39^ 



December, 1909. 



American Vee Jonrnal 



observation and study of books and bee- 

 papers, by attendance at conventions and 

 conferring with other bee-keepers — in 

 short, by every means within his pow- 

 er; — but that isjiSno reason he should 

 wait until he becomes a thoroughly im- 

 proved bee-keeper before he attempts 

 improvement of his bees. Just as soon 

 as he has more than one colony of bees 

 let him begin to take careful note of 

 what each colony does, and then per- 

 sistently breed from the best. 



Let it, then, be the ambition of every 

 beginner to be not merely a bee-keeper, 

 but to be one of the very best of bee- 

 keepers, and to have the very best bees 

 it is possible to possess. This will tend 

 to the highest enjoyment in the busi- 

 ness, and at the same time to the high- 

 est financial reward. 



The National Election Result 



The election by mail-ballot, of the 

 National Bee-Keepers' Association, was 

 held as usual during the month of 

 November. As reported to us by the 

 General Manager, this is the result : 



President— George W. York, of Chicago. 



Vice-President— W. D. Wright, of Alta- 

 mont, N. Y. 



Secretary— Louis H. Scholl, o£ New 

 Braunfels. Tex. 



General Manager and Treasurer— N. 

 E. France, of Platteville. Wis. 



Directors (1 elected each year)— J. E. 

 Crane, of Middlebury, Vt. : E. F. Atwater. of 

 Meridian. Idaho; and R. A. Morgan, of Ver- 

 million. S. Dal{. 



The president-elect wishes to express 

 his deep appreciation of the high honor 

 conferred upon him, and the confi- 

 dence reposed in him, in this election 

 for 'he third time to the presidency of 

 the National Bee-Keepers' Association 

 — the largest organization of bee-keep- 

 ers on this continent. It has now some- 

 thing like 3500 in its membership. In 

 1896 he was first elected president (at 

 Lincoln, Nebr.), and re-elected in 1897 

 at Buffalo, N. Y. He hopes, if possible, 

 with the earnest co-operation of the 

 officiary and the rank and file, not only 

 to have the biggest and best annual 

 convention of bee-keepers in 1910, but 

 to increase the membership during the 

 next year (Shall it be to 5000?), and 

 also to make the National Bee-Keepers' 

 Association of larger benefit to all bee- 

 doni than it has ever been in its exis- 

 tence of 40 years. Will not all join in 

 such efforts, and thus help to establish 

 the business of bee-keeping upon a 

 firmer and more enduring foundation 

 than it has today? 



Getting Honey Out of Cappings 



Some put the cappings in a solar 

 wax-extractor, and when the melted 

 product cools, the wax and honey will 

 be separate. But there is some danger 

 that the honey may have a cooked taste. 

 It is a common practise to put the cap- 

 pings in a barrel or other vessel with 

 cotton-cloth or wire^cloth in the bot- 

 torn, through which the honey slowly 

 drains, the honey thus obtained being 

 of best quality, provided honey of best 

 quality was in the comb. But this 

 leaves still a considerable amount of 

 honey adhering to the combs. Nearly 

 all of this can be drained out by giving 

 it a little time in a damp cellar, the 

 thin drippings being used to make 



vinegar. J. A. Crane has a plan by 

 which the least remnant may be got 

 out after being drained, or the whole 

 cleaned up without any previous drain- 

 ing. He says in the Bee-Keepers' Re- 

 view : 



After my cappings have drained all they 

 will. 1 jam them into kegs or large 6-gallon 

 pails, and turn them on their sides witli the 

 top over a telescope cover or large box. out- 

 of-doors or in an open building. The bees 

 work them over, and they fall into the box; 

 and when the bees leave them they are as 

 dry as bran; and. to my mind, in much bet- 

 ter shape for melting; and the bees have the 

 lioney, which is of little value if cooked up 

 with the wax. Of course, a barrel would 

 need quite a large box. and the bees would 

 take quite a while to dig it all out, and. as 

 with a targe keg. it would hasten matters a 

 bit to give the barrel an occasional turn so 

 as to get the bulk of the cappings on the 

 upper side. ^^^^_^_____ 



Eggs Delayed in Hatching 



D. M. M. reports in the British Bee 

 Journal, that the past season was un- 

 usual in having such changes of tem- 

 perature a number of times that the 

 cluster of bees of the brood-nest 

 shrank, leaving the larvae out in the 

 cold to perish ; bnt when the cluster 

 expanded with the warming up of the 

 weather, the eggs that had been left 

 out in the cold hatched out all -right. 

 Careful watching showed that " appar- 

 ently these eggs had been lying inert 

 for about 3 weeks." 



