Novembur, iQo". 



American Hee Journal 



of bees, which are wintciiij; perfectly, 

 with no brood, is about 65 degrees, while 

 it takes at least 92 degrees to perfect 

 brood, tile usual brood-temperature be- 

 ing from 95 to 98 degrees. There- 

 fore, in order to produce brood during 

 February and March, togellier with very 

 nmch of April, in this locality, the bees 

 Iiave to "burn" much honey in order 

 to raise the temperature of the brood- 

 nest the 30 degrees higher than is neces- 

 sary when no breeding is being done. 



Then, again, the bees which are reared 

 during winter and early spring, beyond 

 wdiat are necessary to take the place of 

 the old ones which die, are of no practi- 

 cal value, as they in turn die of old 

 age before the season for the gathering 

 of the surplus honey arrives ; so that 

 this early breeding means the wearing 

 out of the old bees in any colony which 

 goes to breeding early, the loss of a 

 larger amount of stores which must be 

 consumed to raise the heat inside the 

 cluster 30 degrees higher than is needed 

 for the best interests of that colony, 

 together with the rearing of a lot of 

 worker-bees which are of no practical 

 value after they come on to the stage of 

 action. For these reasons, as well as 

 better wintering, the cellar is now pre- 

 ferred, in whidi to carry our bees 

 through the winter in our cold climate, 

 some bee-keepers even keeping them 

 thus housed till into May. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



I 



Bee-Keeping in the West 

 Indies 



BY A. BUTSCHE. 



Although an article from the West In- 

 dies is not very likely to interest the 

 readers of Gleanings particularly, there 

 are certain items which, thanks to our 

 continued w-arm weather and long hon- 

 ey-fiow, we can more easily test than 

 can be done in colder climates. 



We notice, for instance, that there are 

 quite different opinions prevailing con- 

 cerning the use of queen-excluders. 

 Some, like Mr. Greiner, claim that ex- 

 cluders considerably interfere with the 

 crop of honey; others find them use- 

 less, as their queens never lay in the 

 supers. The only reason I can assign 

 for the fact that some bee-keepers have 

 no trouble with brood in the supers is 

 that their colonies, on account of win- 

 ter losses and short honey-seasons, are 

 never really strong. Our colonies slack- 

 en brood-rearing in December and Jan- 

 uary. The result is that, during the 

 logwood flow in February, they are not 

 strong enough to rear brood in the su- 

 pers, although they will draw combs 

 and store honey in two or three full- 

 depth supers at one time. But when we 

 come to June and July, talk about 

 queens not going into the supers I Have 

 I not met them crawling over the top- 

 bars of a fifth full-depth super with eggs 

 and brood all the way down to the bot- 

 tom-board? A man here, after using 

 excluders for one season, would no 

 more dream of keeping bees without 

 them than of keeping bees in bo.x hives. 

 Talk about Mr. Green having from one 

 to twelve queens trespassing in the su- 

 pers! I'll bet my life that, if I were 



to remove all my excluders, in less than 

 three weeks there would not be a single 

 broodlcss super in any of my apiaries. 



Another item that interested mc very 

 much was the numerous hive-lifting de- 

 vices brought out of late. I can see no 

 earthly advantage in them in a country 

 like this, whore you can get a dozen 

 iron-headed Congo niggers to carry you 

 a house 15x20, three miles away, on 

 their heads, for 10 shillings 6 pence. 

 And then, what about the danger of 

 one of those hive-lifting devices toppling 

 over with five heavy full-depth supers 

 hanging at the end of it? A man would 

 be a fool if he ventured to set one of 

 those engines agoing before making his 

 testament. I think hive-liftin.g would 

 just make matters worse. There are so 

 many thmgs already a poor fellow has 

 got to hold with only two hands that I 

 I do not see how I could operate a hive- 

 lifter unless it could be done with the 

 teeth. If God in his wisdom had wished 

 the generality of men to be bee-keepers, 

 I should not be surprised if he had giv- 

 en us a third hand. He might even 

 have judiciously added another pair of 

 legs, especially if he had meant us to 

 keep hybrids. 



Bee-fever is a comparatively new mal- 

 ady here. The place was first infected 

 when Mr. Morrison passed here lectur- 

 ing on bees. I happened to be in New 

 York at the time ; but on my return, 

 some months later, I unconsciously 

 caught the disease by passing one day 

 round the corner of the building in 

 which Mr. Morrison had been lecturing. 



