FEBRUARY 1, 1914 



83 



" Persian Insect Powder," shipped by 

 Lewy Chemical Co., New York; " Orchard 

 Brand Atomic Sulphur Fungicide," " Or- 

 chard Brand Arsenite Zinc," " Orchard 

 Brand Atomic Sulj^hur Combined with Ar- 

 senate of Lead," " Bordeaux Arsenate of 

 Lead Mixture," " Bordeaux Mixture," all 

 shipped by Thomsen Chemical Co., Balti- 

 more, Md. ; " Kerosene Oil Emulsion," 

 " Lime, Sulphur, and Salt," or " Horicum," 

 " French Bordeaux Mixture," the last three 

 shipped by Benjamin Hammond, Fishkill- 

 on-Hudson, N. Y. ; and " Lead Arsenate," 

 shipped by Fred L. Lavanburg, New York. 



A careful reading of the article by " A 

 New England Veteran," page 91, will con- 

 vince almost any one, we think, that spray- 

 ing is often gi'eatly overdone; or else it is 

 done injudiciously by i^ersons who are fol- 

 lowing unreliable directions, or, worse still, 

 following no directions at all. If spraying 

 is done in a haphazard manner, perhaps it 

 is just as well that the solution used be 

 adulterated. 



Up-to-date fruit-growers and beekeepers 

 will do well to pay especial attention to the 

 emphatic statement by Prof. H. A. Surface, 

 in the extract on page 93, copied from the 

 Practical Farmer. We wish that all ihe 

 farm j^apers would publish such a state- 

 ment. It would have more weight than the 

 same thing in a bee journal, because the bee 

 journal is supposed to be i^rejudiced in 

 favor of the bees. 



" INVESTIGATIONS PERTAINING TO TEXAS 

 BEEKEEPING." 



The above is the title of Bulletin No. 

 158, by Wilmon Newell, State Entomologist, 

 and F. B. Paddock, Assistant Entomologist, 

 and by William Harper Dean, formerly 

 Assistant Entomologist at College Station, 

 Texas. Seldom do we run across a bulletin 

 from any station that contains more inter- 

 esting and valuable matter on the subject of 

 bees than does this one. Mr. Wilmon New- 

 ell. State Entomologist, is an enthusiastic 

 beekeeper. Unfortunately, he is not in posi- 

 tion where he can devote all his time and 

 energies to the subject of bees; nevertheless, 

 he and his assistant have given us some 

 valuable experiments, all of which are re- 

 corded and given in the bulletin mentioned 

 above. 



DOES IT PAY TO DIVIDE IN RUNNING FOR COMB 

 HONEY? 



Wilmon Newell, unlike many experts, 

 sees not only the scientific but the prac- 

 tical side of bee culture. In the two first 

 pages of this bulletin he gives the results 

 of some experiments regarding swarm 

 control that are exceedingly valuable— val- 



uable because he has gone after the work 

 from the standpoint of the trained scientist. 

 One of the problems he has tackled is, 

 " Which is the more profitable — to prevent 

 a colony from swarming, and thus conserve 

 its strength, or divide it into two colonies 

 early in the season and have both of them 

 gather honey? " He admits that the consen- 

 sus of opinion is in favor of the colony not 

 divided. He selected a number of colonies 

 -—one set he did not divide, and the other 

 set he divided, giving a part of them queen- 

 cells and a part laying queens at the time 

 of the division. The colonies that had the 

 laying queens had the advantage. He says : 

 " It seems a safe conclusion that, had the 

 ones which were provided with ripe queen- 

 cells at the time of division been provided 

 with laying queens instead, their production 

 would have been at least as great as the 

 others. The conclusion is justified that the 

 purchase of queens for these colonies, even 

 at a price of one dollar each, would have 

 been profitable, inasmuch as this would have 

 increased the average production of these 

 colonies by 30 lbs. of extracted honey." The 

 average from colonies that were divided had 

 114 lbs. of surplus; that is to say, the com- 

 bined surplus from the two after division 

 was 114 lbs. 



In the apiaries where the colonies were 

 not divided, which either did not swarm or 

 which were prevented from doing so, gave 

 an average of 127 lbs. surplus per colony, 

 or 13 lbs. more than the ones that were di- 

 vided. " But," says Mr. Newell, " we ob- 

 tained from divided colonies not only a sur- 

 ]ilus of 114 lbs., but a colony of bees," which 

 he puts at the very low price of $3.00. 

 Looking at it this way, and figuring the 

 honey at 7 cents, the difference in favor of 

 division was $2.09. 



]\IETHODS FOR CONTROLLING SWARMING. 



With regard to the methods for prevent- 

 ing swarming, he found that increasing the 

 size of the brood-chamber delayed it in 

 some cases and stopped it in others alto- 

 gether. Increasing the super room did no 

 good. Shaking on foundation stopped the 

 swarming and gave an average of 137 lbs. 

 each. Colonies which did not swarm gave 

 an average of 121 lbs. " One might be in- 

 clined," he says, " from a consideration of 

 these flg^ures, to suppose that the shaking 

 treatment had actually increased the pro- 

 duction. But such a conclusion would not 

 be correct." The shaken colonies had the 

 advantage in that they were stronger in the 

 first place than the colonies that did not 

 SAvarm. 



THE LIFE HISTORY OF THE BEE MOTH. 



Perhaps the most striking thing in this 



