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?ublishedb><THEA ll^OoY CO. 



Si°°ptR'»tAR. '\§) "Medina-Ohio- 



Vol. XXXIII. 



MAY 1, 1905. 



No 9 



^Br.CCMiLLER, 



A CORRECTION. I said, p. 406, that in my 

 locality, when practicing the Sibbald non- 

 swarming plan, the bees may be counted on 

 to swarm later on "in most cases." I 

 should have said " in many cases." 



No ONE has done so much harm to the 

 market for extracted honey as bee keepers 

 themselves— those who have put unripe hon- 

 ey on the market. Yes, I know that is not 

 an original remark. E. D. Townsend said 

 practically the same thing, p. 416, and oth- 

 ers have said it; but it needs to be said a 

 good many times. 



Honey-dew may possibly, says Professor 

 Cook, p. 408, be better for bees than some- 

 thing else, because it needs no digestion. 

 Allow a layman to suggest, in a humble 

 way, that doubts arise. Isn't the bee built 

 to do a certain amount of digesting, and 

 better for the work if not overtasked in 

 that direction ? Protest has been made 

 against the idea of overdoing the matter of 

 providing predigested food for the human 

 stomach. 



Allow me to endorse the editor's word, 

 p. 420, "an eight-frame hive should not be 

 contracted at all," and in one respect 

 neither should any other. To the beginner 

 let me say, "Don't expect good section 

 work over dummies outside the brood- frames. 

 If your happiness depends on getting in a 

 few dummies— if you really feel you must 

 do it— don't put them at the side, but in the 

 middle of the brood-chamber. Of course 

 I'm speaking of harvest time." 



If that article by Clericus, p. 421, is to 

 serve as a sort of primer to the uninitiated, 

 would it not be well to say that the average 



life of a worker during the working season 

 is six weeks rather than five? [In some 

 cases six weeks will be too short, and in oth- 

 er cases five would be too long a period. If 

 tall grass and weeds are allowed to grow in 

 front of the entrances, the wear on the 

 wings will be more rapid. It is the wings 

 that wear out, not the whole bee. —Ed.] 



Harry Stevens wants to know, p. 431, 

 whether it's piping or quahking he'll hear 

 the evening before an after-swarm issues. 

 Both. It is just possible that there might be 

 only a single queen in the hive, and she 

 might quahk while in the cell, and pipe aft- 

 er emerging; but if you don't hear a free 

 queen piping and one or several quahkers re- 

 sponding, you m edn't expect an after-swarm. 

 First time you hear the noises you'll have no 

 trouble distinguishing them. Your after- 

 swarm four to six days after the prime swarm 

 was because wet weather or something else 

 delayed the issuing of the prime swarm, 

 that, of course, did not delay the maturing 

 of the young queens. You want to know 

 how to prevent excessive swarming. Doesn't 

 Mr. Doolittle's article that you're talking 

 about tell that nicely? 



" It IS HARD for me to explain why any 

 one should desire to use Hoffman frames 

 with long top- bars, " quoth ye editor, p. 429. 

 I wish, first time you have a chance, Mr. 

 Editor, you would get one of those men who 

 have tried short top-bars, and don't like 

 them, to open a hive and explain the thing 

 to you. I think you'd understand it. I 

 think that you'd find that the objection is 

 that one end of the top-bar drops down in- 

 side the rabbet, and you wouldn't like that 

 yourself. Po'^sibly I'm mistaken; and if 

 there is any objection besides the end of the 

 top-bar dropping down, will some objector 

 please tell us what it is ? Of course, with 

 exact measurements nothing of that kind 

 should take place, and it would take a lot of 

 money to get me to go back to long top-bars. 

 [But I have talked with some of those who 

 advocate the long top- bars. As you say, 

 the objection is given because the frames 



