September, 1909. 



305 



American liee Journal 



oiif is about as safe from sthiKS as tlie oilier. 



Sew a iiair of white sleeves to tlie tops of 

 vourKloves.havingthem lonsr eiiouKli to reach 

 well up over your shoulders. The sleeves 

 cut from men's wornout shirts, if the sleeves 

 arc whole, do very well and save makint; If 

 not lout; enough you can piece them out. 

 Have the sleeves fit rather closely around 

 the shoulders, so the bees cannot crawl in- 

 side. Fasten them together in the back with 

 a piece of white rubber tape an inch wide 

 and four or five inches long, sewing each end 

 of the tape to a sleeve. Fasten in the same 

 wav in front, only, instead of sewing one end 

 of the tape to the sleeve, work a buttonhole 

 and sew a button on the sleeve. In this way 

 vour sleeves and gloves can be slipped on or 

 off quickly, and are perfectly safe so far as 

 stings are concerned. A big apron one made 

 of denim is good, if you don't think it too 

 warm . with a couple of good-sized pockets, 

 finishes up the suit. 



Now. if you have a good bee-hat with a veil 

 sewed securely on the edge of the brim, and 

 a rubber cord run in the bottom edge, and 

 pull the veil down taut in front, and fasten 

 witli a safety-pin. I think you may feel pretty 

 secure as to stings, and not suffer very 

 greatly from heat, either. 



the honey sn as tci well incorporate 

 them. 3. Add while stirring, little by 

 little, the flour, then the nut, and lastly 

 the beaten egg-froth. 4. Butter a 

 mould, place in it the paste, and bake 

 in a slow oven for half an hour. — 

 /British Bcc Journal. 



A Poor Quality of Honey 



At this date (July 19) there has been 

 a very poor quality of honey stored. 

 Tlie bees do not seem to work on the 

 white clover. 'White locust bloomed 

 very full, and honey stored from that 

 was dark, the quantity was all right, 

 but the quality necessitates a low price, 

 almost having to give it away, which is 

 very discouraging to " Ohio Bee- 

 Woman." who depended upon the pro- 

 ceeds of tlie apiary for a few fine 

 clothes. However, I shall not give up. 



Ohio. 



Nut Honey-Cake 



M. Bourgeois gives the following 

 recipe in the Bulletin d'.^piciilture 

 Romande : 



1. Take 100 gr. (3>^ oz.) of nuts, well 

 skinned and pounded; 300 gr. (10>^ 

 oz.) of liquid honey; si.x eggs, the 

 whites of which must be beaten to a 

 frofh; 100 gr. ViYz oz.) of sifted flour. 

 2. First mix the yolks of the eggs with 



A Brother's Mother Gone 



.\ note from R. B. Perry, of Tennes- 

 see, speaks very feelingly of the loss of 

 his mother wlio had been so much of 

 a help with the bees. Yes, these dear 

 mothers, how we miss them when they 

 are .gone, and how glad we then are of 

 any little act of kindness shown them 

 iluring lifetime. 



Mi'l^li"'- .'-•'.^4:J<!:L 



oufherii 



O^eedom.^ 



Conducted by Lf)UIS H. SCHOLL, New Braunfels, Tex. 



Selecting a Good Queen Before Testing 



It would seem from what has been 

 written on queen-rearing, how to select 

 good queens, etc., that there is but little 

 left to be said or written on the subject. 

 Still, all bee-keepers are interesteil very 

 much in this subject, for more depends 

 upon the kind of queen we have at the 

 head of our colonies than any other 

 one thing cimnected with successful 

 bee-keeping, .^nd to those of us who 

 are trying to run one or more out-api- 

 aries, it is of much importance to know 

 what to expect of a young ijueen be- 

 fore taking her to the out-apiary to re- 

 place some failing queen, or have to 

 keep her until tested. This is on the 

 supposition that most of our honey- 

 producers rear their own queens, as I 

 do in the home apiary, and follow Dr. 

 C. C. Miller's advice as given in " Forty 

 Years ,\mong the Bees;" that is, select 

 all the very best colonies from the out- 

 yards and keep them at the home; then 

 select one of the I'ciy best of these se- 

 lect colonies to rear all queens from. 

