. DELVoT E.D " 

 •To'BE.EL3 



•AND Hon EY- ,i 

 •AHDHOML- '^ 

 •1NTE.F5EST6- 



Tublishedb/THEA I r\OoY Co 



$l°»P[RVtAR '\@ Hedina-Ohio 



Vol. XXXII. 



JAN. I, J 904. 



No. I 



Those cell cups in wood, p. 1050, what 

 doj'ou furnish them for? [There is soon to 

 be issued a little treatise on queen-rearing- 

 by the Root Co., and in this will be a price 

 list of tools, appliances, and materials for 

 the rearing- of queens. — Ed.] 



A CORRESPONDENT asks what I would 

 advise as to hives, frames, etc. For comb hon- 

 ey, sing-le-wall eight-frame hives (ten frame 

 if they can not have much attention), Mil- 

 ler frames (perhaps Hoffman if no bee-glue) 

 wired or with foundation splints, full sheets 

 of foundation in frames and sections; the 

 same for extracting-, only ten frames; pos- 

 sibly shallow frames for extracting-super; 

 cover with dead-air space; deep bottom- 

 boards. 



Has Aikin, along with other Coloradoans, 

 a monopoly of the paper-bag- package? For 

 alfalfa honey seems to be more given to 

 granulating than any other leading sort in 

 this country, and it is possible that other 

 kinds might not work in paper bags — at 

 least not without draining. [It is my per- 

 sonal opinion that Eastern honey should be 

 fully drained before it is put up in bags. 

 In our next issue we will describe an oyster- 

 pail for putting up candied honey. — Ed.] 



M. A. Gill springs a new thing on us, 

 p. 1055 — gives starters to a swarm and gets 

 % per cent worker comb. He ought to know 

 — undoubtedly does know — that the bees 

 have on their statute-books a law that, for 

 the first ten or twelve days, a swarm is to 

 build worker comb, and after that a fair 

 amount of drone comb. Now see the unfair 

 advantage that man Gill takes of the bees: 

 he doubles the force of bees, so that in the 

 first ten or twelve days the}' get their brood- 



chamber filled, and then when they're ready 

 to build drone comb there's no room for it. 

 So you're going to camp on my trail, 

 Mr. Editor, p. 1041. All right, but remem- 

 ber that trails sometimes go in a circle, 

 and it may be well for you to keep an eye 

 out rearward. In the meantime I can be 

 looking up the prices of automobiles. [1 

 will be very moderate in my demands for 

 an automobile. One costing somewhere be- 

 tween S4000 and S5000 would suit me very 

 well, I will buy the plug hat if you will 

 get the auto. Say yes, and we will call it 

 a bargain. — Ed.] 



Apis mellifica is mentioned, page 1047. 

 Isn't that niellifera nowadays? [Apis mel- 

 lifica is the term used by Cowan and Chesh- 

 ire in referring to the hive bee, and by 

 Prof. Comstock, of Cornell, in a recent work 

 on entomology. The same term is also rec- 

 ognized by the great Centurj' Dictionary, 

 the International, and the Standard. 

 The only authority that I have run across 

 so far that uses Apis tuellifera in a late 

 work is Prof. Cook. I can not now find 

 Benton's work; but my impression is be 

 uses Apis mellifica. Either is right, but the 

 first is more common. — Ed.] 



Thos. Chantry says, :n American Bee 

 Journal, " I saw 7 worker- bees backed in a 

 comb as far as their wings would let them 

 at one time; and after killing these 7, I 

 soon killed 23 more that were backed into 

 the same comb. So I came to the conclu- 

 sion that laying workers are unlimited in 

 number when they get started." That cor- 

 roborates what a transatlantic scientist 

 proved in an entirely different way: he 

 dissected the bees of a laying- worker colo- 

 ny, and found the most of them contained 

 eggs. I never caught more than one work- 

 er in the act of laying, and that was in a 

 worker-cell. It looked so very uncomforta- 

 ble, with its wings pushed up about its 

 neck, that I don't wonder laying workers 

 prefer larger cells in which to lay. [I 

 think we may now call it pretty well set- 

 tled that there is apt to be more than one 

 laying worker in a laying-worker colony. 



