1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



237 



3 feet apart. The plants are culti- 

 vated like corn and early in the 

 spring cultivated again and laid by 

 as corn. It will bloom before white 

 clover and the seed is pressed as flax- 

 seed and the oil is used for cooking 

 purposes. The oil cake is used for 

 stock food. I do not think it a 

 profitable crop for this country, as 

 the seed is saved by hand. 



G. W. Osterhouse. 

 Idaho. 



A LITTLE EXTENSION WORK 



By Alton L. Logan 



One beautiful afternoon in August, 

 with the goldenrod and Spanish 

 needle in full bloom, the telephone 

 bell rang and the excited words I 

 heard were: "One of our 'hives' of 

 bees has swarmed out and we don't 

 know what to do." 



Arriving at the farm I noticed the 

 farmer and his wife standing at a 

 safe distance watching the swarm, 

 which was clustered on some weeds 

 intermingled with wire. I took an 

 empty hive and a newspaper. I then 

 shook the bees on the newspaper in 



front of the empty hive, and we 

 watched for the queen, and clipped 

 her wing. 



I removed the cover from the 

 empty hive the bees were entering, 

 and it was not long until I discovered 

 the bees returning to the old stand. 

 I opened the parent hive and discov- 

 ered it was full of honey except a 

 part of two frames, which was filled 

 with sealed brood covered up with a 

 handful of bees. I placed a super of 

 sections with foundation in them on 

 top of the hive-body. By this time 

 nearly all of the bees had returned, 

 so I then released the queen at the 

 entrance and she soon joined her 

 colony once more. 



About 10 days after, I returned to 

 this farmer's home and placed an- 

 other super on this hive-body and 

 later on I took off forty sealed sec- 

 tions filled very nicely. I showed the 

 farmer how to winter his bees. To 

 date he has enough honey for winter, 

 with a hive-body full of stores. 



Too many bees have swarmed out 

 and have perished on account of 

 crowded conditions in the hive which 

 can be easily avoided if understood. 



[the EDITOR'S answers' 



— ^ 



When stamp is enclosed, the editor will answer questions by mail. Since 

 we have far more questions than we can print in the space available, several 

 months sometimes elapse before answers appear. 



Honey and Syrup 



Recently my attention was directed to a 

 syrup which was said to have honey in it. Its 

 taste suggested a honey flavor. On inquiry I 

 can find no one who knows whether honey is 

 ever used to flavor any of the table or com- 

 mercial syrups. Can you enlighten me or di- 

 rect me to a satisfactory source, of answer? 



OHIO. 



Answer. — Quite a number of dealers in 

 syrups give their products a pretty name, such 

 as mentioned in the American Bee Journal for 

 January, "Honey Gold," or "Red Clover," in 

 order to draw customers to a product which is 

 mainly corn syrup or glucose, made artificially 

 from corn starch. Those dealers add a small 

 per cent of honey, and sometimes a little 

 sugar syrup, in order to improve the flavor- 

 They usually buy strong flavored honey for 

 that purpose, because it is cheaper, and also 

 because it adds to the flavor. Strong honeys 

 like the heather of Europe, are in demand for 

 that purpose. 



poison as a cure for some kinds of rheumatism. 

 But when we have to deal with "sciatica," 

 bee poison is not effective. I suffered from this 

 complaint foy some years, until, during a 

 visit to Europe, I was advised by a competent 

 doctor to abstain from eating meat. This was 

 in 1913. Since that time, I have consumed 

 less than one-fourth the meat that I used to 

 eat, and have not suffered a single day from 

 "sciatica." If your friend's complaint is of 

 this sort, I would urge that you advise him to 

 try that very simple remedy. 



What we eat, what we drink and what we 

 do have everything to do with our health or 

 disease. 



Stings for Rheumatism 



I have a friend in the Senate who is very 

 anxious to try out the bee-stinging treatment 

 for rheumatism, and you have something on 

 that somewhere. We receive your Bee Jour- 

 nal, but have been unable to find anything in 

 it on the bee-stinging remedy for rheumatism. 

 NEBRASKA. 



Answer. — We have no regular set of instruc- 

 tions for this treatment. The best information 

 which I ever received concerning this treat- 

 ment was ootained from the late Wm. Stoiiey, 

 of Grand Island, in your State. He was a 

 large honey producer and quite a physician 

 after Nature. His method was to give one sting 

 of bee on the arm every other day and to in- 

 crease the dose, after the patient became used 

 to the poison, giving as many as 3 stings daily 

 until relief came. 



