362 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



September 



pounds in the hive to make sure it 

 would have enough, but in the spring 

 it had only 9 pounds left, vi^iUi brood 

 in only two combs. In fact it had 

 consumed 18 pounds of honey above 

 the average of the yard and had little 

 to show for it. So that hive was 

 marked with suspicion in my mind. 

 In the first week of July, when the 

 honey flow was due, it was not up to 

 strength, having only five Jumbo 

 frames of brood. So I killed the queen 

 and combined the colony with num- 

 ber 19. 



Weeding out in this fashion I find I 

 have seven queens that were raised in 

 1917, thirteen in 1918, six in 1919, 

 and nine of unknown age. Now for 

 a comparison as to their merits: 



Queens Honey Brood 



1917 7 lbs. 5% fr. 



1918 11 lbs. 5 fr. 



1919 9 lbs. 4% fr. 

 Unknown 12 lbs. 4V2 f. 



On an average, these 3-year-old 

 queens did as well as any other lot in 

 the yard, but I specially want to point 

 out that it pays to be continually 

 weeding out the poor stock. To show 

 what an old queen, whose merit has 

 been proved, can do, let me tell the 

 story of number 9. She wintered and 

 springed on 25 pounds of honey and 

 had four fine Jumbo frames of brood 

 in the last week of April. Two weeks 

 later I divided the hive, moving the 

 old queen with three frames of brood 

 to a new stand. On June 25 the 

 brood-chamber was packed with bees 

 and I sold her to a man whom I knew 

 had a good location, good even in a 

 dry season. Two weeks later he re- 

 ported that the colony had filled and 

 sealed 20 shallow frames, that is close 

 on 60 pounds of honey. All this from 

 a queen raised in 1917, one that had 

 to contend all spring with a very un- 

 toward season. I am always ready to 

 kill a queen for cause, but not for 

 age. I only wish my conditions were 

 such that I could raise queens from 

 my best stock, but for a man who sees 

 his bees only once a week such is im- 

 possible, especially when weather con- 

 ditions are erratic. 



I did my best to raise some queens 

 the past season, and got (.'nough ex- 

 perience to make me sympathize with 

 the queen breeders. At one time I 

 had no less than eight nuclei with 

 young queens waiting to be mated. 



A famous astronomer once said in 

 my hearing; "A fact is a wonderful 

 thing," this being his sole contribu- 

 tion to an informal discussion that 

 lasted for half an hour. Mr. Sladen, 

 many years ago, stated this as a fact, 

 that a young queen will not fly to 

 mate unless the temperature be 65 de- 

 grees or above. My first nucleus was 

 made on the 12th of May, and from 

 that date to almost the end of June 

 my notebook shows only two days — 

 June 1 and 20 — with a temperature 

 of at least 65 degrees. Well, here is 

 the result, only two of my young 

 queens were mated. I need not ex- 

 pand my story by telling how 1 strove 

 with these nuclei to keep them always 

 provided with a young queen apiece, 

 but I often thought of the remark 

 made to me 40 years ago by an old 

 friend: "It is easier to make five dol- 

 lars than five cents," meaning that 

 when times are prosperous business 

 rushes to one, but when they are bad 

 we have to chase much for little 

 profit. 



Concerning Fireweed 



Another of Mr. Sladen's facts con- 

 cerns fireweed, our greatest honey 

 plant. A few years ago we were dis- 

 cussing it and I told him that while I 

 was surrounded by thousands of 

 acres of this plant, I had not seen a 

 honey flow from it, yet in the books it 

 was described as one of the most re- 

 liable honey-secreting plants. He 

 then informed me that in dry weather 

 the fine rootlets seemed to decay so 

 that they could not absorb moisture, 

 therefore, while the bloom was plenti- 

 ful, there was no nectar in the flower. 

 Since that conversation I have had 

 more experience and think he is 

 right. I have taken the trouble to fol- 

 low the root system of fireweed and 

 find it sends out horizontal roots a 

 little more than an inch below the 

 surface of the ground, and that these 



Tlic Giants' ("auscway, Ireland, showing large hexagonal hlocks of ^lonc. 



are many feet in length. I remember 

 one young plant that had roots four 

 feet long. In my part of the world 

 July and August are very dry, and 

 June is not much better, but we gen- 

 erally have a few heavy rains in the 

 third week of the month. For two 

 seasons these June rains have failed, 

 so our soil in July, our honey-flow 

 month, has been very dry. Fireweed, 

 therefore, has yielded nectar on low- 

 lying swampy ground only, and here 

 the crops have been very good. Much 

 of my work among the beekeepers 

 consists in pointing out to them the 

 local sources of nectar and urging 

 them to move their bees to more re- 

 liable regions, generally but a mile 

 or two away. Only a few are in a 

 position to move their half dozen colo- 

 nies, these being merely a side line. 



Regarding Advice 



How few people will follow the ad- 

 vice they solicit! At the moment they 

 are eagerly in earnest, but they are 

 variable as the shade. It is not knowl- 

 edge they are thirsting for, they have 

 merely found an excellent opportuni- 

 ty for interesting conversation. No 

 man with a colony of bees can make 

 me believe he is keenly interested 

 when he has not taken the trouble to 

 read the bee bulletin that was sent 

 him. But there is one man and his 

 wife who cheer me up evei-y year. 

 They are, or were, alien enemies, but 

 they were never such to me, merely 

 hard-working, thrifty people making 

 a comfortable living where many had 

 quite a struggle for existence. I 

 just love to get lunch in the kitchen, 

 bread, butter, milk, lettuce, preserved 

 fruit, all home products; the coffee 

 is the only imported article on the 

 table. House nicely furnisht-d, chil- 

 dren well clad and intelligent. What 

 do they know about bees? Mighty lit- 

 tle, but a dozen colonies provide them 

 yearly with about $200 cash, and all 

 the honey they want for their own 

 use. Yet but a short distance away is 

 an old British bee expert who can go 

 into the finest points of beekeeping, 

 but he never gets a crop. It is a poor 

 region, dry as a bone in summer; yet 

 even there two men get good crops, 

 probably from snowberry bush, but 

 the expert has not had a moderate 

 crop in seven years, yet one could 

 throw a stone from one of the success- 

 ful apiaries to his. What is the se- 

 cret? I told these men as I tell many, 

 leave one solid super of honey on 

 each hive at the end of the season, 

 above that an empty super half full of 

 sacking or dry moss, leave the bees 

 alone until the longest day, then put 

 on a super or two. They obey abso- 

 lutely, and get the honey, as their 

 colonies are mighty strong when they 

 do not swarm. Even swarming, as 

 a rule, is all over in May, so the colo- 

 nies are, in an average season, ready 

 for the flow in July. On the other 

 hand, the expert, who sneers at the 

 other men's ignorance, will persist in 

 keeping his bees according to the 

 method he learned in the old land. He 

 winters in an eight-frame hive, hence 

 his bees are weak and short of stores 

 in spring. He intends to feed sugar 

 daily after pollen is available, but 

 never does, so his bees are never 



