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(Applicatiou made fur entry as 3eci)n(l-cla9s mail-matter at Chicago, III., Post-Olllce.) 

 Published Monthly at 25 ots, a Year, by George W. York & Co., 1 IK W. .lackHoii I5lv<I. 



GKOROK W. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL., JULY, 1907 



Vol, XL VII— No, 27 



itoriai cAlofes 

 and Comments 



Get a Text-Hook on Bees 



No better advice can be given to a be- 

 ginner in bee-keeping, or to one who 

 contemplates beginning, than to tell him 

 to get a text-book on bee-keeping, a 

 book of instruction about bees and their 

 management. The study of such a book 

 will give him more knowledge than he 

 would gain in years of actual practice 

 without any such help. The one who 

 gets a bee-paper, thinking to depend 

 alone upon that, is making a great mis- 

 take, ^luch of what is contained in the 

 periodical will be blind to him, as the 

 readers of bee-periodicals are supposed 

 to know what is contained in the text- 

 books, and a constant repetition of 

 fundamental principles would not be rel- 

 ished by them. It is to the interest of 

 the American Bee Journal to have as 

 many subscribers as possible, but if you 

 can not have both the book and the pa- 

 per, be sure to get the book first. 



Plan Now For Surplus Honey 



Not surplus honey to use on the table 

 or to sell ; but sealed combs of honey 

 to give to the bees next spring. It is 

 not likely they will be needed as much 

 next year as they were this, but there's 

 no knowing; and the old saying is a 

 good one, "Better be ready and not go, 

 than to go and not be ready." In any 

 case you may be pretty certain that 

 whatever the season next year, you can 

 dispose of a number of such combs to 

 good advantage. Enormous quantities 

 of honey arc used up in rearing brood. 

 Nothing strange about that, either. It is 

 not merely the material used to fill the 

 brood-cells; we are told that the nurse- 

 bees use more for their own support 

 than thev feed to the brood. If honey 



is not present in abundance, the bees 

 seem to know enough to limit the 

 amount of brood started, and so do not 

 enter the period of harvest in full 

 strength. Hence, the importance of ex- 

 tra combs in the early season, especially 

 with small hives. 



One way to provide such combs of 

 honey is to have a part of all of the 

 fall honey thus stored. Localities dififer 

 greatly in this respect; in some the fall 

 flow being the chief harvest, in some 

 there being no fall flow to speak of. 

 Where one can not rely quite confidently 

 on this fall flow, either part of the honey 

 stored by each colony should be in these 

 sealed combs, or else part of the colo- 

 nies should be devoted entirely to such 

 purpose. The best time to decide in 

 what way provision shall be made to 

 meet the case next spring is now, if the 

 decision has not already been made. 



When to Give a Super to a Swarm 



If the surplus apartment or super 

 is removed from the old hive and given 

 to the swarm immediately upon the 

 hiving of the latter, the queen is likely 

 to begin laying in the super if no queen- 

 excluder prevents. Either use an ex- 

 cluder. Or wait till the queen gets to 

 work in the brood-chamber (perhaps 2 

 or 3 days) before changing the super 

 from the old hive to the swarm. 



Keeping the Queen Out of Sections 



Some find it necessary to have queen- 

 excluders under section-supers to avoid 

 the disagreeable occurrence of brood in 

 sections. Others say it is so rare a thing 

 to find the queen straying into the sur- 

 plus apartment that it is not worth while 



to have the trouble of excluders, to say 

 nothing nf the expense. The secret of 

 the difference probably lies in the fact 

 that one uses small starters in the sec- 

 tions and the other fills the sections with 

 foundation. When small starters are 

 used, and little drone-comb in the brood- 

 chamber, the desire for drone-brood 

 causes the bees to build drone-comb in 

 the sections, and the queen to go up and 

 lay there. If the sections are filled with 

 worker-foundation, no drone-comb can 

 be built there, hence no enticing of the 

 queen out of the brood-chamber. 



Prevention of Second Swarms 



Usually it is not best to have any 

 more than one swarm from each colony. 

 Also, if honey be the object, it is better 

 to make the swarm as strong as possi- 

 ble, depending upon the swarm for sur- 

 plus. When the swarm is hived, if it be 

 set on the old stand and the old hive be 

 put on a new stand lo feet or so dis- 

 tant, that will give the swarm all the 

 field-force, and will often prevent fur- 

 ther swarming. A still better plan, al- 

 though a little more trouble, is the fol- 

 lowing : 



Set the swarm on the old stand, and 

 set the old hive close beside it, both 

 hives facing in the same direction as 

 the old hive faced. In 7 days, move the 

 old hive to a new place some 10 feet 

 away. The field-bees that leave the old 

 hive will, on their return, go straight 

 to the old stand, and not finding their 

 own hive there will join the swarm. 

 That will so weaken the mother colony 

 that all thought of further swarming 

 will be given up. Not only does the 

 weakening tend in this direction, but 

 also the fact that no honey is being 

 brought in, and the provident creatures 

 do not think it wise to swarm with star- 

 vation staring them in the face. 



"We Be(e) Brethren." 



It speaks well for bee-keepers in gen- 

 eral that a more brotherly feeling among 

 them is growing all over the world. 

 American bee-keepers owe much to the 

 patient researches of their eminent 

 brethren in Europe. On the other hand, 

 European bee-keepers are increasingly 

 alert to pick up any good thing that 



