July, 1907. 



601 



^»^^-<c^^^P American liee Journal 



green, ami alsd the cuiiiinnii white lead, paint- 

 ing of course only the thorax. The hive whose 

 bees were paintt-il stood almost at the lu-ad 

 of my hfd, and the barrel only a few feet 

 of the itther end. After paint in k aiirl knock- 

 ing the hee back, for she crawled attain to the 

 rim of the barrel, I anxiously awaited her re- 

 turn to the hive. liut. oh, like Cieorge Kossett, 

 the Syrian leper from West X'irginia and New 

 jersey, so these red and green backs and 

 white caps were unceremoniously hustled out 

 of the hive. Sailing under false colors is cer- 

 tainly not allowed inside a bee-hive. 



I next tried meal smut, sifted red brick - 

 dust, and sulphur, hut could not satisfy my 

 curiosity. So as not to be confused by bees 

 from other hives, all hives sending out water- 

 carriers at night were thoroughly sprayed in- 

 side. This stopjied them. Slightly spraying 

 the alighting-hoard, 1 had found out a few 

 nights before making the last experiment, had 

 no elTeci whatever. 



iMr. A. I. Knot tells us in Gleanings how 

 during some beautiful Florida night his rooster 

 got fooled and came down from his roost. 

 I*ast June, about the 20th, most farming opera- 

 tiotis were over and a little idle time was spent 

 in queen-rearing a la Doolittle. Ten frames con- 

 taining mostly sealed brood were raised above 

 an excluder about this time. There only one 

 night- — but I don't know for certain on which 

 night, the 3th, 6th, or 7th of July, T906 — out 

 came a part of my young bees, probably 50, 

 enjoying a play-spell by the light of the moon, 

 probably about midnight. Why could not these 

 same young bees come out on the glorious 

 4th? And they might, but I don't know. I 

 think, however, it rained the night follow- 

 ing the 4tli of July. These night-playing bees 

 also made their circles quite small, no higher 

 than the roof of the second full story, and 

 no more than 2 feet from the entrance of the 

 hive. Rut here I ran into another puzzle. 

 The hive contained quite a multitude of young 

 bees, for I watched for the play-spell on the 

 following day. Why couldn't the whole crop 

 of young bees take their play-spell by the 

 light of the moon, wdiy only a part, and why 

 circle sn close to the hive? 



Right here I wish to say the play-spell 

 lasted only about 8 or 10 minutes, and old 

 bees were going in and out before and after 

 the play-spell right along, working on corn- 

 tassels and also on partridge-vines. I am glad 

 that Mr. Hasty, although doubting the water- 

 carrying at night, acknowledges the same qual- 

 ity of bis well-settled hybrids when "enticed 

 by his light," viz: \\'hy does only one bee at 

 a time butt against his lantern? 



Fort White, Fla., May 27. D. J. Pawletta. 



All Colonies Light. 



At this <iate my bees are living on sugar 

 syrup. White clover is beginning to bloom, 

 and the bees are working on it some. All 

 colonies are light for the time of the year, 

 so I think the prospect anything but flatter- 

 ing for the season. R. E. Arnold. 



Lovilia, Iowa. June 6. 



Best Year in a Long Time. 



1 see in the American Bee Journal that the 

 prospect for honey is pretty blue in many 

 places this year. WV had a somewhat late 

 spring and little pollen came in up to March 

 10, but the bees came out well. I had about 

 29 colonies and lost 4 from queenlessness, and 

 was prepared to increase to 50 colonies, but 

 so far I have had only 2 swarms. The most 

 of my colonies are working in the second super 

 (full-sized Langstroth lo- frame) for extracted 

 honey. It is the best year I have seen for a 

 long time — fine weather right along. It has 

 not been warm, but the bees have been lug- 

 ging in honey, and if it will hang on. it will 

 be a bumper crop. O. K. RicE. 



Grays River. W^ash., May 29. 



Handling Bees for Others. 



