1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



311 



ing at 10 o'clock in connection with 

 the honey exhibit. This meeting is 

 for the purpose of formulating plans 

 for securing a new bee inspection law 

 antl a state apiarist. 



O. K. TIMM, Secretary. 



British Columbia Beekeepers 



The Beekeepers Association of 

 British Columbia will hold a conven- 

 tion of beekeepers at the Vancouver 

 E.xhibition, Wednesday, September 

 15, at 2:30 p. m. The evening session 

 will be of a social nature, with short 

 addresses on beekeeping topics. Vis- 

 iting beekeepers from Washington 

 and other States will be heartily 

 welcomed, and are requested to 

 make themselves known to the Presi- 

 dent, Williams Hugh, Box 20 Clover- 

 dale, B. C. 



A FEW SMILES 



By J. F. Diemer 



Some people get very much excited 

 when a bee comes near them. A col- 

 lege student who knew more about 

 books than he did about bees, went 

 with me to an outyard expecting to 

 help extract honey. We loaded up 

 with 60-pound cans and 10-pound 

 pails. On arrival at the bee-yard we 

 found the air full of bees working on 

 white clover. I noticed he seemed a 

 little nervous, so I put a good bee 

 veil over his head, telling him that 

 he was perfectly safe. He loaded up 

 with 10-pound pails and started to 

 the honey house. About 10 feet 

 away two tired bees lit on the veil in 

 front of his face; then something 

 happened. Those pails went in all the 

 different 'directions you could think 

 of, and with his hands he tore my 

 new veil off of his face and made a 

 run that would have made a foot- 

 racer look slow. When I finally got 

 him back to the honey house and got 

 him tamed down a little he did 

 quite well: but he wouldn't go out 

 of the door. 



Mr. So and So, here in Clay County, 

 had 40 box hives. They sat close to- 

 gether, and every bee in them was 

 pure German stock. There was about 

 IS cents' worth of grass growing in 

 beitween the hives, and he had a blind 

 horse; he thought to save the grass 

 so he could get some revenue from 

 his bees. So he turned the blind 

 horse in among those hot-footed Ger- 

 mans, and the horse, not knowing 

 much about bees, turned the nearest 

 one over. And the bees, not knowing 

 much about horses, and not knowing, 

 or realizing, what the horse was in 

 there for, flew out and gave that 

 horse some pointers on bee-ology; 

 but he didn't seem to become at- 

 tached to the bees as the bees did to 

 him; and as he was headed to the 

 southwest, he went in that direction. 

 Before he got out of the city limits 

 of that bee-town he knocked over 

 seven more. Mr. So and So said he 

 had a hot time. I should say he did. 



While working in an outyard. a 

 stranger passing by, seeing me use 

 the smoker occasionally, wanted to 

 know what that stuff was I was pour- 

 ing on ithem. 



A first-class box-hive man came 



into a bee-yard wlicre I was liclping 

 to take off some supers, for Mr. Bar- 

 ton, in north Missouri, last fall. He 

 thought he knew all about bees, and 

 could tell some great things he had 

 done in hiving swarms, etc. He 

 wanted to help. I was willing. So I 

 gave him a job putting a super on a 

 pro-German colony, the only one in 

 the yard. He got the cover off, and 

 those half-breeds got busy with their 

 formic acid squirt guns, and you 

 ought to have seen that expert box- 

 hive man go towards home. 



I hired a big 6-footer to help ex- 

 tract honey. I told him about some 

 otliers that had let the honey run 

 over on the floor. He said that I 

 needn't be afraid of him wasting the 

 honey, as he had some sense, he had. 

 In about half an hour the pail was 

 running over. I said, "Sam, the 

 honey is running over." He grabbed 

 up the pail and left the faucet open. 



THE HONEYBEE IN NORTHERN 

 VERMONT 



By Mrs. Helen Mathie 



Bees are not kept in large quanti- 

 ties in the section in which I live. In 

 my home town there are as many as 

 'twenty small home apiaries. In some 

 adjoining towns there are none to be 

 found, while others have a few. From 

 five to forty swarms is about the size, 

 the larger number not being numer- 

 ous. If there is any bee disease in 

 any of these small bee-yards it has 

 never oome to my notice. There have 

 been years when the bees nearly all 

 died, but i^t was due to conditions, and 

 not to any disease of an epidemic na- 

 ture, as new bees were put into the 

 old hives and thrived there. 



