62 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



February 



Saltpeter — Carniolans — Finding Queen 



1. What do you know of the use of salt- 

 peter in bee culture? 



2. I have had pure Carniolan bees for 80 

 years and found them better than Italians and 

 blacks. What is the reason they are not more 

 advertised in the American Bee Journal? 



3. I wonder that Doctor Miller does not know 

 of a trick to find the queen in a colony, but 

 have you ever heard of knocking on one side 

 or the other of the beehive to oblige the queen 

 to come onto that side, so as not to have to 

 look on all frames to find the queen? 



MONTANA. 



Answers. — 1. Nothing, except that it is often 

 used for soaking rags to light easily for use 

 in the smoker. 



2. Probably for the reason that we have not 

 retained them ourselves, that it is difficult to 

 ascertain when there is hybridization of those 

 bees with the common black, as they are very 

 similar in color. With the Italians, the least 

 admixture of other blood shows readily. 

 The Carniolans are also faulty in being too 

 prone to swarm excessively. 



3. Knocking on a honey-board at the top of 

 the brood chamber often attracts the queen 

 and a number of bees there Hut when it fails, 

 it usually disturbs the bees so as to make the 

 queen more difficult to find afterwards. The 

 same might be said of knocking on one side 

 or the other of the hive body. 



The Illinois State Association 



After 29 years of active service as 

 Secretary of the State Association, 

 Jas. A Stone, one of the oldest mem- 

 bers, relinquished his office. .G. M. 

 Withrow, a young beekeeper of abil- 

 ity, v/as elected in Mr. Stone's place. 

 We understand that his office is at 

 Mechanicsburg, 111. 



The December meeting -was as in- 

 teresting as usual. The President, 

 Dr. A. C. Baxter, was elected as a 

 delegate to the January meeting of 

 the National Association, to be held 

 in Kansas City. 



Eastern Beemen Meet 



A well-attended meeting of the 

 Hampshire, Hampden & Franklin 

 Beekeepers' Association was held in 

 the Chamber of Commerce, Spring- 

 field, Mass., on Saturday afternoon, 

 December 6, 1919. Mr. C. H. Taber, 

 of Holyoke, Mass., was elected 

 President, vice A. C. Andrews, re- 

 signed. Mr. F. H. Sanborn, of Chico- 

 pee, Mass., was elected to succeed Mr. 

 Taber as Vice President, and Mr. H. 

 C. Taber, of Ware, Mass., was elected 

 a Vice President to fill a vacancy. 

 The meeting was addressed by Dr. 

 Burton N. Gates, of the Massachu- 

 setts State Department of Agricul- 

 ture, who had for his subject "Win- 

 tering in the Emergency." 



S. E. HOXIE, Sec'y. 



Wisconsin 



At the Wisconsin State Beekeep- 

 ers' meeting, held December 3, 4 and 

 5, at Madison, it was reported that 

 the Association is now composed of 

 .543 members; that there are 30 lo- 

 cal associations in the State, 17 of 

 which are afliliated with the State 

 Association and 9 of which had rep- 

 resentatives at the meeting. It was 

 also stated that the total attendance 

 at the 49 meetings of beekeepers 

 within the State, during 1919, was 

 1453. 



The officers for the year 1920 are: 

 President, Gus Dittmcr; Vice Presi- 

 dent, J. E. Cooke; Secretary, H. F. 

 Wilson; Treasurer, A. C. Allen. 



Considering their population, Wis- 

 consin and Minnesota lead the Unit- 



ed States in beekeepers' associations. 

 Let us imitate them. 



Short Course at Ithaca, N. Y. 



The New York State College of 

 Agriculture in Ithaca, N. Y., in co- 

 operation with the Bureau of Ento- 

 mology, Washington, D. C, will give 

 a Short Course in commercial bee- 

 keeping during the week of February 

 23, 1920. This course will be similar 

 to the one given last year, with some 

 important new features added. One 

 hundred and forty-nine beekeepers, 

 many of them among the most exten- 

 sive in the State, stayed through the 

 entire week and passed a resolution 

 asking for the course again. The 

 indications are that the attendance 

 this year will be more than double 

 that of last year. No tuition fee is 

 charged. All beekeepers are welcome 

 and those wishing to attend are 

 asked to write to George H. Rea, 

 Extension Specialist in Apiculture, 

 College of Agriculture, Ithaca, N. Y., 

 at once and have their names regis- 

 tered for this course. An attempt 

 will be made to secure rooms for all 

 who register in time a d who desire 

 a reservation. 



