NOVEMBER 1, 1914 



843 



Did you ever notice the nice things sug- 

 gested for " iioats " when feeding from 

 pans, etc.? Cork chips when you cannot 

 find enough cork on the place to stopper the 

 molasses- jug; planer-chips when there isn't 

 a i^laning-mill within ten miles of you; 

 excelsior when you haven't seen any m 

 years; grass where there is no grass, and 

 all tlie time the beej'ard is cluttered up with 

 the best sort of non-soakable float material, 

 to wit, bits of comb and pieces of founda- 

 tion. Why didn't you think of it? 



* * * 



Will some inspector devise a way to get 

 " the average beekeeper " to do better bee- 

 keeping? It does not seem as if human 

 ingenuity could devise more wrong ways of 

 doing things than the inspector finds. But 

 the things left undone are legion also; and 

 the way nicely made factory goods are mis- 

 used is astounding. Fii-st they are improp- 

 erly made ujd and then they are wrongly 

 used. A " bee-space " is an unknown factor 

 to the " averager." There may be an ex- 

 ception, but I have not found him. 



* * * 



Dr. Miller and Mr. Dadant agree that 

 some queens prove good the third year, so 

 they prefer to give all good two-year-olds a 

 chance for another year. But did they ever 

 consider that such practice is at the bottom 

 of the irregularity of colonies the following- 

 spring? By putting in each fall young 

 queens carefully raised from good stock we 



are reasonably sure of having very nearly 

 all of the colonies of the same strength the 

 next spring. The value of such conditions 

 they will acknowledge. The use of thor- 

 oughbred stock is implied in this practice. 

 It will not do to use queens of various 

 strains and matings if you expect unifor- 

 mity. Selecting breeding queens is almost 

 as difficult as picking one's ancestors. You 

 must begin several generations back. In- 

 cidentally there are several factors involved 



besides coloi\ 



* * * 



I wonder if it would not be a great bless- 

 ing if every sheet-zinc honey-board, bound 

 or unbound, should vanish from the face 

 of the earth, leaving only the slatted kind 

 to be used. When inspecting recently I re- 

 moved two supers solid with honey, and 

 then found a sheet of zinc glued solidly to 

 the brood-frames. There Avere just five 

 holes open for the bees to pass through. 

 Methinks I recall a lot of talk on giving 

 bees easy access to the supers. Just what 

 constitutes " easy access " from the bees' 

 view-point? However, the bees glue up 

 the slatted kind in a similar way when left 

 on year in and year out, as so many are. 

 But it is possible to get off the slatted one 

 and still have it usable. Not so with the 

 sheet zinc. Well, the less said the better. 

 Memories of attempts to return it to the 

 hive at the owner's request are still too 

 painful. 



Providence, R. I. 



A BEE "INSPECTOR'S OPPORTUNITY 



BY A. E. CRANDALL 



A short time ago I took a trip through 

 a part of our county with our State bee- 

 inspector, and it certainly was a trip I 

 enjoyed. It was a warm sunshiny after- 

 noon, and apple-blossoms were opening up 

 in good shape; so you can imagine the bees 

 were quite busy, and it seemed good to hear 

 that contented hum as they got their fill 

 from those blossoms. There are thousands 

 of fruit-trees being planted in this locality, 

 and there are plenty of good-sized orchards 

 already in bearing. 



We came across one beekeeper who had 

 just set 1000 fruit-trees; and while the 

 general appearance of his place was good, 

 most of his bees were in a variety of hives 

 and in bad condition, and still he told us 

 he had made money with them. 



I have about made up my mind that bee- 

 inspectors must find as good a variety of 

 people as hives. To me it was amusing to 



see the looks they would give the inspector 

 when he introduced himself; and, no won- 

 der. What would you think if a man clad 

 in overalls, and with sleeves rolled up, 

 appeared at your door with a hive-tool in 

 one hand and a smoker (a thing which you 

 never saw before) in the other. One woman 

 who was out in the yard when we arrived 

 "beat it" (as the boys say); and when 

 friend Yates went to get her name she had 

 disappeared; but the dog was inside of the 

 screen-door, begging to be let out; and as 

 we had other places to go to we did not stop 

 to mince matters. 



Another place we Avent to had " some 

 bee-house " on it, and the inside was as dark* 

 as a pocket, and even on that spring day 

 Avas as hot as a fireless cooker. The two 

 ladies who Avere at home came doAvn to see 

 the "fun," as they expressed it— of course 

 meaning to see some one get stung, and 



