20 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



January 



its manner jf use has been tried 

 many seasons and by many beekeep- 

 ers, and has proved good. It is par- 

 ticularly good for use in helping out 

 colonies which are short of stores 

 through heavy breeding or on ac- 

 count of a prolonged storm in the 

 midst of the early nectar flow. 



Try it. But be careful never to 

 scorch the candy, such can sometimes 

 be used in late spring, but always at 

 a risk, while in winter scorched 

 candy or syrup is fatal. 



Rhode Island. 



A Letter From Algeria 



(Translated from the French) 



Algiers, June, 1919. 

 Dear Mr. Dadant: 



Our honey season is now at end, 

 for we are in the hot days, and the 

 bees will get nothing except in the 

 Eucalyptus region, but this is excep- 

 tional. 



The Punic bees, which I see dis- 

 cussed in American Bee Journal, are 

 the bees of North Africa, very prob- 

 ably brought from Europe at the 

 time when Gibraltar did not have a 

 sea passage ; or perhaps imported 

 across the Mediterranean. They arc 

 just as described by Baldenspergcr 

 in the American Bee Journal of No- 

 vember, 1918, page 375. Those bees 

 are very similar to the common bees 

 of Europe, very prolific, but very 

 cross, and one cannot handle them 

 without smoke. They are very vig- 

 ilant and the least noise stirs them to 

 action. The proof that they can hear 

 is in the fact that we have been un- 

 able to pull weeds in front of the 

 hives without causing a revolution. 

 It would have been worse had we 

 tried to use a hoe. They make e.K- 

 cessive use of propolis to guard 

 against their numerous enemies, and 

 with the hives used here commonly 

 they need to accumulate a great deal 

 of it. Anything is acceptable to 

 them, from grafting wax to half dried 

 paint. 



Your magazine is exceedingly in- 



teresting and I see translations from 

 it in but their transla- 

 tor is like the interpreters we used to 

 have in Algiers who belonged to one 

 of 3 kinds: 1, the ones who kneA^ 

 French but not Arabian; 2, the ones 

 who knew Arabian, but not French; 

 3, the ones who knew neither Ara- 

 bian nor French, and yet tried to ex- 

 plain both. It is to be hoped they 

 will do better. (We have men- 

 tioned this in our September edi- 

 torials.— C. P. D.) 



We have sent you our last Annual 

 Report for 1919, "Nahhla". I call 

 your attention to the deliberations 

 of a city council which holds that 

 bees deteriorate fruits by removing 

 their flavor from the blossoni. i h.id 

 not yet seen such an argument 

 against beekeeping. 



The Lord made man in his own 

 image and Voltaire said that 

 man returned the compliment by 

 making a God according to his own 

 fancy. So Europe colonized America 

 and it is now time for America to re- 

 turn the favor, by colonizing Europe 

 and Algeria that are badly in need 

 of suggestions and example. 



My attempts at rearing the Magri- 

 bine bees (see American Bee Journal, 

 October, 1917, page 341") has not been 

 successful. Magrib-el-aksa mea-is 

 "far west," so they are the bees of 

 far west Africa. 



I depended upon a friend to secure 

 them, but through his neglect, the 4 

 or S fine queens that he secured were 

 killed by ants. I will try it again and 

 will send you some if I succeed, as 

 soon as the postal facilities are again 

 normal. 



I am more and more convinced 

 that bees do hear. But I am also 

 satisfied that they do not readily dis- 

 tinguish white from the sky. I have 

 seen bees fly - gainst a white wall -n 

 the sunshine. (A similar experience, 

 with photo, was given in American 

 Bee Journal, February, 1919.) 



I believe that is one reason why 

 they are less aggressive to people 

 dressed in light-colored clothes than 



to people dressed in dark or black 

 clothes. 



The high price of honey is helping 

 beekeeping very much. Our people 

 have been slow to take to the use of 

 full sheets of foundation, but one of 

 our leading apiarists stated to me 

 that he harvests much larger crops 

 since he is using full sheets of it, on 

 account of the lessening of the num- 

 ber of drones produced. The drones, 

 he says, consumed a very perceptible 

 amount of stores and our bees, in a 

 state of nature, rear a large number 

 of them. 



Is there much larceny of bees and 

 honey in the United States? It is a 

 plague here. Two hives were robbed 

 clandestinely at the Experimental 

 Apiary here, not long ago. We were 

 able, however, to save the bees of 

 one colony. 



Yours, 



A. BERNARD, 

 Treasurer Algerian Beekeepers' So- 

 ciety. 



(We have very little larceny of 

 bees or honey in the United States. 

 This petty thieving is almost all con- 

 fined to the South and West. Our 

 good friend, J. J. Wilder, who has 

 thousands of colonies of bees scat- 

 tered in the wilderness of Georgia, 

 says that he loses thousands of 

 pounds of honey every year through 

 larceny, as the Georgia "Cracker" 

 seems to consider everything in the 

 woods as public property. In the 

 North, the thieves do a better busi- 

 ness in robbing the banks or the big 

 safes of wealthy. companies, and usu- 

 ally leave the bees alone. Is it any 

 better for the public?— Editor.) 



Back view of Barber's portable packing case and summer shade. 



Who Owns the Swarm? 



AN interesting lawsuit concerning 

 bees is reported by the Brit- 

 ish Bee Journal of October 

 28. Briefly, it is as follows: 



A swarm of bees was found in a 

 hedge on the land of James Batstone, 

 by Herbert Rumming, and was car- 

 ried away by him. Batstone, who has 

 bees, claimed that the bees were his, 

 but could not prove ownership except 

 that he missed a swarm which left 

 one of his hives. He claimed dam- 

 ages, or the estimated value of the 

 bees.' The swarm had been taken by 

 Rumming by crossing a ditch, also 

 on Batstone's land. The swarm was 

 hanging about a hundred yards from 

 Batstone's apiary. 



The judge gave judgment for the 

 defendant. He quoted the original 

 law laid down by Emperor Justinian 

 that : "A swarm of bees that has 

 flown from your hive is still consid- 

 ered yours as long as it is in your 

 sight, and may be easily pursued. 

 Otherwise it becomes the property of 

 the first one who takes it." 



In this case the swarm had never 

 been in the owner's sight; it was a 

 hundred yards from his home; it was 

 never seen by the plaintiff on leaving 

 the hive, on its way, or when it was 

 taken. If it left the owner's sight, 

 his property right in it was gone, al- 

 though he might recover it, but if 

 anybody else found and took it, it 

 belonged to him. It appeared to him 



