February, igoc). 



American See Journal 



gathered, and the plants by ciivirim 

 menls caused by situation, heal, anil 

 moisture, and the best way to judfje of 

 a ferment is liy the taste of the fer- 

 menting substance. 



To phice the honey ferment along- 

 side of the alcoholic or acetic acid of 

 vinegar, should be compared to placing 

 corn beside the bitter weeds. The low 

 alcoholic ferments are as the moss 

 which grows on the most barren rocks 

 and require ages to show perceptible 

 progress and living entirely upon at- 

 mospheric elements. 



The purpose of alcoholic and acetic 

 acid vinegar ' is to give tart or acid 

 flavor to insipid foods. Being deficient 

 in its equivalent elements it absorbs 

 from the food such elements as it lacks. 

 These elements are oxygen and its at- 

 tendant electro - magnetism. Whenever 

 foods contain these elements in sufficient 

 amounts they are not insipid. When a 

 mouthful of bread' is masticated with 

 saliva its starch changes into sugar, and 

 the sugar renders the bread sweet in 

 taste and in need of no farther flavoring 

 or lubrication. If it does not act that 

 way, then salivation is poor, or else the 

 bread is "make-believe" bread. Butter, 

 honey, or vinegar added to a dead sub- 

 stance is like putting cartoons ( not car- 

 tons) on sections of honey which would 

 be hard to sell otherwise. The cartoon 

 does not sell the honey, but the honey 

 sells the cartoon. Hungry people do 

 not come to the grocery store to buy 

 pictures. Fancy receptacles and pic- 

 tures are "make believes." Turn them 

 down ! "Turn down" the dealer and 

 "turn down" the producer. This matter 

 of nutritious food is one of the instances 

 where the "liand-to-mouth" fashion of 

 living should be superelegant. 



Cartoons of fancy girls, fat bums, and 

 highly-colored posies work finely in the 

 store and along the way home, but when 

 the contents are spread before the 

 guests, there are likely to be misgiv- 

 ings. The disappointments come from 

 the inside, not from the outer show 

 of the package. If there were no dis- 

 appointments in the foods there would 

 be no need of showy packages. Showy- 

 packages are one of the prolific causes 

 of perverted appetites, diseased diges- 

 tive organs, and the filling of "early 

 graves." Put a quietus on the murder- 

 ous work by keeping this outside show 

 between yourself and the grave. Let it 

 die the death it merits. If nutritious 

 food can not be bought then learn to 

 produce it. You will have to study. 

 Perhaps progress backward one or two 

 generations. It may make us odd and 

 unpopular. The sacrifice is worth while 

 if you value life. 



Most of the competition of the pres- 

 ent age is in the searching for the most 

 worthless substance to put up in the 

 most deceptive packages and sell at the 

 same price as the genuine, honest prod- 

 uct. Alcoholic vinegars cause us to eat 

 food for the vinegar only, and a greater 

 quantity than the system needs, so that 

 the bulkiness is a clog to digestion, and 

 for this there is much repentance, but 

 the causes of the troubles are not dis- 

 covered. 



The commendable qualities of acetic 

 vinegar are a deception and a snare — 

 its sparkling clearness, its keeping, and 

 its ethereal penetration. It is a bare 



foot on a live coal of fire. It creates 

 activity — in a way. We can not con- 

 scientiously fight such frauds as corn 

 .syrup while matters are tangled in the 



honey camp. If chemical science can do 

 no better, we best go back to the vinegar 

 our mothers used to make. 

 Chatsworth, Calif. 



mmeE>-:',rm^ 



'Beedotiv3 

 jBoiled DownJ 



SoiiK' \ a Het ies of Bet s. 



In a well studied article in the Bee- 

 Keeper's Review, Ralph Benton, speak- 

 ing of Cyprians, says : 



"In temper they arc very excitable and, 

 when once aroused, their temper is of longer 

 duration than other bees. In opening the 

 hives, care should be taken not to j ar them 

 or let the light in too suddenly. The writer 

 prefers to handle them without smoke, as they 

 resent its application, characteristically stand- 

 ing and sizzling until it clears away, when 

 they vent their rage and sting viciously. On 

 the other hand, with care, Cyprians can be 

 handled with perfect immunity without veil or 

 other protection. They are a most vigorous 

 and prolific variety, good honey-gatherers, and 

 defend their hives well. They shake easily 

 from the combs, although they remain quiet 

 under manipulation. They are good winterers, 

 and appear to be most resistant to the attacks 

 of disease. They have the longest tongues of 

 any bees, and so visit a wider range of flowers. 

 They will find honey when other bees give up, 

 and their power of flight is markedly better 

 than some other varieties. They cap their 

 honey watery, due to the filling of the cells 

 so full, and they do not gather much propolis. 

