22 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



January 



and her brood entirely on top of all. 

 Now kill the old queen and proceed 

 to raise a young queen in same man- 

 ner as previous season. 



This throws the field force of both 

 colonies without any interruption 

 right in the same supers, and if there 

 is any nectar to be had they ought 

 to make some surplus honey. 



'Each stand of bees is annually rc- 

 queened without the danger of hav- 

 ing them entirely queenless. Should 

 you fail to get a laying queen in the 

 top colony you still have the lower 

 queen on the job. 



The removing of the top colony, 

 for manipulating the lower, makes 

 extra work, but a very few pounds 

 more of honey pays for this, and 

 more honey is what we work for 

 anyway. 



In the illustration the escape- 

 board cleat is simply sawed in two 

 and the pieces can be slid in or out, 

 making the size entrance desired. 



The picture was taken at begin- 

 ning of clover flow before the 

 change was made. 



You will notice there are exclud- 

 ers between each brood-chamber and 

 super; these could be left out, giving 

 each queen the run of two bodies if 

 needed. 



Of course, this plan could be used 

 only in the production of extracted 

 h'oney. In place of letting each 

 stand raise its own queen, a ripe cell, 

 virgin or laying queen could be given 

 just the same when the division is 

 made. 



Indiana. 



ANOTHER WOMAN BEEKEEPER 



During our visit in the northern 

 part of the south peninsula of Michi- 

 gan last summer, we paid a visit to a 

 beekeeper's family which was very 

 interesting, but which was not men- 

 tioned because we wanted to accom- 

 pany the statement with a photo. 

 Here it is, at last. 



At Pellston, 17 miles from the 

 northern extremity of the State, live 

 the J. D. Robinson family. Mr. Rob- 

 inson, being manager of the Levering 

 Co-operative Market Association, has 

 but little time to devote to his api- 

 aries. So Mrs. Robinson, a young and 

 attractive worker, does the work in 



his stead, in spite of having a family 

 to care for, and she acquits herself of 

 it with speed and dexterity. She is 

 shown in the accompanying cut, with 

 a young lady helper, Miss Ruth Hil- 

 lock, a school teacher, who earns 

 something on the side between school 

 terms, in this way. I accompanied 

 the ladies to two apiaries. The bees 

 were gathering honey freely and we 

 removed just enough honey to give 

 them space for a few days of harvest. 

 It was a delightful experience to be 

 there as a supernumerary, for I have 

 always felt, in our own apiaries, as 

 if nothing was done right unless I did 

 it myself. That is probably why our 

 own people have "laid me on the 

 shelf." Mrs. Dadant and I spent a 

 very pleasant day with the Robinsons, 

 and we feel as well acquainted as if 

 we had known them 20 years. 



In the cuts they are shown, prepar- 

 ing the bees for winter. — C. P. D. 



CLIMBING MILKWEED A PEST 



In a recent number the climbing 

 milkweed is recommended for honey. 

 It may do to use it where it is al- 

 ready a pest, but anybody who plants 

 it will regret it the rest of his life, as 

 it is impossible to get rid of it when 

 started. The floating seeds are bad 

 about spreading it all over the neigh- 

 borhood. 



The sourwood is fine for honey and 

 also an ornamental tree. The bloom 

 resembles valley lillies. It only grows 

 on sour sandstone soil. It will not 

 thrive on good limestone soil. The 

 buckthorn is just opposite. It may 

 be near the sourwood, but never on 

 the same soil. The many places that 

 I have seen, it is always along the 

 outcrop Kaskaskia limestone, never 

 above or below it. The Chester 

 sandstone or other coal measure 

 sandstone will have plenty of sour- 

 wood. 



C. F. Very, New Albany, Ind. 



THOSE HONEY PLANTS FROM 

 CHINA 



Beekeepers wish to know more 

 about the plants of which we have 

 lately received seeds from China, and 

 which were offered free for trial in 

 tlic Dcceni'ber number. Mr. Golding, 



our correspondent in China, writes 

 about them as follows : 



"The broad bean is in flower from 

 the third week in March to the be- 

 ginning of May, and a lot of nectar 

 is obtained from this source, but the 

 surplus comes from rapesetd, which 

 is abundantly grown in this neigh- 

 borhood. Unfortunately, the flow 

 • from rapeseed is not of long duration, 

 about three weeks altogether, from 

 the middle of April to the first week 

 in May. Rape yields an immense 

 amount of ntctar throughout the day, 

 for bees work upon it from dawn to 

 dark." 



It should be remembered that our 

 correspondent is located in a region 

 similar to our Gulf States, so the sea- 

 son will be later in our Northern 

 States. 



Von Mueller, in his work on "Se- 

 lect Extra-Tropical Plants," states 

 that the broad bean will bear seeds 

 still in latitude 67 degrees. He men- 

 tions it as a source of nectar, as a 

 table vegetable and s a particularly 

 valuable fattening food for live stock. 

 The seed s are large and contain 

 about 30 per cent of starch. They 

 are said to retain their vitality for six 

 years or more. 



He describes the rapeseed as valu- 

 able in a rotation of crops and states 

 that an acre sown on sandy land in 

 Victoria sustained twenty sheep dur- 

 ing the fall and early winter and was 

 available for other crops the follow- 

 ing year. 



It is the plants which are valuable 

 for agricultural purposes as well as 

 for nectar secretion which promise to 

 be worthy the attention of the bee- 

 keeper. Such plants he can well en- 

 deavor to introduce into his neigh- 

 borhood. 



Our supply of seeds was almost im- 

 mediately exhausted. 



Mrs. J. D. Rubins 



..1 Ml . . I'.iM, Mill. II k, ,-,1 l'.'ll,.,l Mil 1,1 



tor winter in quadruple cases 



cparing tlic liees 



MARKETS AND PRICES ON 

 HONEY 



By Wesley Foster 



The beekeepers of the western half 

 of the United States have marketed 

 but a small proportion of their ex- 

 tracted honey. The great bulk of 

 them are very much dissatisfied with 

 the present market situation. A 

 large number of districts of the West 

 had poor crops this year, and as a 

 consequence the income of the pno- 

 ducers has been very materially cut 

 down by the short crop and the dif- 

 ficulty of marketing at a profitable 

 price. However, the writer feels that 

 a great many producers are com- 

 plaining where they have little cause. 

 The writer is interested in some 

 4,000 colonies of bees operated in 

 Colorado, and the past season was a 

 very unsatisfactory one, so far as 

 crop conditions go, the average yield 

 being something like 25 pounds of 

 extracted honey per colony. On this 

 basis, a price of 16 to 18 cents for 

 the extracted honay, which was se- 

 cured for the entire crop, as this 

 honey was sold as soon as extracted, 

 the return from the business was 

 something like $1 per colony less 



