APRIl- 1, 1916 



231 



requeened should be without supers or up- 

 per stories. Does the author of the smoke 

 plan know that in some parts of the coun- 

 ti*y supers or upper stories are kept on the 

 hives the year round, and it is not consid- 

 ered poor beekeeping, either? 



Now, I have the highest regard for Mr. 

 Miller. He is an original customer. He 

 has the courage to leave the beaten paths, 

 and go forth and find. For that I admire 

 him. And he generally finds something 

 worth while. No doubt, with his intimate 

 knowledge of bee behavior he can make use 

 of the smoke-in method with a vex'y small 

 per cent of loss. But the average beekeeper 

 does not realize the qualifying conditions, 

 and so he fails. At least, so many have 

 failed that this can hardly be called a suc- 

 cessful method. 



Let us look at the so-called " starvation " 

 or fasting plan. As I use it, this plan dif- 

 fers somewhat from the Simmins plan. The 

 essentials are these: See that the colony is 

 without queen or queen-cells; confine the 

 queen alone, and without food, for forty-five 

 minutes; push the hive cover or super over 

 an inch or so, blow a puff or two of smoke 

 into this opening, and let the queen run 



down among the frames; then replace the 

 cover, and the work is done. 



Now for results, and that is what counts. 

 Out of hundreds of queens introduced by 

 this method, my loss has been less than one 

 per cent ; and there are hundreds of bee- 

 keepers in this and other states who are 

 using this plan with uniform success, and 

 who will bear me out in this experience. 1 

 have failed a few times in trying to intro- 

 duce to laying-worker colonies; but, as Mr. 

 Miller well says, that is poor beekeeping. 

 I would not advise this nor any other meth- 

 od in that case, nor when the bees are 

 engaged in robbing. 



You don't have to wait till dark. I in- 

 troduce any queen, any time, anywhere I 

 want to, and the beauty of it is that any- 

 body else can do the same. Under the best 

 conditions I have lost twenty per cent of 

 queens introduced by the antiquated cage- 

 and-candy plan, and I don't believe others 

 who use it have much better success. That 

 may be a good thing for the queen-breedeis 

 so long as they don't guarantee safe intro- 

 duction. If you are looking for a safe and 

 sane method, try the fasting plan. 



Franklin, Tenn. 



A LARGE PRODUCER MUST BE A SMALL PRODUCER AT THE START 



BY J. B. DONOHO 



In 1912 I found a bee-tree near my home. 

 I sawed off the section of the trunk con- 

 taining the colony, and brought it to the 

 house and set it in one corner of the yard. 

 I watched them as tho I had a gold-mine, 

 but they swarmed in a few days, and all 

 left the stump. I don't blame them much 

 when I think of the house I had provided 

 for them. Then I bought some bees in box 

 hives — five colonies in all. I soon found, 

 however, that I had started beekeeping 

 the wrong way. 



The following winter I bought enough 

 hives to transfer all my colonies, and trans- 

 feiTed the first one March 4, and by the last 

 of March I had all five in new clean hives 

 with full sheets of foundation, using what 

 young brood they had in good straight 

 combs also. You see I had bought an A B 

 C and X Y Z of Bee Culture, and had learn- 

 ed a little about bees. 



As soon as possible I divided and made 

 ten colonies, getting a fair yield of honey 

 that season. 



In 1914 I increased to 23, reserving 5 to 

 be run for honey, and running the other 

 five for increase. I succeeded in getting 

 some honey from some of the colonies run 



for increase. I got over 200 pounds from 

 one of the colonies run for honey, making 

 a little over 1000 pounds of honey from my 

 apiary that year. 



I lost 3 colonies the following winter ; 

 but in the spring of 1915 I increased to 4.") 

 and got a fair yield of honey, about 50 

 pounds to the colony. I hope to increase to 

 100 colonies next spring. 



It takes a little common sense and back- 

 bone to start into beekeeping. Mr. Scholl 

 thinks the one-horse beekeeper ought to quit 

 and go away back and sit down. I agree 

 with him, since by his ignorance he runs 

 IDrices down; but I want to know how any 

 man, not knowing much about bees, can 

 start in the business without starting the 

 one-horse way. If some one had given me 

 200 colonies before I learned anything 

 about them I should not have known what 

 to do with them, and the whole thing would 

 have gone to the scrap-pile. I just won- 

 der how many colonies Mr. Scholl himself 

 started with. 



I sell all of my honey in my home town, 

 and cannot fill all of the ordere I get. For 

 comb honey I get 18 cts. a pound, and for 

 bulk comb honey 12^^. 



Grandview, Texas. 



