THE AMERICAN A PIC UL TUB 1ST. 



are sure to gnaw it away along the bot- 

 tom-bar. After much experimenting I 

 am satisfied that the only sure way of 

 securing combs fast all around is by re- 

 versing the frames. 



Sections full of foundation I have al- 

 ways regarded as an abomination. Con- 

 sumers complain of most of our fancy 

 sections of honey as being tough and 

 waxy, and draw comparisons between 

 them and the honey they used to get 

 from log gums and bee-trees that are 

 not at all flattering to our modern prod- 

 uct. I liave never yet seen a comb 

 built on a full sheet of foundation that 

 I could not readily tell from one built 

 on a starter. The foundation is still 

 there even when the comb is built under 

 the most favorable circumstances and 

 by exercising a little care the cells and 

 honey may be scraped off the septum 

 leaving the foundaticjn intact. The crisp 

 tenderness, or if you will, the high ex- 

 cellence of our comb-honey product has 

 been sacrificed to by far too great an 

 extent in our anxiety to secure a larger 

 quantity. But do we secure a larger 

 quantity by use of full sheets in sections ? 

 I doubt it very much, and my doubts 

 have been so strong that for several 

 years I have used only narrow starters 

 in my sections. The honey so obtained 

 is much more acceptable on my own 

 table and I have every evidence that it 

 is also more acceptable on the tables 

 of my customers. 



Tb.is part of Iowa is compelled to re- 

 cord a total failure in the honey crop 

 this season. Possibly one-third the col- 

 onies in the country secured enough to 

 winter on. The others had to be fed 

 from five to twenty pounds of syrup. 

 I anticipate heavy winter losses. 



Denison, Iowa. Z. T. Hawk. 



CHARACTERISTICS THAT ENSURE 



SUCCESS OR FAILURE IN 



BEE CULTURE. 



Stick-to-itiveness is one ofthe first and 

 foremost traits that ensures success in any 

 occupation of life, but more especially 

 in beekeeping, as there are times, when 

 everything seems to work against the 

 little busy bee ; but as soon as a favor- 

 able year comes, and just as quickly, the 

 clouds pass away, and everything looks 

 as if there could never be anything 

 but success. The business is very flat- 

 tering when all goes well, and unless one 

 possesses stick-to-itiveness it is worse 

 than useless to engage in the business. 



TUE CARELKSS MAN. 



It will hardly pay him to even buy a 

 colony of bees, better spend the money 

 in buying honey for the family. 



It is such men who injure the bee 

 business most; he buys one or more 

 colonies of blacks, and lets them build 

 as much drone comb as they please, 

 generally raising as many drones as the 

 whole neighborhood needs and this is 

 why it is so hard to keep our bees pure. 



Can you tell us, Mr. Editor, why it 

 is that our bees continually breed back 

 to blacks when every scientific bee- 

 keeper in the land is trying to weed out 

 all black blood, if it were not for the 

 millions of black drones raised by these 

 same careless bee men and bee women ? 



Year ago last spring we had a strong 

 queenless colony. One day while stand- 

 ing beside it, I wondered at the host of 

 drones the hive seemed to contain ; 

 quickly I ran it through to see if I had not 

 by some mistake given it one or more 

 drone-combs, that we keep especially for 

 storing honey for winter, but could find 

 no such combs, only small patches of 

 drone comb. Then I noticed these 