The common brown bee is the rule, 

 or these bees Italianized. There are 

 much fewer full Italians. They are 

 considerably given to swarming, some 

 colonies casting three swarms. Such 

 colonies, of course, do not give itheir 

 owner anything but bees. When pre- 

 vented from swarming, they store a 



good amount of honey. Last season 

 a colony, too weak to swarm, put up 

 100 pounds of surplus, while others 

 that came out in spring strong and 

 vigorous did not put up a pound of 

 surplus. 



The owners of bees in this section 

 are all men with other chief inter- 

 ests that claim the most of their time 

 and attention, therefore 'they either 

 do not know how to work their bees 

 for supplies, or knowing, do not deem 

 it worth while to spare the time from 

 other work. The average farmer has 

 too many irons in the fire to learn 'the 

 bee business with any degree of thor- 

 oughness. 



The chief honey plants are the 

 clovers, the low white in the pastures 

 and the alsike and red in the fields, 

 and goldenrod. Buckwheat is not 

 raised extensively, alth'ough most of 

 the farmers having bees raise a 

 small plot. Now and then one sees a 

 small colony of bees in a village, but 

 for the most part they are found on 

 the general farms. 



Most of the bees are wintered in 

 the house cellar. Occasionally a man 

 packs them with leaves and winters 

 them out with good success. Winter- 

 ing in bee-houses does not prove very 

 successful, owing, no doubt, to the 

 great variation in temperature here. 

 One day it may be 40 below zero and 

 within a short time raining. Such 

 sudden changes are not conducive to 

 the health of either bees or people. 



The honey of this northern locality 

 has, to me, a much more exquisite 

 flavor than that of warmer sections. 

 The white clover honey, particularly, 

 is very delicately flavored. Perhaps 

 our long, cold winters and cool sum- 

 mers are also in a measure responsi- 

 ble for 'Our freedom from disease. 



Section honey sells well. There is 

 practically no extracted honey pro- 

 duced. The consumers here like some 

 comb with their honey, and chunk 

 honey would sell better than extract- 

 ed. The market is good for all that 

 is produced. 



Vermont. 



V 



DR. MILLER'S ANSWERS 1 



Questions are answered in order received. As we receive more questions 

 than we can answer in space available, two or three months sometimes elapse 

 before answers appear. 



Brood Above Excluder 



1. If iiislcnd of the Deniaree plan I put all 

 the brood and the (jueen above an excluder, 

 what would hai>|ien ? Would honey be stored 

 below as well as al)Ove? If. not. I might ar- 

 range an "eke" with excluder zinc on one or 

 more sides at bottom of brood-chamber. 



The method is immaterial, but assuming the 

 (liieeu and drones could not leave the hive, 

 what would be the disadvantages? 1 should be 

 glad if you would tell me exactly what you 

 would expect to find on opening the hive at end 

 of the season? KNGLAND. 



Answer. — 1. You may depend upon one thing. 

 The bees aim to put their honey, as much as 

 possible, above the brood. The reason of 

 this is obvious. Bees cluster about their 

 brood whenever the weather is cool, and they 

 do not want their honey between them ami 

 the entrance, because it is' more ■ exposed to 

 robbers. Starting from this, we can still see- 



the bees putting the honey below the orood- 

 chamher when they have no other place for it. 

 But as soon as the a.ueen quits or reduces her 

 laying, the honey will be put above her. 



2. We have never tried to confine drones 

 within the hive. If they are thus confined, it 

 is quite probable that the bees will worry them 

 to death when the time comes. They would 

 be in the way. The Demaree plan is good to 

 sei)arate the queen from the brood to prevent 

 swarming preparation^ but in the way that you 

 propose, we can see no advantage whatever. 

 Confining the queen within the hive with zinc 

 means compelling all the bees that go into her 

 apartment to pass through the queen excluder. 

 You would probably succeed better in having 

 the bees store honey out of the way of the 

 queen, if you kept h^r in a story below and left 



