Julv, 11)07. 



American liee Joarnal| 



--'i>f 



A HOMK BiCIC-SON'G. 



The twilight bees to the comb, 



And the wandering bird to the nest, 

 And the roaming sails turn home 



Far out in the darkening west; 

 Home, home, tlicy gladly drift, 



Though the lawn was loved of the bee, 

 And the bird had loved the lift 



As the sailor the open sea. 



And I, who have wandered far, 



Down unrcmcmbered ways, 

 With never a steadfast star 



Through all these drifting days. 

 Now turn to an Iiui whereof 



I know one door stands wide — 

 And the rest is silence, love, 



Till the world is shut outside ! 



— Arthur J. Stringer. 



Spring Management and Swarming. 



I will suppose that, on April 15, you 

 have 100 fairly good colonies that were 

 just taken from their winter quarters, 

 and that each colony contains a good, 

 well-developed Italian queen not over 

 ten months old that has been reared 

 from some good honey-gathering strain 

 of bees. I shall take it for granted that 

 your hives are filled with nice worker- 

 combs. 



We will commence the season's work 

 by putting a feeder under every hive 

 and giving each colony about i;-S cents' 

 worth of extracted honey, or sugar sy- 

 rup, which must be made very thin, of 

 about the consistency of nectar, and feed 

 them about this amount every day that 

 the weather is such they can not gather 

 anything from flowers until about the 

 last of May. This will require on an 

 average, one season with another, about 

 50 cents' worth of honey or sugar per 

 colony; and, if properly done, you will 

 have. May 25, every hive crowded with 

 brood and maturing bees at the rate of 

 2000 or more a day. 



About two weeks previous to this we 

 should start the rearing of four or five 

 hundred queen-cells, which are now. 

 May 26. about ready to hatch. Now we 

 will divide our colonies, making two of 

 each, and fix them so that the queenless 

 part will mature two or more of these 

 ripe queen-cells or virgins into nice lay- 

 ing queens ; then about the last of June 

 we will separate these colonies that have 

 two or more laying queens, making 100 

 more increase, or 300 colonies all to- 

 gether. 



The old colony, or the part that has 

 Tiad the old laying queen from the first, 

 we have kept busy drawing out frames 

 of foundation into nice extracting-combs, 

 and we have also kept them from any 

 desire to swarm by taking their comb's 

 of capped brood away as fast as they 

 had some to spare, and giving this brood 

 to this newly-made increase. 



In this way of managing your bees 

 you will have no swarming to bother 

 with, and at the same time you have in- 

 creased your TOO colonies to 300, and all 

 are in good condition for any harvest 

 that commences after July 4. — E. W. 

 Alexander, in Gleanings in Bee Culture. 



Be Charitable — Nom de Plumes. 



I wish our great family of bee-keep- 

 ers would have more charity than they 



do fur one another. Perhaps the ma- 

 jority do think well of their fellows, but 

 there are a few who are too much given 

 to fault-finding, to seeing a man's faults 

 and faihngs instead of his good quali- 

 ties. I don't say that men or their ac- 

 tions ought never to be criticised or con- 

 dcnuied; but many times are men fairly 

 abitsrd for something for which they arc 

 not to blame. I sometimes get letters 

 accusing me very sharply of something 

 for wdiich 1 am not in the least to blame. 

 If you think that a man has made a 

 mistake, or has done wrong, it is not 

 always best to ignore it or keep still 

 about it ; but before condemning a man, 

 ask in a kind and courteous way for an 

 explanation. Don't be ready to impugn 

 a man's motives until you know all of 

 the circumstances. 



As a rule t do not approve of the use 

 of a nom de plume. There are cases 

 when modesty might be an exc'use ; 

 where a man, or more likely a woman, 

 might be willing to write but did not 

 care for the resulting publicity. But 

 when a man enters into a critical argu- 

 ment, and proceeds to "roast" some op- 

 ponent, he ought to come out fair and 

 square with his own signature. To strike 

 a man in the dark, and then dodge be- 

 hind a nom de plume, marks a man as a 

 coward. — Editor Bee-Keepers' Review. 