Dzierzon reported the same thing, 

 although the case he reported was not 

 from force of circumstances, appar- 

 ently, but from volition on the part of 

 the bees. Probably delay in hatching 

 out eggs is not very uncommon, 

 although under ordinary circumstances 

 it necessarily escapes observation. The 

 careful observer will perhaps not fail 

 to have noticed that sometimes, when 

 a queen has been removed, quite a few 

 cells of unsealed brood will be found 

 present in the hive 10 days or more 

 after her removal, although normally 

 all brood should be sealed in 8 or 9 

 days. 



Larger Cells and Larger Bees 



In Prakt. Wegweiser, mention is 

 made of larger cells than common be- 

 ing used in comb foundation by the 

 French Abbe Pincot. Instead of 5 

 cells to the inch, there were 4.53. 

 Larger bees resulted, and from 30 col- 

 onies of these lar,ger bees he harvested 

 just about 50 percent more than from 

 31 colonies having bees of the usual 

 size. 



It seems a little strange that in this 

 country so little attention has been 

 given to the size of bees. Years ago 

 A. I. Root conceived the idea of get- 

 •ting increased size by using foundation 

 with cells much larger than the usual 

 size. The bees seemed not to under- 

 stand fully what was required of them, 

 and used a good many of the cells as 

 drone-cells. The experiment was given 

 up as a bad job. If, instead of such 

 large cells, Mr. Root had used cells 

 just a little larger than ordinary, the 

 result might have been dififerent. At 

 one time a Florida bee-keeper had bees 

 considerably larger than usual, so that 

 the natural comb built by them was 

 perhaps midway between worker and 

 drone-cells in size. 



There can be little doubt that the 

 size of bees may be increased. But will 



more honey be secured from an apiary 

 of these larger bees? The single in- 

 stance given points plainly in that 

 direction, but one swallow does not 

 make a summer. Perhaps the thought 

 that nothing is to be gained by in- 

 creased size has prevented effort in 

 that line, and it is quite possible that 

 there would be no real gain. 



Piping and Qnahking of Queens 



Although constant advance is being 

 made in bee-culture it is doubtful 

 whether bee-keepers at large have at the 

 present time as much practical knowl- 

 edge of the noises made by a queen 

 as they had 50 years ago. Nothing 

 strange about this, since these noises are 

 generally connected with swarming, and 

 nowadays a very large number of bee- 

 keepers try their best to have no swarm- 

 ing occur. 



One of the brightest young practition- 

 ers shows lack of a working acquaint- 

 ance with the notes made by queens, 

 when he says in an agricultural paper, 

 speaking of the piping of queens : 



"This is a sound that few people hear, 

 but it is easily heard if the right time 

 is chosen. It resembles the note of the 

 katydid more than anything else, though 

 it is neither so long nor so loud. 



"This noise is made by the young 

 queens while still in their cells. It is 

 the war-cry of hostile forces." 



No hint is given as to more than one 

 tone, and yet the quahking of a queen 

 is something quite different from piping, 

 and more queens may be heard quahking 

 than piping. Instead of the piping be- 

 ing "made by the young queens while 

 still in their cells," a queen never pipes 

 while in the cell. Piping is the note 

 made by a queen that is out of the cell, 

 qiiahhing is the noise made by a queen 

 that has not yet emerged from her cell. 



To this some one may reply, "It seems 

 hardly worth while to have two names 

 for the same thing, for the only differ- 

 ence between piping and what you call 

 quahking is that the latter is more muf- 

 fled because the queen is in the cell." 

 Any one who has such a belief would 

 do well to allow at least one natural 

 swarm so as to have a chance to hear 

 for himself the piping and quahking. Go 

 to the hive in the evening, after the bees 

 have stopped flying, about 8 days after 

 the prime swarm has issued, perhaps an 

 evening or two before this, perhaps one 

 or more after, put your ear to the hive 

 and listen. At first you may hear noth- 

 ing but a confusion of noises of dififer- 

 ent kinds made bv the workers, but in 

 a very short time the piping will be eas- 

 ily distinguished from all other sounds, 

 louder and clearer, so that you may even 

 hear it sometimes a few feet away from 

 the hive. Immediately after the piping 

 you will hear a queen quahking — more 

 likely several queens will respond by 

 quahking. Do you recognize no differ- 

 ence except that the responding tones 

 are mufiled? Listen again, and note the 

 length of the tones. The queen that 

 pipes makes first a long note, much long- 

 er than any note of quahking, imme- 

 diately a note of the same kind a little 

 shorter, and each succeeding note short- 

 er until the close. In contrast with this 

 the sounds of quahking, while coarser, 

 seem more hurried, and of pretty much 