There is no doubt of the efficacy of bee 



Beekeeping as a Business 



1. How many hives would it take to provide 

 a net income of $2,500 to $3,000 per year in 

 an average location such as we have in the 

 farming districts of the middle west, assuming 

 that the apiary is given proper care and prices 

 remain about as they are now? 



2. Would one man be able to handle this 

 number with very little help? 



3. Do most of the one-man apiaries dispose 

 of their honey to commission men, or sell it 

 locally, or some other way, and which do you 

 think is the most satisfactory way ? Is there 

 ever any trouble getting a market? 



4. Would you advise working for comb 

 honey, or extracted, or both, and which method 

 requires the most equipment? 



.5. What would you estimate the least ground 

 necessary for the best arrangement of the num- 

 ber of colonies one man can take care of? 



6. Do you think success would be more 

 certain if the outapiary system was used? 



OHIO. 



Answers. — 1. It is impossible to give, in dol- 

 lars and cents, the approximate amount that a 

 man can make out of bees, just as it would be 

 impossible to tell how much a farmer might 

 expect from a farm, because bees, like farms, 

 depend so very much on location, seasons. 

 prices, etc. In paragraph 715 of "The Hive 



and Honey Bee," we wrote that at least 50 

 pounds of honey may be expected fr-m a 

 colony of bees, on the average, every season. 

 Some localities will yield twice that, average, 

 others will probably fall far short. Of course 

 much depends upon t'.e management. Half of 

 that, at least, would go in expenses. 



2. One man could hardly expect to net 

 $2,500 out of bees without help. 



3. Beekeeper are usually poor salesmen and 

 they often dispose of their honey to whole- 

 salers or to commission men, but it would ue 

 much better if they would do some retailing. 

 Yes, there is often trouble getting a market, if 

 one is not a good salesman. 



4. Extracted honey is more profitable to me 

 than comb, but it requires a little more cap- 

 ital at the start. 



5. You can keep all the bees that should go 

 in one spot on a single town lot of land. 



6. If you go into beekeeping largely, you 

 will need outapiaries. 



Commercial Beekeeper 



At a school for beekeepers held in .»^alla 

 Walla. Wash.. March 21, there were 75 pres- 

 ent, and the Walla Walla (Washington) 

 County Beekeepers' Association was organized. 

 This question was asked, and I said, "I'll ask 

 the editor of the * American Bee Journal:" 

 "What is a 'Commercial' Beekeeper?" 



WASHINGTON. 



Answer.. — I believe that a very good man 

 to answer that question is the one who asks it. 

 Mr. York, the former editor of the American 

 Bee Journal. However, I'll try to reply. 



A commercial beekeeper is a man who keeps 

 bees for money as well as for pleasure, and 

 who studies the matter so as to get as large 

 returns as possible. We are, none of us, as 

 good commercial beekeeper' as we ought to be. 

 In the first place we should keep bees in the 

 most favorable spots. Then we should do 

 what we say should be done, in order to suc- 

 ceed. We should not imitate the old parson 

 who told his parishioners: "Do what I say; 

 don't do what I do." Let us all try to be a 

 little nearer the ideal "commercial beekeeper." 



Clipping Queen's Wings — Crooked 

 Combs 



1. Please tell me how to clip a queen's 

 wings. 



2. What is the best thing to do with a hive 

 that has crossed combs? NEBRASKA. 



Answers. — I do it as follows : Catch the 

 queen across the thorax with the fingers, then 

 slip the blade of the scissors under one wing 

 and clip about half of its length, or you may 

 clip one-third of each wing. Dr. Miller ad- 

 vises cutting the two wings on one side as 

 short as they can be conveniently be clipped. 



2. Transfer the combs, during fruit bloom, 

 to other frames Or, if you don't like the job. 

 put another story on top. By and by, if you 

 use foundation, the queen will move to the 

 upper story. Then put an excluder between. 

 In a few days the brood will all be hatched 

 out of the crooked combs. You can then re- 

 move that hive and transfer the combs at 

 leisure. If you wish to hurry matters, you 

 may drive the bees and queen to the upper 

 story, then put on the escape so she may not 

 be able to go down again. 



Bees in the City 



I have 64 colonies of bees here that are in 

 the city limits and have no complaint of any- 

 one ever being stung, but I have a neighbor 

 that is trying to have the City Council make 

 me move them '^ut of the city limit 



IOWA. 



Answer. — If your bees do not sting people 



