produce a 

 smoke that was injurious to the orna- 

 mentation of the interior of the edifice. 

 I do not know where the editor re- 

 ceived his information ; I know as a 

 fact oil-lamps are used in country 

 churches ; in the city gas is the usual 

 illuminant along with electricity 



