1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



275 



much competition and too strong a 

 market, prices so iiigh that the buy- 

 ers could not make any profit, which 

 worked to our advantage. At this 

 time, in a single morning the Grand 

 Rapids market had as high as 65,000 

 bushels of peaches on it, all of which 

 would be disposed of and out of the 

 farmer's hand by 9 a. m. At this 

 time there were numerous efforts on 

 the part of the city people to estab- 

 lish retail markets, but without much 

 success. The larger growers pi'e- 

 ferred to devote their entire time to 

 production and leave the distribution 

 of the crop to established trade chan- 

 nels, the wholesale or carlot buyers, 

 grocers and hucksters. 



There is advantage to the beekeep- 

 ers in interesting as many people in 

 the sale of honey as possible, and a 

 necessity for protecting their inter- 

 ests and making it profitable for 

 them. 



Michigan. 



HIVE RECORDS 



By L. A. Schott 



In the spring of the year I tack on 

 each hive, on inner cover, a card, and 

 every time I look at a swarm and note 

 its condition, I date the card and 

 mark the percentage in the space. I 

 use the 100 per cent for a good strong 

 colony, there being ten frames, it is 

 easy to calculate the percentage. I 

 also note the queen, age, etc. 1 use 

 the following method in regai'd to 

 queens: x queen is an extra nice one, 

 but do not know about her offspi'ing; 

 (x queen x) marked thus shows the 

 queen is extra good and her offspring 

 is extra good. But when I mark one 

 thus, o queen, it shows she is poor; 

 00, she is very poor, and should be re- 

 placed at once. Also, if I mark one 

 X or XX in front of the word "queen" 

 and follow with an o or oo, it shows 

 she is nice, or queen, but has mated 

 with a bad drone. 



When a queen dies or is replaced 

 with another, I run a line through her 

 record and stai't a new one below, 

 there being four spaces, which I find 

 to be a plenty. When a colony swarms 

 out I make a record on the hive that 

 it is hived in and start a new record 

 with the virgin. Whenever I taKe 

 any honey I always mark about the 

 amount taken. Whenever a super 

 has as many as 20 or 24 complete 

 sections, I put underneath a new one 

 with a bee-escape board between the 

 two. In that way they are never 

 crowded and seem more contented. 

 The honey is taken off the next day 

 and the unfinished sections are left in 

 the super and filled in with empty 

 ones. I then give the super to the 

 next hive that needs one. In that 

 way I do not have travel-stained sec- 

 tions, and, besides, the partly filled 

 sections act as a bait for the next 

 swarm. 



I also have a record on my stool 

 of all hives that have any honey in 

 supers. I use the following method : 

 Whenever I peep into a super and see 

 one half full I put a circle half way 

 around its number on my stool rec- 

 ord, and when I look again, in a few 

 days, and it is three-fourths done I 



increase my circle until it is as full as 

 I want it. So when I look on my 

 stool and see a hive that has only a 

 small dot under the number I know I 

 do not have to bother it for a few 

 days. My stool record is re-copied 

 every 10 or 12 days, as the case mav 

 be. 



I also note the ripe cells in a col- 

 ony. If it should be queenless, num- 

 ber 44 has 7 ripe cells, by the dots 

 around the number. So I can teil at 

 a glance where I can get a ceil if I 

 need one. 



Whenever a colony gets back to 

 normal it is erased from the virgin 

 list, or queenless list, as the case may 

 be. I have now tried this out for 

 several years and find it works fine; 

 but one must use hives with inner 

 covers or it will not do, for the 

 weather would soon destroy it. 



Missouri. 



(We give the above letter because 

 Mr. Schott appears very methodical. 

 We can give one suggestion addi- 

 tional : We used to keep a similar 

 record, when we worked with a less 

 number of apiaries than now. In 

 order to avoid lifting the hive cover 

 to get to the record, we used to fasten 

 it on the back of the hive with a tin 

 holder, made as per engraving. If it 

 is rightly placed there is no danger of 

 its being damaged by rains. But one 

 might use the precaution of covering 

 it with a sheet of tarred paper. — Ed- 

 itor.) 



BEES OF AFRICA, ALGERIA AND 

 MOROCCO 



By Ph. J. Baldensperger 



As I wrote you, after leaving 

 Spain, I went over to Algeria and 

 looked for bees. Since about 10 years 

 my attention was called to two kinds 

 of bees existing in North Africa. In 

 vain did I try to get hold of some of 

 the yellow bees. Mr. Bernard, who 

 gave you a description of them in the 

 American Bee Journal for October, 

 1917, page 341, was the only person 

 who has had possession of any of 



them, and his description is too short 

 to give an idea. He had promised to 

 let me have some queens, but he 

 failed in his raising scheme, at Al- 

 giei-s. Another gentleman who had 

 also promised me some could not keep 

 his promise. So I resolved to go and 

 hunt for those bees myself. 



North Africa, from the Gulf of 

 Gabes, east of Tunis, to the Atlantic 

 Ocean, consists of Tunisia, Algeria 

 and Morocco. Three mountain chains 

 cut these three countries diagonally, 

 from northeast, between Tunis and 

 Sfax, to southwest between Agadir 

 and the mouth of the i-iver Draa, on 

 the Moroccan coast of the Atlantic. 



The different chains are: the Small 

 Atlas, starting from near the Medit- 

 erranean; the Great Atlas, from Al- 

 geria towards Agadir, with peaks over 

 10,000 feet high and covered with 

 snow, running down to 3,300 feet, 

 south of the provinces of Algiers, 

 Gran and Constantino; then the Anti- 

 Atlas, south of Sus and Agadir. The 

 description of these mountain chains 

 is necessary in order to show why the 

 black bee of the "Tell' (hills) in the 

 north, has never come in contact with 

 the yellow bee of the south regions 

 near the Sahara. Fully 125 miles of 

 arid steppes and high mountains lie 

 between the black and yellow bee re- 

 gions. Only halfa, diss and drinn (all 

 coarse grasses) grow there. These 

 3 graminaceae are fit only for fodder 

 for the camels which the nomadic 

 Arabs keep in great herds on these 

 steppes. Not a single flower could I 

 detect in the long trip on the high 

 plateaux. Of course not a bee will 

 venture across these cold plains in 

 spring, as they are all over a thousand 

 meters above sea level. Besides, what 

 would they look for in these lands, fit 

 only for camels? These animals are 

 not as large as those of Palestine and 

 of Syria. 



I studied the black bee or "Tel- 

 lian," which I think is a proper name, 

 because she is found all along the 

 hilly region, north of the Atlas, 

 wherever bees can live, and I found 



Metal holder for records, once used in the Dadant apiaries. 