Taking More than One Bee-Paper, 



I hold in my hand a very complimen- 

 tary letter from one of our subscribers 

 regarding the improvements that have 

 been made in Gleanings from time to 

 time. He thinks it covers the whole 

 ground so thoroughly and so well that 

 there is no use of his taking more than 

 one bee-journal. While we appreciate 

 most thoroughly this voluntary expres- 

 sion of our correspondent, I desire to 

 say that I believe he is mistaken. If 

 any one keeps bees for the money he can 

 make out of them, he ought by all means 

 to take not only one journal but two or 

 three of them. Gleanigs does not pre- 

 tend to cover the whole field of apicul- 

 ture. The personal bias of an editor, 

 even though that bias be unconscious, 

 may cause him to emphasize certain de- 

 velopment of bee-lore to the total neglect 

 of all others. As I look over our ex- 

 changes I can see fields that they are 

 covering that Gleanings is not ; and, con- 

 V'er,sely, I can see fields that we are cov- 

 erings that they do not. 



W. L. Coggshall, perhaps the most ex- 

 tensive bee-keeper in the world, once 

 said to me that he could not afford not 

 to take all the bee-pap'ers published in 

 the United States; and that, moreover, 

 he could not afford not to scan every 

 page after they came into his hands. 

 "But." you say, "he owns and operates 

 some two or three thousand colonies, 

 while I have only fifty. One journal is 

 enough for me." Let us see how nearly 

 correct that is. Suppose the average an- 

 nual surplus is 25 pounds per colony, 

 of comb honey. I am purposely putting 

 the figures low so as to give my friend 

 the benefit of the figures. We will sav 

 that he sells the honey for 15 cents at 

 the commission man's, and that it nets 

 him 10 cents clear. That will make $2.50 

 per colour, or $125 in all. I do not know 

 of a bee-journal published but may con- 



tain ^ome hint that will be worth sev- 

 eral times the subscription price for the 

 year. If three bee-journals cost $3.00, 

 or on a clubbing basis $2.50, it would 

 be very strange if our friend with fifty 

 colonics could not get more than $2.50 

 out of them. While the net earnings can 

 be increased on a conservative basis of 

 only $10, take the benefit of the doubt 

 and invest in two more journals at least. 

 I he farmer who takes only one agricul- 

 tural paper, even the very best one, may 

 miss some valuable hints which his more 

 progressive neighbor is availing him- 

 self of, and, consequently, will be get- 

 ting ahead of Wm in a business way. — 

 Editor of Gleanings in Bee-Culture. 



Heavy Loss of Bees. 



The loss in bees has been very heavy in 

 this locality — about 90 percent. I should say. 

 I have only lOo colonies left out of 300, 

 but they are mostly in good condition, with 

 good prospcctf. for a honey crop. 



I like the -American Bee Journal, and feel 

 that 1 can not afford to do without it. 



Delaware, Ont., .Tune 25. E. M. HeSB.\xD. 



Much Swarming. 



There will be a very considerable decrease 

 in honey-production in this locality this sea- 

 son. Swarming is free — I am averaging about 

 3 swarms a day (non-swarming stock!) By 

 the way my supply-trade has increased and 

 is holding out, others must be getting swarms, 

 too. .\fter the disastrous winter, I suppose 

 in some occult way Nature demands the in- 

 crease — a matter you may compare with the 

 curious fact that the birth-rate (in Europe) 

 increases with the increase in the cost of 

 bread. George W. Ad.\ms. 



Essex Co., Mass., June 19. 



Poor Prospect for Honey. 



The prospect for a honey crop in this local- 

 ity is very poor. I have not had any swarms 

 yet. In fact, the colonies are not in a very 

 strong condition. B- G. Mixnick. 



Hardin, Mo., June 22.' 



Starved Brood. 



I brought every colony through the winter 

 and into spring all right; but, oh my, it was 

 a "tug of war" to keep up brood-rearing in 

 the long, cold, backward spring. I got the 

 bees into summer in fine shape, all the same. 

 The amount of starved brood that is in our 

 Province now is something awful. Many of 

 our bee-keepers are calling it foul brood. 



Woodburn. (^nt., June 24. W'm. ^IcEvov- 



Light Crop of Honey. 



It is very hot and dry here now- The honey 

 season is closing up with, I think, generally 

 a light crop. 



I don't know just when I commenced taking 

 the .-\merican Bee Journal, but back in the 

 '70's. Father died in 1S79 and we took it 

 before that. How quickly the seasons come 

 and go! You can always count on me as a 

 subscriber. Long live the American Bee Jour- 

 nal! \V. C. NUTT. 



Belleville. Tex., June 21. 



Cold Spring — Feeding the Bees. 



I have 65 colonies of bees. About one-half 

 of them are weak and the rest are fairly 

 strong. It has been the coldest April, May 

 and June up until about one w-eek ago. that 

 I remember ever seeing. During fruit-bloom 

 it W.1S so cold and cloudy that the bees could 

 not work much. -\nd now it is very warm and 

 dry. The bees are on the verge of starva- 



