July, 19(17. 



S89 



American liee Journal 



'I'liKKi: N'ki.i.dw Sukkt Clovkks. 



So tile aiimi.il Mclilotus of Texas is 

 yellow. I ihiiiU the one 1 read of years 

 ago was Ijliie. Doiilitless this yellow an- 

 nual is responsihle for some of the mix- 

 up that prevails in the miiicls of the 

 brethren about yellow Melilotus. If I'm 

 right wc have at least 3 yellows. One 

 is purely and simply a yellow variation 

 of the white, nearly identical otherwise, 

 and therefore of no use to us except as a 

 curiosity. One is a smaller and earlier 

 biennial with many points of dififcrcncc, 

 among them a liking for wet ground, 

 and different species botanically. Third 

 comes this yellow annual which is still 

 more a tiling in itself. Page 43,?. 



V.\Rioi's Kinds of Fool Sw.\rms. 



Wc are liable any day to have some 

 one deny that there is such a thing as 

 the "fool swarm;" and therefore let us 

 fool with it a little. The fool swarm is 

 one of the subdivisions of one of the 

 divisions. Primes, afterswarms and de- 

 serters constitute the first divide. Pro- 

 ceeding to subdivide the deserters we 

 have about 4 kinds. The first, and by 

 far the most common kind, occur in 

 regular swarming time, and among re- 

 cently-hived swarms. They think they 

 can do better, else haven't had frolic 

 enough, and out they come. Some years 

 seem to be more promotive of this con- 

 trariness than others. Next we have a 



miscell:iiu'nu» lot of uiuimcly swarms 

 that consider themselves driven out by 

 unendurable conditions — unendurable 

 heat, unendurable cold, draughtiness, 

 leakage of water, inroads of insects, etc. 

 'I'hird comes the "hunger swarm," pure 

 and simple. We can certainly respect 

 their disiiosition not to "die and make 

 no sign" when starving. As a last re- 

 sort they start out and try to better 

 their conditinii. Naturally liunger swarms 

 arc mostly in the early spring, but not 

 all then, 1 believe, h'ourtli and last is 

 the fool swarm. Comfort.ablc and sweet- 

 smelling hive, fair supply of both honey 

 and pollen, ;ibsolutely nothing to cause 

 them to go except the discontent and 

 wenriness H'hicb has groivn up in their 

 minds. Wc can hardly admire their wis- 

 dom, but we can admire the high-strung 

 mental character, without which such a 

 result would never come afwut. Not 

 very different from the case of the well- 

 situated family that migrates to a life 

 of struggle and suffering in a new coun- 

 try. "Our graves were out here, and 

 we had to come to 'em," said a lady 

 of such a family, 20 miles from where 

 I write, in the Black Swamp of Wood 

 County. Human fool swarm much 

 more common than the fool swarm of 

 bees. Well, the case which Mr. Byer 

 gives on page 434 is excellent to mark, 

 and keep in reserve, in case some 

 "Thomas" should get up and deny the 

 whole thing. 



Canadian 

 rBc^c^dom 



Conducted by J. L. BVEK. Jlount Joy. Unt. 



Busy With the Bees 



I am very busy (June 15). Colonies 

 got ahead of me, owing to bad weather, 

 and it was quite a job to break up 

 swarming after the fever was con- 

 tracted. I will have quite a blank dur- 

 ing fruit-bloom and clover, and it will 

 pay to feed, as I will have to be away 

 for about 2 weeks steady, so the best 

 I can do is to leave the colonies heavy 

 with honey and let them take chances. 

 As the majority of them have lots of 

 unsealed honey from fruit, in the supers, 

 they will not sutler for a week or two. 

 J. L. BVER. 



ence I have not lost a dozen colonies 

 by starvation, yet I am still learning the 

 necessity of abundance of good stores 

 in the fall. 



Mr. Storer. of Lindsay, winters his 

 bees in a perfect cellar, and yet every 

 colony must have 40 pounds of stores. 