Mr. Alexander's articles leave one 

 simply dumbfounded. Several queens 

 in one colony at the same time ! I think 

 it was a pretty well established cus- 

 tom in hive politics that, when one 

 queen came to the throne, she invariably 

 killed her sisters, and even mother, to 

 reign undisturbed, exactly as a sultan of 

 Turkey would strangle all his brothers 

 at his advent in order to cut short all 

 plotting to dethrone him. We all have 

 been accustomed to look upon a hive as 

 a perfect specimen of the most abso- 

 lute monarchy. If Mr. Alexander 

 goes on like that I should not be sur- 

 prised if, one of these good days, all 

 of us poor bee-keepers should wake up 

 millionaires. He seems to be wielding 

 the magic wand, for 'at each stroke 

 there is something more extraordinary 

 turning up. 



How strange there should be at the 

 present time so many bee-keepers with 

 endless associations and publications, 

 especially in France and Germany, where 

 20 years ago, one might have roamed 

 about the country for months without 

 ever stumbling over a hive ! In all my 

 wanderings I have met a hive but once 

 before keeping bees myself. It was in 

 Brittany (France), during the dreary 

 years of my ologies, as Mr. Crane puts 

 it. I think there were three or four 

 straw hives near a big patch of buck- 

 wheat. How it did us fellows good, af- 

 ter pondering for months over the te- 

 dious works of Francis Bacon. Thomas 

 Aquinas, and others, to get a lesson of 

 more practical and more wholesome 

 philosophy from a hive! 1 guess some 

 of us preferred the merry hum of the 

 bees to the clumsy mediaeval Latin, 



which w.is the only language we were 

 allowed to speak tlien. 



The great trouble in bee-keeping here 

 is the insatiable stealing propensity of 

 the nigger. He will take anything and 

 everything loose about an apiary, such 

 as covers, bottom-boards, stands, etc. 

 'i'here is nothing the West IiKlian nig- 

 ger won't take, from an old horse-brush 

 to an old bottle of medicine. The hive 

 alone he lets stand — on its own merits, 

 I suppose. BecrStings arc evidently not 

 much to his taste. It is even trouble 

 to got help at extracting time, especially 

 when one keeps hybrids as I do. The 

 screaming and wailing that fills the air 

 round an apiary on extracting days is 

 enough to remind one of a Russo-Jap- 

 anese battlefield. 



Our average yield here is about 120 

 lbs. per colony. Our honey sells from 

 20 to 28 shillings per 112 lbs. This 

 would correspond to about 5 to 7 cents 

 per lb. in American money. — Gleanings 

 in Bee Culture. 



Castries, St. Lucia, West Indies, May 

 16. 



Helpful Hints in Extensive 

 Bee-Keeping 



BY E. D. TOWNSEND. 



At this time an average colony was 

 placed upon a set of scales. There is 

 a rural mail route by this yard, thus I 

 was able to get a daily, postal card re- 

 port from this scale hive. A report of 

 the weather was also sent, hence I 

 knew at once of the drouth that cut 

 short the last end of the honey season. 

 I also kept in touch with the progress 

 the bees were making in their supers, 

 knew when they began to cap their sec- 

 tions, etc., and was thus able to give oc- 

 casional suggestions as to taking off 

 honey, giving additional super room, 

 etc. 



Importance of Keeping Your Finger 

 ON THE Pulse of a Distant Yard. 



July 4th I received a card stating 

 things were getting very dry; still the 

 scale hive was showing a fairly good 

 gain. This card led me to believe that 

 the season was probably two-thirds 

 over; and it was about noon, July sth, 

 when I arrived at this yard, on my 

 fourth vist. There were only about 

 300 pounds of section honey finished and 

 off the hives; but there was more be- 

 ing finished, as the dry weather was 

 favorable to the curing an-d sealing of 

 honey. No more empty supers were 

 given ; and it proved that w-e had made 

 a good guess as to the duration of the 

 honey-flow, for we got all the supers 

 finished except eight or ten, that need- 

 ed just a little feed to finish sealing. 



I stayed four days at this trip; and 

 my son and I worked faithfully with 

 the sole purpose of getting this crop 

 of comb honey finished up. The first 

 thing we did. was to put bee-escapes 

 under all the heaviest, or best finished 

 supers. This was kept up until nearly 

 every super in the yard had been 

 handled, and all the finished sections 

 removed. The partly full sections were 

 put in supers, and returned to the colo- 

 nies that were the most likely to fin- 

 ish them. When we got through there 



