(Entered as second-class matter July 30, 19i)T, at the Post-Offlce at Chlcat'o, 111., under Act ul March 3, ls7a.) 



Published Monthly at 75 cents a Year, by George W. York & Company, 146 West Superior Street, 



GEORGE W. YORK. Editor. 



DR. C. C. MILLER, Associate Editor. 



CHICAGO, ILL., DECEMBER, 1909 



Vol. XLIX-No. 12 



Merr.N C'liri.stiua.s Happy >ie\v 

 Year 



The blessed Christinas time will soon 

 be here again — the season of gifts, 

 gladsomeness and joy. "Ye editor" 

 wishes for all the readers of the old 

 American Bee Journal the very mer- 

 riest Christmas of all their lives. 



And then the New Year — lOlO — is 

 only about two weeks away. How rap- 

 idly the years come and go. And with 

 them come, oh, so many changes! Dear 

 ones that were with us have been taken 

 away ; reverses and losses have come 

 to some ; to others the years have 

 brought happiness and prosperity. But 

 the New Year bids us look ahead, and 

 not to regret the past. We need to 

 brace ourselves for the future and its 

 increasing duties. Let us all hope that 

 there may be brighter days just ahead 

 for the discouraged and disheartened ; 

 more contentment, peace and cheer 

 for the worried and fretted; and a 

 larger, richer and more successful ex- 

 perience for us all. Again " Ye Edi- 

 tor " has for each and every one — 



A New Year's Wish : 



" A brii,'ht New Year, and a sunny track. 



Alontj ,in upward way; 

 And a sonir of prai<ie on looking back 



When the year has passed away: 

 And Kolden sheaves— nor small, nor few — 

 TAis is my New Year's \vish for you.' 



The Winter IJroo«l-Ne.st 



An interesting discussion is on be- 

 tween Gleanings and The Canadian 

 Bee Journal. Speaking of feeding late 

 to such an extent as to have no empty 

 cells, Gleanings says: 



"Such a condition is not accordinsr to na- 

 ture; and one can readily see that a bunch 



ul bcf.-^. iiM m.iUcr how lartic. tliat is scp" 

 arated by slabs of solid honey or syrup can- 

 not keep as warm as where the combs are 

 empty and the bees can crawl into the cells, 

 thus establishint: bodily contact heat be- 

 tween several divisions of the bees sep- 

 arated only by the midribs in the combs. " 



But The Canadian doesn't " readily 

 see " it, and says : 



"To our mind it does seem unreasonable 

 to suppose that bees cannot cluster on 

 combs full of honey. We have been laboring 

 under the impression that this was the ideal 

 condition. * « » Bees clustering on 

 empty combs and going off at intervals to 

 feed on cokl honey is an idea that is difficult 

 for us to accept." 



The question really at issue is whether 

 part of the bees of a good colony in 

 winter enter the empty cells so as to 

 be nearer together to keep warm, or 

 whether, as The Canadian hints, bees 

 only occupy these empty cells when 

 starved to death. If this question be 

 settled in a positive manner one way 

 or the other, the discussion will have 

 served an excellent purpose. 



Important Factors iii Bee-Keeping 



John Silver, in the Irish Bee Jour- 

 nal, quotes W. L. Coggshall as con- 

 sidering "locality to be the first consid- 

 eration, the man second, the bees third, 

 and the hive fourth." Mr. Silver would 

 place the four factors in the following 

 order of importance: Locality, bees, 

 man, hive. Probably most would agree 

 with these two men in putting local- 

 ity (or pasturage) at the head of the 

 list, and the hive at the foot. Whether 

 to consider the man or the bees the 

 more important factor is a matter not 

 so easily settled. 



The question might be put in this 

 form : Which will bring the better re- 

 sults, a good bcc-kceper with a poor 



strain of bees, or a poor bee-keeper with 

 a good strain of bees? It is plain 

 that before we can have a definite an- 

 swer we must have some definite no- 

 tion as to the difference there is be- 

 tween a good and a poor bee-keeper, 

 and also between a good and a poor 

 strain of bees. When we come to deal 

 with the question in that light, we see 

 at once that we are dealing with fac- 

 tors that are varying quantities. There 

 arc all grades of bee-keepers, from 

 very good to very poor, and the same 

 may be said of bees. For the sake 

 of having something definite, we might 

 assume that with the same bees a good 

 bee-keeper would get so per cent more 

 honey than a poor bee-keeper ; also that 

 under the same management a good 

 strain of bees would gather more honey 

 than a poor strain. In that case the 

 good bee-keeper with the poor bees 

 ought to get the same amount of honey 

 as the poor bee-keeper with the good 

 bees. 



Looks a little as if the right answer 

 might depend upon whether there is 

 more difference in men or in bees. That 

 may vary in different regions, so it is 

 possible that both Mr. Coggshall and 

 Mr. Silver are right, each one for his 

 own locality. 



After all, the important point for the 

 beginner is what he can do to improve 

 one or all of these factors; and very 

 likely his first question will be, "Which 

 one can I do the most to improve?" 

 Improvement of locality is more or less 

 out of the question ; the bee-keeper seeks 

 a good location, and then does very 

 little to make it any different. If it is 

 difficult to make any difference in pas- 

 turage, it certainly is not difficult to 

 make a difference in hives, and it is 

 nothing unusual for the beginner to 

 think that because it is so easy for 

 him to make something different it is 

 easy to make something better. As he 

 becomes seasoned, however, he wisely 

 concludes that it isn't so easy as he 

 thought to make a better hive than any 

 already made ; and so his chance for 

 improvement is limited to improving the 

 bee-keeper and the bees. 



Very likely it is of more importance 

 to improve the bee-keeper; and this will 

 be done in every way possible, by close 



