1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



493 



Breed your queens to suit your demand 

 for honey-gatherers. 



There are bee-keepers who keep bees, 

 and then there are real bee-keepers. 



Scrub bees, scrub bee-keeping, and scrub 

 bee-keepers are usually found at the same 

 place. 



They say that bee-keepers should organize 

 to protect themselves. Why must they al- 

 ways be on the defense? 



Increased yields of the apiary must come 

 through better management if the strain of 

 bees is a good one; or if not, a good strain 

 must be secured, and the yard graded up by 

 using good breeding- queens of a known hon- 

 ey-gathering strain. Here is where im- 

 provement of stock comes in. 



All that is needed by a good many people 

 with the patent- medicine habit is to get out 

 into the sunshine. The apiary would be the 

 place for them. Surely nothing could bring 

 relief better than the bright sunshine, the 

 fresh air, the hum of the bees, and outdoor 

 exercise. Besides, fresh air and sunshine 

 are a very good sort of life insurance. 



The best of every thing is absolutely in- 

 dependent of market conditions. The best 

 creates its own price regardless of those 

 who control ordinary market conditions. 

 The writer has seen old dark honey offered 

 at 25 cents a gallon and the seller hunting 

 for buyers, and at the same time and place 

 he saw extra fancy comb honey in sections 

 selling at 25 cents a pound, and buyers 

 hunting the seller. 



TWO APICULTURAL BULLETINS. 



A bulletin on "The Rearing of Queen- 

 bees," by Dr. E. F. Phillips, Acting in 

 Charge of Apiculture, Bureau of Entomolo- 

 gy, Washington, D. C., came to my hands 

 same time ago. It is just such a bulletin as 

 I have wished for while at the Texas Ex- 

 periment Station. Many questions were re- 

 ceived in regard to the best methods of 

 queen- rearing and other information on this 

 subject. This bulletin could have been mail- 

 ed to such inquirers. It contains in compact 

 form the latest methods for rearing queens, 

 and much other information that will aid in 

 producing a better stock of bees. 



Another bulletin hails from Cuba, Circu- 



lar No. 29, Estacion Agronomica, on "Rais- 

 ing Bees Here in Cuba," by Ernest W. 

 Halsted. It is in the Spanish language, of 

 a practical nature in its contents, and large- 

 ly illustrated with half-tone plates. Such a 

 bulletin should do much good among the 

 common class of bee-keepers in replacing 

 the still much used "corchos" with our 

 modem frame hives, and leading the Cubans 

 to adopt the more modem methods and ap- 

 pliances. 



A HANDFUL OF BEES IN THE FALL. 



In Southwest Texas a mere handful of 

 bees in the fall, given a prolific young laying 

 queen, and placed on full combs of honey in 

 a hive, will give wonderful results the fol- 

 lowing season. They will winter safely, as 

 they go into winter quarters with a lot of 

 young bees. The usual fall honey-flows are 

 splendid to stimulate these little "babies," 

 and by winter they are in a prosperous con- 

 dition to come out next spring and breed up 

 to strong colonies for the honey- flow. There 

 is an abundance of nectar and pollen yield- 

 ing flora throughout the early spring, begin- 

 ning in January; and when the flow comes 

 in April these handfuls have turned into 

 rousing colonies to roll in the surplus. 



Having a young queen, there is little 

 swarming; and the less a colony is inclined 

 to swarm, the more honey it is likely to 

 gather. The rearing of drones is also re- 

 duced to a minimum — an important factor, 

 also, as it is with old queens, an overpro- 

 duction of drones means a lot of useless con- 

 sumers and a drain upon the colony in that 

 respect alone. Young queens will keep 

 brood- rearing going until late in the season, 

 putting the colonies in the best possible win- 

 tering condition. Late brood means a lot of 

 young bees over winter to do their best in 

 early spring when a strong force of such 

 bees is worth as much as five times as many 

 later in the season. 



Old queens will cease laying at the cessa- 

 tion of the honey-flow. The colony winters 

 with old bees which die off rapidly early next 

 spring, and leave the colony weak at just 

 the time when vigorous young bees are need- 

 ed. In consequence of this fact, colonies 

 with old queens drag behind all season, to 

 be outstripped by the others. The bee- 

 keeper can easily figure on which would 

 yield the best results. In my experience, 

 young vigorous queens of the previous sea- 

 son's rearing are what I want. 



OUTDOOR FEEDING. 



It becomes very necessary at times to 

 feed bees, and there are many ways of do- 

 ing this. My preference is to give combs of 

 sealed honey either from strong colonies or 

 from a stock of such combs stored away in 

 the honey-house. Of these, one can not al- 

 ways be in possession, however, especially 

 during or after a poor season. Extracted 

 honey would be our next resource, if we 

 have it, for I have always been much op- 

 posed to using any kind of honey from other 

 sources except our own, unless we are ab- 

 solutely certain that there is no danger of 



