192 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



June 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



^ Established by Samuel Wagner In 1 861 (?= 



Tile oldest Rfc Journal in the English language. 

 Published monthly at Hamilton, Illinois. 



Entered as second-class matter at the postofSce at Hamilton, Illinois. 



Subscription Rates — In the United States and THE .STAFF 



Mexico, $1 per year; three years, $8.50; five ^ p jj^^^^.^ Editor 



years, $4. Canadian postage 15 cents, and 



other foreign countries 25 cents extra, per Frank C. Pellett Associate hdltor 



year. C. C. Miller Questions Department 



All subscriptions are stopped at expir.ition Date jj ^ p^^^^^ Business Manager 



of expiration is printed on wrapper label. 



(Copyright 1920 by C, P. Dadant.; 



THE EDITOR'S VIEWPOINT 



Dr. Miller's health is better and he 

 is going to reply to some questions 

 himself. Bear in mind that he does 

 not reply by mail to enquiries. Do 

 not send questions which require 

 too lengthy an answer. Before you 

 ask a question, make sure that a sim- 

 ilar question has not been already 

 answered in the numbers of the Jour- 

 nal which you have. 



Buying Package Bees 



We have a letter from a reader 

 who ordered packages of bees from 

 a shipper in one State and queens 

 from a breeder in another. Instruc- 

 tions were given as to the exact date 

 of shipment, so that bees and queens 

 were expected to arrive at the same 

 time. The bees were shipped on the 

 date specified, but the queen breeder 

 wrote that because of unfavorable 

 weather he was unable to send the 

 queens. As a result the bees in the 

 packages were almost a total loss. 

 As the queen breeder had been noti- 

 fied in advance that package bees 

 were to be shipped at this time he 

 should have made an extra effort to 

 fill the order to save loss to his cus- 

 tomer. 



However, this should serve as a 

 warning to any beekeeper never to 

 buy bees, without queens, unless cer- 

 tain in advance that he will be able 

 to supply them on arrival of the 

 packages. In p case of this kind, the 

 failure of either the package shipper 

 or the queen breeder to fill his orders 

 on time will result in loss, since 

 neither bees nor queens are of use 

 without one another. So many 

 things can happen to prevent ship- 

 ment of bees or queens on a certain 

 date that the only safe way is to buy 

 both from the same shipper, or be 

 able to supply the lack at home. Bees 

 travel more safely with queens, any- 

 way. They are certainly better sat- 

 isfied and less restless. 



Don't Extract Too Closely 



It looks now like sugar would be 

 very scarce and high in price this 

 year. It behooves every beekeeper to 

 make sure that plenty of honey is 

 left in every hive to last until the 

 next season, before finishing extract- 

 ing. The beekeeper who extracts and 

 sells all the early lioney and depends 



upon a later flow to support his bees 

 may find himself unable to get su- 

 gar to supply the lack of the flow 

 that fails and lose his bees from star- 

 vation. Don't extract too closely. 



Queen Introduction 



The time is at hand when many 

 beekeepers, arc ordering queens from 

 breeders and preparing to introduce 

 them. We wish to warn beginners 

 against the practice of removing the 

 old queen to be replaced, several 

 days ahead. We received a complaint 

 lately of a beginner who was very 

 much disappointed because he had 

 not received the queen ordered, at 

 the exact date he had set. He had 

 removed the old queen from his hive 

 in anticipation of the arrival of the 

 other. The bees had reared queen- 

 cells. Of course that is what we 

 should expect. Then they would be 

 less likely to accept a new queen, 

 since they realized fully that they 

 were queenless. They would prefer 

 to rear a queen from their brood, and 

 we would have to wait till they were 

 hopelessly queenless before they 

 would willingly accept a new one. But 

 if we remove the old queen immedi- 

 ately after receiving the one which is 

 to take her place and put her in the 

 introducing cage for an hour or two 

 before making the exchange and put- 

 ting the new one in, the bees are not 

 queenless a single minute. They are 

 more willing to accept the new one. 

 The only thing that may militate 

 against her is the possibility of her 

 being so fatigued from the trip that 

 she may be considered by the bees as 

 losing her prolificness. That is why 

 a queen, transferred from one hive 

 to another will always be accepted 

 more readily than a tired one whicli 

 has been fatigued by travel, espe- 

 cially if the new one has acquired 

 some strange odor. 



.•\nother advantage in keeping the 

 old <|ueen in the hive until the new 

 one is at hand lies in the briefness of 

 the suspension of laying. That is 

 w'hy the introduction by the smoke 

 method would be very valuable if 

 there were not so many failures in it. 

 The cage luethod, with 24 to 48 hours 

 of confinement, is the safest. 



The introduction of queens during 

 the honey crop and at hours when the 



old bees are in the field is always 

 more likely to be successful than in- 

 troduction in a time of dearth, or in 

 rainy weather, when all the bees, old 

 and young, are at home. 



Nothing, to our mind, is more dan- 

 gerous than the presence of robbers 

 around a hive in which a new queen 

 has been introduced. It irritates the 

 bees and causes them to mistrust 

 every bee they meet. If the odor of 

 the new queen is still a little strange 

 to them, they are likely to treat her 

 as a stranger. That is why practical 

 beekeepers advise the beginner not to 

 open the hive for 3 or 4 days after the 

 queen has been introduced. .'Vfter 

 that time she has begun her laying 

 and is looked upon with respect and 

 tenderness. However if we should 

 delay examination as long as 3 weeks, 

 the new queen might have been 

 killed and replaced by a young one 

 and we would not know it, unless she 

 had been clipped or bore some dis- 

 tinguishing marks. 



The Honey Extractor Useless 



In "L'Apiculteur" for .'Vpril, a writer 

 asserts, page 91, that experiments 

 have "reduced to nothing the claim 

 of the honey extractor to an increase 

 of honey crop." This same man, a 

 few years ago, in the same magazine, 

 held that the use of the honey extrac- 

 tor was not practical The thousands 

 of American beekeepers who use this 

 machine will be very much aston- 

 ished at this amazing revelation! 

 They will wonder whether this writer 

 thinks himself practical. 



Defending Themselves 

 Against Robbers 



Bertrand, in his "Conduite du Ru- 

 cher," wrote, page 53: "The Italians 

 and especially the Cyprians, defend 

 themselves better than common bees 

 against robbers; Carniolan bees are 

 the least expert of all, it is their 

 principal defect." 



Queen Matings 



"Current Opinion" for May has an 

 article on "The Tribulations of the 

 Queen Bee in Finding a Mate," with a 

 very good cut of a comb of brood and 

 honey. This is taken from "The New 

 Statesman," of London, and gives 

 some English views upon the subject. 

 Technical articles, like this, in the 

 magazine press, often contain gross 

 inaccuracies. But this is a good state- 

 ment. 



There is, however, an assertion 

 made that "if England is being turned 

 into a land of cross-bred bees today, 

 it is because the black drone is fast- 

 est on his wings." Has this been 

 positively ascertained? Or does this 

 English writer fail to take into ac- 

 count the much greater number of 

 black drones in liis vicinity than of 

 the Italian or other foreign breed? 

 Unless this has been actually tested — 

 a rather difficult test — comparatively, 

 I suggest that matings occur among 

 queens and drones much farther 

 apart than is ordinarily believed. In 

 the early days of Italianization, here, 

 .some SO years ago, I often found the 

 black queens of farmers. 4 and 5 miles 

 away, producing hybrids; showing 

 plainly the range of flight of our 

 Italian drones. 



