(il.KANlNCiS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



Special attention is called to the articles by 

 P. H. Ehvood and Justice, elsewhere in this 

 issue. 



The flood of orders for supplies from all quar- 

 ters seems to Indicate that the prospects for the 

 season are unusually good. 



For several issues back we have been giving 

 eight extra pages to make room for the extra 

 advertising, and it looks as if we would have 

 to continue giving this extra space for a while. 



The copy for the Fred Anderson serial came 

 to hand just too late to get in this issue; we re- 

 gret, therefore, that we have to leave it out 

 this time. Copy is in hand for the rest of the 

 story, and there will be no skip from this time 

 on. It is drawing to a close, and the " mystery 

 of Crystal Mountain" will soon be made clear. 



There is some talk of a change of name for 

 the. United States Bee-keepers' Union, to some- 

 thing else, to avoid confusion with the other 

 orgauizaiion, the National Hee-keepers' Union. 

 If there are to be two Unions, then a change 

 should be made. Personally I like the name 

 United States Bee keepers' Association. At the 

 next annual meeting in Buffalo this thing will 

 be discussed. 



We put into winter quarters last fall 241 col- 

 onies, most of them in fair condition; but there 

 were a few weak ones. We find at this date, 

 April 24, 330 colonies; 5 of the 11 seem to have 

 died during winter from the extreme cold, the 

 other () having spring-dwindled during the last 

 two or three weeks. Some of the weather of 

 late has been unfavorable. There have been a 

 good many raw days, some of the nights going 

 down to freezing and below. The consequence 

 is, we have had a little touch of spring dwin- 

 dling. 



" Successful, Bee- keeping'' is the title of a 

 booklet on bees, by W. Z. Hutchinson, publish- 

 ed by the W. T. Falconer Mfg. Co., Jamestown, 

 N. Y. It takes up the subject of learning the 

 business, selecting the locality, the kind of 

 bees to get, transferring bees, introducing 

 queens, producing comb honey, etc. Several 

 years ago we realized the necessity of getting 

 out a booklet on the management of bees, be- 

 cause we noticed that there were many who, 

 even if they could afford to buy the more com- 

 plete text-books, would not take the time to 

 read them, and we therefore put this matter, 

 not in a booklet, but in extra pages of our cat- 

 alog. It is not possible to estimate the amount 



of letter- writing that this has saved. Mr. A 

 will write in and ask how to transfer bees. To 

 refer him to the text-books at the price of 81.00 

 or Si. 25 is apt to have a wrong effect; but giving 

 him the information needed, boiled down in a 

 nutshell, at no cost to him, very often gives 

 him an appetite for more knowledge, and this 

 means an order for a text-book. The fact that 

 W. Z. Hutchinson's name appears as author of 

 the booklet mentioned Is a guarantee that the 

 instruction is boiled down and orthodox. We 

 do not know whether any price is charged or 

 not. Inquiry can be made of the publishers, as 

 above. 



HOW TO make end-spacing FRAMES OUT OF 

 OLD-STYLE HOFFMAN FRAMES. 



Next week we shall cut off the top- bars and 

 put on the end-spacing staples to all the frames 

 in use In our apiary. The projections of the 

 top-bar are % inch, and we shall therefore 

 have to cut off about J^ of an inch from each 

 end. To do this most expeditiously we have 

 constructed a tray without bottom. 4 inches 

 deep. The length of this tray, inside dimen- 

 sion, is iV iuch longer than the outside dimen- 

 sion-* of the Uangstroth- . oft'man frame. The 

 width should be the same as that of the hive 

 used, and in our case that of an eight frame 

 hive This frame is mounted on legs of K-inch 

 stuff', 2 feet long, the legs being braced. We 

 now have a topless table two feet high. The 

 length of the projtclion of the top-bar to end- 

 spacing Hoffman frames is J^ inch; therefore 

 the thickness of the ends of the tray should be 

 a scant 3^ inch. 



We are now ready to cut t ff' the top bars of 

 all the old-style Hoffman frames in the apiary. 

 We set the topless table near the hive; shake 

 the bees oft' the frame* in front of the entrance, 

 and slip them one by one into the tray or topless 

 table. If the table has been made right, the 

 frames v/ill just slip between the ends of the 

 tray, and the top-bar projections will stick 

 over J^ inch. A saw now cuts them off just 

 even with the end of the tray at both ends. 

 After the staples are put on according to the 

 directions previously given on page 95, the 

 frames are ready to be put back into the hive. 

 The other hives are then treated in a like man- 

 ner. Usually it will be found advantageous to 

 have an assistant, because two can work to 

 better advantage. 



MORE EXPERIMENTS WITH DRAWN FOUNDA- 

 TION; HOAV BEES MAKE COMB. 



According as the weather has permitted dur- 

 ing this spring, we have been putting into the 

 hives at different times samples of the drawn 

 foundation, together with a sample of ordinary 

 foundation in the same comb, side by side. As 

 it was cool weather, and no honey was coming 

 in, the foundation of course in every case was 

 either untouched or gnawed Into, while the 



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