1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



237 



made in younger years — and I have 

 not outgrown it now — is that I had 

 too little faith in the business. I was 

 afraid to invest capital in it— bor- 

 rowed capital, if you please. This 

 timidity manifested itself in various 

 forms. For instance, it cost money 

 to purchase comb foundation to fill 

 the brood-chambers of our hives; but 

 what of that? Would not a colony ot 

 bees be in much better shape for 

 years ito come with a set of ah' 

 worker comb? Certainly it would, 

 and the bees would repay in a very 

 short time this expense. To raise 

 comb honey without the use of full 

 sheets of extra light section founda- 

 tion would be the height of folly. 

 None of that for me any more, al- 

 though I have "economized" in this 

 fashion for years. 



A great many bees, and colonies of 

 bees I have lost during winter by not 

 giving them enough protection. The 

 first book I ever read on beekeeping, 

 written by Fr. Dzierzon, I found the 

 advice given to "protect the bees by- 

 packing ;" but it was expensive to- 

 build winter cases or double-walled 

 hives, so we got along for years with- 

 out protection, and most always lost 

 heavil}- during winter. These losses, 

 if expressed in dollars, would have 

 bought the lumber for ten times as 

 many winter cases or chaflf hives. The 

 present method of outdoor wintering 

 demands very heavy or thick packing. 

 Winter cases providing for 8 or 10 

 inches of packing cost lots of money; 

 but let us suppose, for the sake of the 

 argument, that the cost of a four- 

 colony packing case would be $10. It 

 we have done our work well and have 

 our four colonies in best condition in 

 the fall, with sufficient stores in the 

 large hives, we will have four rousing 

 colonies of bees when May comes. 

 Each one of these colonies will be 

 better than four ordinarily wintered 

 colonies and, as one of my friends 

 says, may pay the cost of packing 

 case the first year from fruit bloom 

 alone. But should the weather be un- 

 favorable during this period, we may 

 divide each colony and then have a 

 better lot of bees to gather the clo- 

 ver honey than we would have had we 

 wintered ordinarily. Our crop would 

 be sufficiently grea'ter to pay for our 

 packing cases twice over. Packing 

 cases with lots of packing are one ot 

 the best investments of the beekeeper. 

 Many of us do not know what well 

 wintering means; many of us are pes- 

 tered with poorly wintered colonies, 

 year in and year out. We should do 

 better ; it is business. 



The third mistake a beekeeper can 

 make, which almost soured my whole 

 nature, is to be contented to carry on 

 beekeeping in a poor honey location. 

 My young friend, get out! There are 

 many good unoccupied fields: find one 

 and stock it up to its full capacity. 

 Vou will be better ofT financially. 



New York. 



title of a 24-page bulletin issued by 

 the Oregon Agricultural College. 

 Equipment, location and manageirient 

 are taken up rather fully for a bulle- 

 tin of this kind. 



Bulletins of the college are free to 

 residents of the State who apply for 

 them. Address College of Agricul- 

 ture, Corvallis, Oregon. 



Honey-Making Wasps 



Through the kindness of C. S. En- 

 gle, the associate editor received a 

 large colony of honey-making wasps 

 belonging to the genus Xectarina, 

 from Rio Hondo, Texas. These in- 

 sects are common in the tropics, from 

 Mexico to Argentine, but are un- 

 known in the United States except 

 in the lower Rio Grande Valley. We 

 are showing herewith a picture of the 

 big nest suspended in a burlap swing, 

 in the cage in which it came by ex- 

 press. 



These insects are a source of great 

 curiosity to nature lovers, as they are 

 unlike anything known in the North- 

 ern States. They make paper combs 

 like other wasps, but store honey like 

 the bees. When they sting they lose 

 their stings, as do the honeybees, and 

 they are said to swarm like the bees. 



The colony is now established 

 nicely beside the dining-room win- 

 dow, where the associate editor an- 

 ticipates great pleasure in observing 

 their habits during the summer 

 months. They are working away, ap- 

 parently as contentedly as though 

 they had always lived there. We hope 

 to be able to give some details of the 

 habits of these interesting insects, 

 later in the season, after there has 

 been opportunity for studying them 

 at close range. 



They were left in the window of a 

 local store, for two days after their 

 arrival, before being released, and 

 were the source of much speculation 

 on the part of those who saw them. 

 The following comments are from the 



Hamilton Press, the local paper: 



"Mr. Frank C. Pellett received 

 from friends in the lower Rio 

 Grande valley recently a hive of 

 honey-making wasps. The little beg- 

 gars look innocent enough, but would 

 surely start something if they got 

 loose. They were securely kept from 

 mixing promiscuously with the land- 

 scape by a tight wire netting. The 

 peculiarity of these wasps is not only 

 that they make honey, but that they 

 make their comb out of paper, which 

 they manufacture themselves. The 

 hives, if they may be so called, look 

 like big hornets' nests. The habits 

 and plans and ambitions of these 

 wasps are little known to the scien- 

 tific world and it will be Mr. Pellett's 

 summer job to get on visiting terms 

 with his visitors and tell their story 

 to the world. If he can indu:e them 

 to lay off making honey and produce 

 news print, he will write his name on 

 history's scroll in larger type than 

 did old man Gutenberg or any of 

 those old-time guys who first put 

 printing on the map. If he can't get 

 'em to make news print he might earn 

 our undying gratitude were he to turn 

 'em loose on the paper profiteers. It 

 would be a pleasurable experience for 

 the printer to see those grafters jump 

 to safety with the same alacrity with 

 which we have to jump to get a bun- 

 dle of paper on which to print our 

 engines of energv. Sick 'em on 'em, 

 Pellett." 



Dandelion a Secondary Honey Pro- 

 ducer in England 



J. J. Kettle, who writes the "Dor- 

 set Yarns" in the British Bee Jour- 

 nal, has this to say of the dandelion : 



"In a pasture field close to the farm 

 there are thousands of dandelions, 

 which is figured in Root's A. B. C. 

 and X, Y, Z of Beekeeping as a fine 

 bee plant. Here there is not a bee 

 to be seen on them, yet before the 

 fruit blossom opened they were on 



Another Bee Bulletin 



."Beekeeping fur the Oregon Far- 

 mer," by Prof. A. L. Lovett, is the 



The nest of honey-making wasps as received at Hamilton 