 By this method we stand a good show 

 of having all our queens mated to 

 select drones ; and 1 fear this is as 

 near having control over the mating of 

 queens as we ever will have. I'.ven this, 

 though, if followed up with care and 



judgment, will give much better results 

 than the average apiarist is in the habit 

 of getting from his bees. I know this 

 from having practiced it for a good 

 many years myself. 



I hope the editor and our readers 

 will not look on this as a sort of free 

 advertisement I am trying to get into 

 the reading columns of this paper, for 

 I wish it understood that I rear no 

 queens for the trade, but only for my 

 own use. 



Now I will tell how I select good 

 queens without waiting to test them : 

 In making the selections I pay no at- 

 tention as to color of the young 

 queens, as I breed mostly from im- 

 ported Italian stock, and many of my 

 queens would be considered blmk by 

 the average apiarist. The first thing I 

 look for is to see that the queen is per- 

 fect in form ; that is, has no crippled 

 legs or defective wings. It is not nec- 

 essary that she should be very large, 

 that is, extremely large, neither would 

 I tolerate a little, runty "squib" of a 

 queen, but select one with a large head 

 and broad shoiflders (thorax), and her 

 wings should be large, and stand out 

 from the body. This, perhaps, you will 

 say is old, and has lieen gone over 

 many times in the past. Perhaps so, 

 but this is not all. The surest way I 



have of telling a good queen is by the 

 looks of her brood after it is sealed or 

 capped over. Even if the patch ot 

 brood is not large, if it is as smooth as 

 a dressed board on both sides of the 

 comb, and every cell of exactly the 

 same bight, with no missing cells, then 

 I pronounce her all right, and I will 

 not be fooled one time in fifty. 



The point I wish to call special at- 

 tention to is this: If the queen is 

 weak, or in any way defective, the bees 

 will not cap the brood with this smooth, 

 " ginger - bread " appearance, as they 

 will the brood of an extra-good queen. 



The brood of a poor queen will have 

 an uneven, rough appearance, some of 

 the cells slightly higher than others. I 

 don't mean by this that the slightly 

 raised cells contain drone-brood, for 

 that would be a sure sign of a poor 

 queen ; but some cells are slightly 

 raised above the others. 



Rescue, Tex. L. B. Smith. 



A Bee-Shed in Texas 



The following letter has beon sent 

 me for an answer : 



Mk. Scholi^I w-ould like your opinion of a 

 shed for bees for shade. 12 feet wide, building 

 it east and west, with 2 rows of hives facing 

 north and south. How far apart sh<juld the 

 liives be in the row to insure the safe return 

 of Queens^ Do you think one could produce 

 enough more honey to pay? IMease answer 

 in the American Bee Journal. 



C. H. M11.1.KR. 



Crystal City. Tex.. Aug. u. 



Regarding bee-sheds, I have always 

 had my doubts as to whether it would 

 pay to huild them. First, they are ex- 

 pensive, and must be kept up, and, 

 second, because the shade made by 

 them seems too dense for the bees to 

 do their best, especially the bees on 

 north side. / prefer natural shade. 

 where it can be had, and that whicli is 

 not too dense. Live-oak trees are 

 condemned by me, while I do like the 

 partial shade made by our mesquite 

 trees, of which there are a plenty in 

 your locality. This does away with 

 the expense of building sheds, and with 

 my now 20 apiaries and more develop- 

 ing, this would be quite a large ex- 

 pense. Then, later, the repairs on them 

 would be no small item, which, how- 

 ever, is only. too often neglected. And 

 from the few bee-sheds I have seen, 

 which were all the more or less neg- 

 lected, they became the most abomin- 

 able places in whicli to keep bees, but 

 were just ideal dwelling places for 

 spiders, wasps, and numerous other 

 vermin. 



There has been only one reason why 

 I should like to have a shed for my 

 bees, and that is, that it would enable 

 me to use a hive-lifting device which 1 

 have had in mind a long time. Some- 

 thing very similar has recently ap- 

 peared in Gleanings in Bee Culture. I 

 would have two rows of posts, how- 

 ever, and then I would arrange for the 

 two scantlings running along the upper 

 end of the posts. Cross pieces to hold 

 the whole together should be put on, 

 and rafters with a ridge-pole to finish 

 the frame. The carrier can be at- 

 tached on another scantling just far 

 enough from the inside of the shed so 

 as to hang over the roofs of the hives. 



Instead of making a solid roof over 