 They start innumerable queen-cells, and so, 

 in point of number, are desirable for the queen- 

 breeder, though their cells are not as large as 

 those of Carniolans — the largest cell builders." 



After speaking of the gentleness of 

 the Caucasians, he says : 



"They- are good honey-gatherers, defend their 

 hives well, winter well, build up rapidly, and 

 we 'have reason to believe are fairly disease- 

 resistant. They cap their honey only fairly 

 white, and gather propolis at certain seasons, 

 namely in the fall, thus not making this an 

 undesirable tendency for comb honey produc- 

 tion. The propolis when gathered is bunched 

 about the entrance and lower part of the hive 

 in an interesting and peculiar manner. These 

 bees, together with the Cyprians, have an aver- 

 age swarming tendency on account of their 

 prolificness and are better kept in large hives." 



As to Carniolans : 



"They may be handled with but little or no 

 smoke under ordinary circumstances, and re- 

 spond well to its use. They are the most 

 excellent winterers and build up the fastest 

 of any bees, rearing brood under the most ad- 

 verse conditions. They are the least incimed 

 to rob of any bees, and are most excellent 

 searchers for honey. They have splendid pow- 

 ers of flight, but are governed by atmospheric 

 changes in a most noticeable degree. At all 

 times it may be said that they show their ex- 

 act emotional, or other states, and so are a 

 bee well adapted for general use, since the 

 apiarist can depend upon them and may know 

 their condition in an instant. They are very 

 prolific and do not permit ot crowding. They 

 cap their honey white, and gather the least 

 propolis of any bees." 



With regard to crosses, he thinks the 

 two most promising are those resulting 

 from the mating of queens of pure 

 Cyprian blood to drones of Carniolan 

 blood, and the like queens mated to 

 Caucasian drones. It is found, in gen- 

 eral, that the queen transmits the pro- 

 lificness, honey-gathering, and like quali- 

 ties, while the drone transmits the tem- 

 per, and he says : "In the case of the 

 majority of the Cyprio-Carniolan or 

 Cyprio-Caucasian queens the desirable 



qiuiliuc^ ij[ the two varieties obtain 

 in the progeny." But, as Editor Hutch- 

 inson says with regard to these crosses, 

 "the difficulty is to retain them — as the 

 years go by there are all sorts of mi.x- 

 ups." 



Size of Brood-Chamber and Swarming 



It may be that those who are just be- 

 ginning bee-keeping may learn, before 

 the close of their careers, just what 

 steps to take to prevent all swarming, 

 but it certainly is not yet a solved prob- 

 lem. Some things, to be sure, are pretty 

 generally agreed on, but even as to some 

 of these, questionings sometimes arise. 



It is pretty generally agreed that a 

 very small brood-chamber favors swarm- 

 ing, and that a large one goes a long 

 way toward prevention, and the very 

 small amount of swarming the Dadants 

 have had with their large brood-cham- 

 bers strongly argues in that direction. 

 Yet if size of brood-chamber alone 

 would settle the matter, we ought eas- 

 ily to settle upon a size beyond which 

 there would be absolutely no swarming. 

 That size has never been found : bees 

 have been known to swa^'.oi when they 

 had unlimited room in the brood-cham- 

 ber, as in an attic. 



The fact is, probably, that the size of 

 the brood-nest, or the room occupied by 

 the queen, is the important thing, and 

 this does not always coincide with the 

 size of the brood-chamber. While it 

 is impossible to have a very large brood- 

 nest in a very small brood-chamber, it 

 is possible to have a limited brood-nest 

 in a very large brood-chamber. 



This matter is discussed in the Irish 

 Bee Journal, by that level-headed 

 Scotchman. D. M. Macdonald. He ar- 

 gues that a frame may be too deep as 

 well as too shallow, the bees occupying 

 too much of the deep frame with honey. 

 So he favors a medium depth, and 

 thinks the "standard" is about as near 

 the right thing as we are likely to strike. 

 The "standard" frame adopted by the 

 British Beekeepers' Association is l/x 

 85^. and doubtless that is the frame to 

 which he refers. He says: 



"Last year my only swarm was from a large 

 hive, and I read lately of a case where all 

 the large hives swarmed, placed alongside those 

 with frames the equivalent in depth of our 

 standard size. In another case known to me, 

 as many swarms are obtained from deep as 

 from standard frames, and as a rule they 

 swarm before there is any apparent necessity. 



"A fellow teacher, fond of experiment, sup- 

 plies me with the following in regard to deep 

 frames as a deterrent. He made hives with 

 frames 17 inches by 13 inches deep, thinking 

 that thus he would check or eliminate the 

 swarming impulse. Every one of these swarmed, 

 though the brood-chamber was not taken full 