Since taking the American Bee Journal, 

 about 7 years ago, I have lost from foul brood, 

 etc., all of my bees— about 40 colonies. If I 

 bad had time I could have cured it by trans- 

 ferring, etc., but I finally thought best, under 

 the circumstances, to destroy them. 



Bees do well in Walla Walla valley, aver- 

 aging usually 2 to 3 supers — 48 to 72 pounds. 



Lately Mr. A. L. Melander," from Pullman, 

 Wash., State bee and fruit insjiector, was in 

 this valley looking after the foul brood. He 

 is doing a great deal of good and arousing 

 considerable enthusiasm with bee-keepers. 



I handle quite a large number of bees for 



others each spring. I have a good C(|uipmcnt 

 and I charge 50 cents an hour, or $4 per day. 

 I have more calls than my limited time will 

 jiermit. In all cases I have made it pay the 

 owner dituble or triple. People generally have 

 their bees in uU\ boxes and get very little 

 honey, and that in ba<l shape. Others have 

 the standard hive with the tin rabbet in wrong, 

 the division-boards in the center. without 

 foundation-starters in, or put in so loosely that 

 they fall down with heavy swarms. I shape 

 them up at the rate of 15 to 25 colonics per 

 day. 



My method for transferring is to place the 

 new hive i 11 the old Stand, place the old hive 

 with the bottoTH riiiped ofT on top of the new 

 hive, then smoke them down a bit and pro- 

 ceed with chisel and hanuner to rip the old 

 hive to pieces. I save enough of the best 

 brood to fill a F.angstroth frame, which I get 

 inside the hive as soon as possible so as not to 

 chill the brood. This gives them a chance to 

 hatch a queen if T fail to get their (|ueen trans- 

 ferred all right, %\'Iiich is seldom. I then leave 

 thent alone for fully 10 days, as I fancy if 

 they are disturljed before the queen-cell is 

 capped over they may destroy the growing 

 queen by eating out the royal pabulum. I 

 often put several dilapidated colonies into the 

 one new hive. I don't save the old combs as I 

 haven't the equipment for rendering tlie wax. 

 I enjoy the business immensely, and I mean 

 to cut out other business and take up the bee- 

 business exclusively. I have only 16 colonies 

 now. They are without foul brood. Several 

 have stored one or more supers full of nice 

 white locust honey already. 



Bees in this valley rarely ever winter-kill — 

 outdoors all winter. 



When I was at the business before, I made 

 quite a thorough study of it in all lines, and 

 by introducing Italian queens I had all Italian 

 bees. A. h. McFarlane. 



Walla, Walla Co., Wash., June 15. 



Late and Cold Season, 



Bees are strtmg this spring and are casting 

 strong swarms. I have had 4 very strong 

 prime swarms this spring. The spring season 

 lieing late and cold, bees are hardly getting 

 enough honey to live on. I hope the prospect 

 for a good honey crop will brighten as the 

 season advances. Wii,liam H. Heepner. 



Mont Alto, Pa.. June 3- 



A Discouraging Outlook. 



We have just had a week of cold rain, 

 and bees are doing nothing. I am feeding 

 tliem and will have to feed for 2 weeks more. 

 \\'e have had _s freezes since fruit-bloom, and 

 there is nothing for the bees to do. The first 

 crop of alfalfa was frozen and cut for hay. 

 The second is short on account of cold and 

 drouth. I don't know if the bees will store 

 any surplus ln.mey this year. It looks like 

 a poor proposition. No fruit of any kind this 

 year. J. J. Measer. 



Hutchinson. Kans., June i. 



Good Place for Bees. 



I now have ^n colonies of bees. I sold $40 

 worth of honey last year. This is a splendid 

 lilace for bees — white clover on one side ot 

 my farm, and smartweed and basswood on the 

 other. I like bee-work very well. 



I expect to increase my apiary gradually as 

 I want to understand the work and manage- 

 ment of the bees better than I do now, before 

 I go into it- too heavily. 



