870 



GIvEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 15. 



[I certainly did not mean to be understood as 

 defending the use of the word hive for colony. 

 I simply tried to whitewash a slip in that one 

 case only. Such use of the word hive is to- 

 tally wrong. When I said bee-keepers gener- 

 ally use hive or swarm for colony, I meant in 

 their manuscript, and that we here change 

 the word when we know it should be so mod- 

 ified. Perhaps I should have said they often, 

 instead of generally, use one word for the 

 other. — Stenog.] 



The Australasian Bee-keeper approach- 

 es the subject of a bee keeper's right to terri- 

 tory in a somewhat gingerly manner, ques- 

 tioning the moral right to encroach on terri- 

 tory already occupied so long as other territo- 

 ry can be found, inviting discussion "with a 

 view of establishing au etiquette or under- 

 standing between bee-keepers and their ac- 

 knowledged rights to localities." Friend 

 Pender, unless etiquette is stronger in Aus- 

 tralia than here it will not keep a new comer 

 from encroaching, and I once got a whole lot 

 of hot shot for saying law ought to back up 

 etiquette. [While etiquette in the matter of 

 priority of rights is sometimes grossly violat- 

 ed, yet in my travels over the country I find 

 that it has a larger sway and influence than 

 you would imagine. There has been so much 

 talk on the subject that all bee-keepers of the 

 better class, I believe, are disinclined to en- 

 croach on the territory of their neighbor bee- 

 keepers.- -Ed.] 



" I AM AFRAID there are very few honey-pro- 

 ducers who give this [getting better stock in 

 the apiary] any intelligent thought or atten- 

 tion," quoth ye editor, p. 841. I am afraid 

 you are too nearly right in being thus afraid, 

 Mr. Editor ; but I think more attention is giv- 

 en to it now than ever before ; and if you keep 

 hammering away at it as you have lately been 

 doing, I'm sure a good many of us will get 

 waked up. [The only way to get the general 

 bee-keeping fraternity interested in this sub- 

 ject is to keep hammering. In fact, I have 

 already said so much I am almost afraid now 

 that some of our subscribers will become dis- 

 gusted. But I shall keep it up, nevertheless, 

 as by so doing I am firmly convinced that our 

 honey crops, especially during a season like 

 the one just past, will be materially increased. 

 When the fraternity begin to realize that there 

 is a market value for good red-clover queens 

 at prices away beyond those that have been 

 hitherto offered for any stock, there will be a 

 stronger effort made toward the production of 

 longer-tongued bees than was ever made be- 

 fore. — Ed.] 



When CAUGHT without scissors (a rare 

 thing, because I usually have a pair tied to 

 my record-book) I have used a knife as in the 

 first picture, p. 838, only I held the queen 

 feet down. Next time I'll try it as in the pic- 

 ture. [This serves to illustrate the slight va- 

 riation in the methods used by practical bee- 

 keepers. By comparing those slight variations 

 we each and all of us have the opportunity of 

 selecting the method or combination of meth- 

 ods that is best. The matter of clipping 

 queens' wings seems like an unimportant one. 



and perhaps it is ; but to say the least it has 

 elicited a great deal of interest. It is difficult 

 to find queens ; and whenever in going 

 through the apiary we happen to discover her 

 majesty, and we find she is not clipped, the 

 thing to do is to seize the opportunity, then 

 and there, whether we have special facilities 

 for the purpose or whether our fingers are nice 

 and clean. To close the hive up and then at 

 some future time, with scissors and other par- 

 aphernalia, open up the hive and //«;// and 

 html and himt for the queen, wastes in the 

 aggregate hours of time. It should be the 

 practice of all bee-keepers to clip whenever 

 the queen is found, if she is not already 

 cropped. To be able to do it safely and easi- 

 ly with a common jackknife, either sharp or 

 dull, is an important thing to know. — Ed] 



Editor Pender arguds that 4 lbs. of honey 

 is enough to make a pound of wax. Here's 

 his argument: A 7-pound swarm carries with 

 it 1 lb. of honey; no honey worth mentioning 

 is gathered in the first 24 hours, and in that 

 time 4 oz. of comb is built, or 1 cz. for every 4 

 oz. of honey. [The old estimate used to be 

 20 lbs. of honey to one of wax ; but some fif- 

 teen- or twenty years after these figures were 

 propounded by a celebrated German, Mr. P. ly. 

 Viallon, of Bayou Goula, La., at the Bee-keep- 

 ers' Congress at New Orleans, some fifteen 

 years ago, told of a series of experiments in 

 which he had proved quite conclusively that 

 the 20-lb. figure was altogether too high ; that 

 he could not discover that the bees used more 

 than 7 lbs. of honey to make one of wax. 

 And now it would not be at all surprising, if 

 the experiments were more elaborately con- 

 ducted, that we should find the 7-lb. limit 

 was still too high. Perhaps the 4-lb. figure is 

 correct. It is certainly true that, if it took 20 

 lbs. of honey to make a pound of wax, that 

 wax would necessarily have to sell at five or 

 ten times its present figure; and it would 

 look as if even the 7-lb. limit would make 

 wax much higher than it is now. So from a 

 commercial standpoint I should be inclined to 

 believe that friend Pender is not very far off 

 in his estimate. — Ed.] 



I FEEE GOOD over the thought that the last 

 colony of my bees has now been got out of 

 the old rotten hives into Dovetails. Some of 

 the frames are still of the old kind, 18x9, but 

 I'll gradually work them out. No one knows 

 the trouble of two kinds of hives so well as 

 the one who has struggled with it for a term 

 of years. [When I visited Dr. Miller once, 

 some three or four years ago, I found that he 

 had got old rags stuffed in the cracks in some 

 of the poorest of his old hives. I could not 

 resist the temptation to take some kodak 

 snap shots. I was chuckling over the fun I 

 would have in showing the pictures of these 

 hives of one of the leading bee-keepers to the 

 readers of Gi^Eanings, when Emma, Dr. Mil- 

 ler's sister, put in a most vigorous protest. 

 " Why, how they look ! " and would I be so 

 mean as to show up the worst feature of Dr. 

 Miller's apiary? That wasn't fair. No, she 

 would never forgive me if I would ever be 

 guilty of such a breach of confidence. Well, 



