OCTOBER 1. 1916 



935 



Heads of Grain from Different Fields 



THE BACKLOT BUZZER. 



BY J. H. DONAHEY 



Uncle Benny Motherwort thoiight the sour smell 

 around the home yard was foul brood. When they 

 convinced him it was from goldenrod he was afraid 

 to eat it for fear he'd get the hay fever. Benny's 

 boy says his pap is such a pessimist that he chews 

 his quinine pills. 



Giving Away Stock to Reciueen a Locality. 



The thanks of the whole fraternity are 

 due J. L. Bj^er for his graceful and manly- 

 defense of queen-breeders on p. 185, March 1. 

 I have faith enough in humanity to believe 

 that most of the queen-breeders are trying 

 to do the right thing by their customers, 

 knowing that, unless they do so, they can 

 never hope to build up and hold a trade that 

 will justify them in following the business 

 as a vocation. 



No doubt there are some who advertise 

 themselves as queen-breeders who should 

 never have attempted that line of business. 

 They have been so excited over the great 

 profits (?) to be made by selling young 

 queens for 75 cents to $1.00 each that they 

 have rushed into the business without ade- 

 quate preparation. Before one attempts that 

 line of the bee business he should be sure 

 that he has a superior strain of bees, not as 

 shown by the yield of a few individual colo- 

 nies, for that may be the result of robbing, 

 but by the average results from all the colo- 

 nies. 



Then he should be sure that ho knows how 

 to rear the best queens. He should practice 

 for several years, rearing his own queens 



and noting how they turn out as honey- 

 gatherers. 



When he knows that he is fully qualified 

 along both these lines he should next clean 

 up all the hybrids and strains, other than 

 his own, within mating distance of his 

 queen-yard. This is not so difficult as it 

 may sound. He must not expect his neigh- 

 bors to purchase his queens at catalog prices. 

 They are not enough interested in bees for 

 that. If a neighbor has only a few colgnies 

 it is the cheapest plan to give him untested 

 queens and introduce them for him. If he 

 has from twelve to thirty or forty colonies 

 the young queens may be reared in the man 's 

 own yard from cells grafted with larvae from 

 our best breeders. A few colonies of pure 

 stock will usually be found. The drones of 

 those colonies may be allowed to fly, while 

 the drones of other colonies should be trap- 

 Ijed and the heads of all drone brood shaved 

 off. This will generally result in a fair 

 percentage of pure matings. Any mismated 

 queens may be replaced later. I have found 

 small beekeepers quite willing to co-operate 

 in requeening their bees. In fact, they are 

 usually delighted with the idea, when they 

 find it is not going to cost them any money. 

 If the would-be queen-breeder is too much of 

 a "tight wad" to do that much for his 

 neighbors, when it is himself that is to reap 

 the greater profit, he 'd better keep out of 

 the queen business, for he will certainly be 

 called upon to make greater sacrifices than 

 that. When he thinks he has all the hybrids 

 and bees of off color cleaned up in his neigh- 

 borhood he will still have a queen mismated 

 occasionally. 



Mathis, Texas. H. D. Murry. 



Newspaper-wrapped Hives, 



The method I use to prepare bees for 

 winter is not new, but it may be new to 

 some. An escape-board is first placed on 

 top of the hive-body, and, over the place 

 where the escape should be, a piece of bur- 

 lap. If the bees are short of stores I put on 

 a paper pie-plate or more of hard candy, 

 spaced from the escape-board by two or 

 three small sticks, and then the burlap. A 

 super is then set upon the escape-board and 

 filled with planer-shavings. 



I then take several newspapers or two 

 thicknesses of building paper and wrap the 

 hive up as I would a package (not the bot- 

 tom of course), folding the paper over the 

 top and then slipping the metal cover down 

 over the super, first placing a small stick or 

 nail on the edge of the super to make a little 

 air-space under the cover. 



The paper is then tied tight at the bottom 

 with a single piece of twine and pieces of 

 lath tacked up and down where the news- 

 papers overlap, or wherever the paper seems 

 to bulge a little, driving the nails only part 

 way in, so they may be easily removed in 