I have been reading the American Bee 

 Journal for over a year, and I like it very 

 much. W. R. Moore. 



Hume, Mo., June 27. 



Queen*s Laying — Finding Queens. 



The one who claims in Gleanings that the 

 queen lays drone or worker-eggs according to 

 the ciirvaturi' of her abdomen, is hereby re- 

 quested to rise and explain how it works when 

 the queen lays drone-egcs in worker-cells, or 

 worker-eggs in drone-cells. The abdomen of 

 the queen is much longer than either kind of 

 cells, and therefore the curvature must be 

 about the same in either case. 



For several years I have been using, to some 

 extent, feeders placed permanently under the 

 hive-bottoms, and to which the bees had ac- 

 cess through a hole in the bottom-board. Very 

 frequently wlieii I open the hive and smoke 

 the bees the queen runs off and takes refuge 

 in the feeder. The funniest part of it is that 

 until a few days ago, I never thought of 



taking advantage of it to secure the queen, 

 without having to look over the combs and 

 hunt h« r up everywhere. Adbia.n' Getaz. 



Knoxville, Tenn., July 2. 



CONTRIBUTED ARTICLES 



Continued from Pate 587. i 



Vegetable Physiology and 

 Honey 



BY PROF. A. J. COOK. 



It is a good thing that we have such 

 a good VV'ealhcr Service. We may never 

 know how much the weather has to do 

 with successs in the various affairs of 

 Hfe. We know how bad weather in- 

 terferes, oftentimes, with the fun we had 

 planned at a picnic, maybe keeping us 

 at home altogether. We often remark 

 how fortunate we are in California as 

 we can generally count on good weather 

 from April to November, and so can 

 safely count on planning a picnic at any 

 time in .'summer, and the weather will 

 not say us nay. We know how a lack 

 of winter rains will surely cut off the 

 honey crop in the arid regions, and se- 

 vere drouths as surely foretell failure 

 in the East. I remember in the late 'So's 

 how we had 3 years in succession, with 

 no honey at all, and without doubt the 

 drouth was the cause, as we have never 

 had such a failure in all the previous 

 years of my bee-keeping from 1870 on 

 to these 3 very dry years. The present 

 season has been very cold all over the 

 country. In Kansas it has been as dry 

 as cold, while in Michigan and Ohio, it 

 has been as wet as it has been dry in 

 Kansas. In all these regions it has been 

 a very poor honey-year. Is it possible 

 to explain this coincidence, of lack of 

 honey and these weather conditions? 



We know that sap is to the plant what 

 blood is to us. Sap, like blood, not only 

 carries all the nourishment to the needy 

 cells, but it is the food. We know that 

 water is the most important part of the 

 blood and of sap as well. We see. then, 

 that growth, secretion' — yea, the very 

 life of the plant is dependent on 

 water, and we no longer wonder that 

 the plant so soon wilts, withers and dies 

 when the water is withheld. Life and 

 cell-nourishment are more important than 

 is fruiting. But nectar-secretion is con- 

 nected with fruiting, and we should ex- 

 pect that when there is a shortage of 

 water, the life woljld be kept up, at the 

 expense of fruit, and so we no longer 

 wonder that the trees fail to secrete nec- 

 tar — may fail to bloom at all, when the 

 ground at the roots dries up. We used 

 to think, in California, that we were 

 sure of a honey-year when we had plen- 

 ty of timely rains. But the two years 

 just past make us change our views, 

 and so we need to consider another ur- 

 gent need of every vigorous plant. 



The roots of the plants take from the 

 soil the water, and in solution in this 

 the needed mineral elements. These are 

 carried from cell to cell in the sap- 

 wood, to the leaves as crude sap. The 

 leaves may be said to form the manu- 

 factory of the plant. We see. then, why 

 one reason plants rest in the winter — 

 that is. deciduous plants — they have no 

 leaves. The leaves take carbon dioxide 



