584 



(fleaiiiiiKS III Bee Culture 



fe©(i[pDmg] ^m^rng] IiDd© [S®©feD(§ 



Wesley Foster, Boulder, Colo. 



Mr. O. V. Coulter, of Rifle, tells me of one 

 more serious crime charged up against the 

 English sparrow. Cleome, or Rocky Moun- 

 tain bee-plant, was very thick, and lined 

 the roadsides of Garfield County with its 

 beautiful purple blossoms until the English 

 sparrows came in thick, dusky flocks, pick- 

 ing up the seed on the ground, then attack- 

 ing the pods of unripened seeds, thrashing 

 them out, and devouring every one. As a 

 consequence, cleome is becoming less plen- 

 tiful year after year, and the time is not 

 distant when none can be found at all un- 

 less the English sparrows are destroyed. 



THE PRICE OF HONEY. 



Colorado comb honey, graded closely and 

 according to the rules, and packed in dou- 

 ble-tier glass-front cases, has lirought above 

 i?2.50 per case for several years. Where sell- 

 ing conditions were most favorable. So. 00 

 and more has been secured for car lots. The 

 outlook is good for a fair price again this 

 year. Early comb honey has easily brought 

 $3.75 to $4.00 per case. Customers are be- 

 coming accustomed to paying 20 cts. per 

 section for honey. 



p]xtracted honey, sold locally in pint 

 Mason jars, brings $2.60 per dozen. It is 

 no longer necessary to sell honey at $2.40 a 

 dozen, as has been the i)ractice in the past. 



THE HONEY CROP IN COLORADO. 



Most of the reports I have received about 

 crop conditions are fairly accurate; howev- 

 er, there are times when one which is mis- 

 leading slips in. The honey crop on the 

 western slope, which includes Garfield, 

 Mesa, Delta, Montrose, La Platte, and Mon- 

 tezuma Counties, is but barely half a crop. 

 Delta Co.. which last year shipped seven or 

 eijiht cars of honey, will not ship more than 

 three or four this year; and Delta Co. con- 

 ditions prevail on the whole western slope. 

 The Arkansas ^"alley has had a fair crop, 

 as has the Platte Valley, considering the 

 number of bees to gather the crop. North- 

 ern Colorado would have had quite a con- 

 siderable amount of honey to ship if so 

 many bees had not been lost last winter, 

 and if fewer had been moved to other States. 

 There is one thing gratifying — the price of 

 honey is very good, and those who have a 

 crop are smiling. 



4>- 



BEE-KEEPING AND HOMESTEADING. 



These western bee-men are well worth 

 knowing. A more hopeful, hard-working, 

 and conscientious lot it would be hard to 

 find. The qualities that win here in this al- 

 ternating desert and Eden are well brought 

 out in the bee-men on the western slope in 

 Colorado. A large percentage are on home- 

 steads, waiting for the irrigation projects to 

 be finished, when the water will raise the 



value of their land from $100 an acre up- 

 ward. You will find small cabins and cot- 

 tages, most of them quite small, a little 

 garden, and lots of dry yellow or reddish 

 soil, covered more or less with chico, shad 

 scale, and greasewood. There is considera- 

 ble waste land on most of the tracts, and 

 the roads are not kept up as they will be in 

 a few years; but most of my bee-keeping 

 friends have several children, and I think 

 everybody is far happier than if living in 

 some great city. 



The bee-men have honey-houses on their 

 homesteads, and run for both comb and ex- 

 tracted honey, though comb honey pre- 

 dominates. Out-apiaries are operated as 

 are the homesteads, as a rule, and are too 

 far from good alfalfa and sweet-clover pas- 

 turage. The bees are now making the liv- 

 ing for many a homesteader, and it will not 

 be many years until these men will be quite 

 well-to do. Most of them now rank high 

 as bee-keepers. 



-^ 



FALL TREATMENT FOR AMERICAN FOUL 

 BROOD. 



The usual shaking-out method practiced 

 during the honey-flow for the cure of foul 

 brood is too severe a treatment in the fall 

 after the honey-flow has ceased, as there is 

 then no chance for the bees to build comb 

 and store enough honey for wintering. It 

 is hardly to be advised to winter colonies 

 which show even the slightest trace of dis- 

 ease, as breeding goes on within the hive 

 here in Colorado practically all winter. This 

 practice works well in the Eastern States; 

 but conditions are very different here. A 

 better plan is to select combs of fully sealed 

 honey and shake the diseased colony on 

 these frames after breeding has largely 

 ceased, in which case the disease will very 

 rarely reapi)ear. If there is but little dis- 

 ease in the apiary, there are probably as 

 many queenless colonies as there are dis- 

 eased, in which case the queen should be 

 caged to the diseased colony, and the queen- 

 less colony and the diseased one shaken in 

 together into a clean hive having starters. 

 The queen is left caged with the bees in 

 this clean colony for three days, when the 

 combs of honey from the queenless hive 

 may be put in, in place of the starters, and 

 the queen released. This is the most eco- 

 nomical treatment for diseased colonies in 

 the fall. 



Using Eight-frame Supers on Ten-frame Hives. 



On p. 342. June 1, G. W. .loice gives a plan for con- 

 verting: an eisht-franie into a ten-frame hive. Aft- 

 er using both eight and ten frame hives side by side 

 for eomli honey, I changed to ten-frame. I use my 

 eight-frame supers on my ten-frame hives by nail- 

 ing a IK X 154 X 20-inch cleat on each bottom edge 

 of the super with the top edge beveled to shed rain. 

 Supers arranged in this manner have given satis- 

 faction. 



Buena Vista, Texas, June U. J. "SV. Lowry. 