Chicago Northwestern Meeting 



The Chicago Northwestern Bee- 

 keepers' Association met in the 

 Rose Room of the Great Northern 

 Hotel, Chicago, on Monday and Tues- 

 day, December IS to 16. The meet- 

 ing was presided over by E. S. Miller 

 and a very pleasant and profitable 

 session was held. 



Although the crowd was not large, 

 it was very enthusiastic, and the 

 Question Box was one of the chief 

 features. A very interesting talk 

 was given on "Is Beekeeping an In- 

 dustry, or a Side Line?" by B. F. 

 Kindig, President of the National 

 P>cekecpers' Association. Mr. Kindig 

 had statistics to show that the larger 

 beekeeper in Michigan who now has 

 from 100 to 400 colonies derives a 

 good return from his bees. His sta- 

 tistics showed that the smaller the 

 beekeeper the less gross profit he 

 seemed to get from his bees. Mr. 

 Kindig also made a plea for sending 

 a delegate to the coming National 

 Convention at Kansas City, and 



President E. S. Miller was elected 

 as delegate. Other topics were head- 

 ed by papers read by Mr. C. P. Da- 

 dant, editor of the American Bee 

 Journal, on "Large Hives," and by 

 lona Fowls, of Gleanings in Bee Cul- 

 ture, on "Selling Honey." 



E. S. Miller was re-elected Presi- 

 dent and John C. Bull Secretary- 

 Treasurer. C. O. Smith, of Chicago, 

 was elected Vice President. 



Big Hives 



Keep boosting the big hives. I have 

 45 now and will have that many 

 more for next spring. It was a poor 

 year for honey here, but my bees 

 made an average of 65 pounds per 

 colony. I use the standard hive for 

 supers, without excluder, and did 

 not get a cell of brood in any of 

 them. 



Minnesota. 



Beware of the Aloe 



As proof of the fact that beekeep- 

 ing has not yet become a science in 

 this country, I may mention that a 

 beekeeper in the Eastern Province, 

 who runs a fairly large apiary as a 

 side line, and whose products are sold 

 on the Johannesburg market, this 

 year has done himself incalculable 

 harm, for the honey sent up has been 

 flavored with the nectar from the 

 red poker aloe, and the "eater" of 

 the honey found himself with a 

 throat, which burned like fire, accord- 

 ing to the amount of honey eaten. 

 Had he been a practical beekeeper 

 and had studied his flows, he would 

 have arranged the supers in his hives 

 so that when the nectar flowed — and 

 the supplies from this wild aloe are 

 large — this particular flow would 

 have been kept for winte.r feeding, 

 instead of being placed on the Jo- 

 hannesburg market to the detriment 

 of his reputation. — The South African 

 Poultry Magazine. 



Experience With Foulbrood 



My bees had foulbrood "and I lost 

 twenty stands because I did not know 

 how to handle them. I bought a book 

 which directed that they be shaken. 

 I waited till the bees were working 

 well on linden and there was plenty 

 of new honey. I shook the strong 

 colonies into new hives and doubled 

 the weak ones, shaking two into one 

 hive. I thus saved 25 stands and they 

 stored SO to 75 pounds of surplus 

 per colony. I used all my old hives, 

 first cleaning out all the old combs 

 and scorching out the hives. None 

 of the colonies shaken during the 

 flow have since shown the disease 

 again. Some that I shook in May 

 when there was no honey in the field, 

 required feeding and soon had the 

 disease again. 



When I undertook to clean up the 

 disease, one could smell it 100 yards 

 and I had no faith that I could save 

 any of the bees. I have $200 worth of 

 honey when I would not have taken 

 any if the bees had not been treated. 



Illinois. A. D. SEARS. 