 I am thoroughly convinced that he is 

 on the safe side, and if necessary some 

 years, it is no great trouble to relieve 

 the brood-nest. This year our large, 

 heavy brood-nests needed no relief. 



Alexander Plan of Building Up 

 Weak Colonies 



Bees Starved in the Cellar 



Editor Hutchinson tells, in the Re- 

 view, of losing a large number of colo- 

 nies in the cellar through starvation. 

 The cold weather prevented taking the 

 bees from the cellar until nearly the 

 first of May, and, as a result, as has 

 been mentioned, a lot of them starved. 



While in all my bee-keeping experi- 



While the Alexander plan for build- 

 ing up weak colonies is good when sin- 

 gle-walled hives are used, yet it is al- 

 most of no value to those bee-keepers 

 who winter their bees on the summer- 

 stands, as >uch hives can not be tiered 

 up. This spring I blundered on to a 

 plan that is simply "immense" when you 

 want to have a good queen that has only 

 a few bees with her. 



When clipping at one yard 2 weeks 



agn. I found 2 young Italian tjuecns 

 that I brnight last fall, with only almut 

 a h.iiidful of bees with each. Having 

 found the queens in 2 extra-strong colo- 

 nies, the combs they were on were set 

 aside and then the bees of a couple of 

 combs were shaken in front of these 

 very weak colonies. The old ^ees re- 

 turn to their old location, and the 

 young bees crawl up into the hives they 

 arc ill front of. These young hecs are 

 indeed "friends in need," and just the 

 right kind of strength required. In- 

 stead of having brood to get chilled, 

 the colony has more bees to care for 

 and rear brood, and on examining those 

 2 colonics to-day, after 2 weeks' time, 

 1 could hardly think it possible that 

 so much change could have taken place 

 in so short a time. 



Dark Bees the Hardiest 



Just lately I was speaking with a 

 liee-kccper who has been in a large 

 number of apiaries in Ontario, during 

 the past 2 months, and he remarked 

 that in every case the dark bees — Car- 

 niolans and natives — had stood the ad- 

 verse conditions much better than the 

 Italians. My own personal experience 

 is exactly in accord with this view, 

 and the very few weak colonies I have 

 are nearly all headed by Italian queens. 

 The very yellow, or 5-banders, have 

 suffered the worst ; in fact, through 

 these parts they have been cleaned out 

 entirely. It seems to be quite the gen- 

 eral opinion that these very yellow bees 

 are not so hardy as the leather-col- 

 ored Italians, yet I have never seen 

 a good explanation as to zc/iy this is 

 the case. 



" A Cold and Backward Season 



The above phrase has become a by- 

 word during the year of 1907, so far. 

 However, since June 16, in our 'local- 

 ity at least, the first-named qualifying 

 adjective can be eliminated when speak- 

 ing of weather condition. On that date 

 a warm wave accompanied by nice 

 showers came in, and the growth in 

 vegetation has been phenomenal. It 

 seems as if Nature were putting forth 

 every eiifort to make up for lost time, 

 and instead of looking forward to crop 

 failure, the farmers are now confident 

 of at least an average harvest. Pros- 

 pects for the bee-keeper are also much 

 brighter, and although the clover is 

 about 2 weeks later than usual, yet it is 

 now looking good, and with favorable 

 weather there is no reason why a crop 

 of honey should not be secured. Bass- 

 woods are very full of buds, and while 

 this source of nectar is always very un- 

 certain, yet we never get basswood 

 honey when we have no basswood 

 bloom. The acreage of buckwheat will 

 be larger than usual, so from one source 

 or another the bee-keeper should be 

 able to get some honey. Clover started 

 to yield yesterday (June 24), and now 

 we have just had a soaking rain which 

 should put it in good condition for 

 yielding nectar when the weather clears 

 again. 



Speaking of bee-forage, I often won- 



