THE AMERICAN APIGULTURIST. 



103 



I remember a few years ago talking with 

 a farmer who was tlien pre|)aring a lead 

 of tomatoes for market and he remarked 

 that it was at that time easier to sell a 

 wagon load of tomatoes, than when lie 

 first began to raise them to sell a jjeck. 

 The reason why it is difficult to sell 

 honey is that people generally have not 

 learned to use it. Eight ounces ])er 

 year for each person in the United 

 States seems a very small quantity, but 

 I presume that a large percentage even 

 of that quantity is sold through the 

 drug houses for medicinal purposes. 



I have described what I believe is 

 "the coming bee" and it seems to me 

 that there is nothing impossible or un- 

 reasonable in the ideas advanced. If 

 a proper amount of enterprise is shown 

 1 see no reason why we should have to 

 wait many years before the ideal is real- 

 ized, because breeders are now begin- 

 ning to understand the science of breed- 

 ing and are giving u)) the old haphaz- 

 ard methods and therefore progress is 

 certain to be much more rapid than it 

 has been in the past. 



New York City. J. Edward Giles. 



BEE-NOTES FROM SLEEPY HOLLOW. 



FULL SUEETS OFFOUNDATIOX. 



My objections to full sheets of foun- 

 dation in brood frames and especially 

 in sections have called out numerous 

 criticisms both in the journals and in 

 private letters. I am as far from being 

 convinced as ever. 'l"he only valid ob- 

 jection I find to my position is made by 

 Mr. Demaree, when he states that in 

 securing combs for extracting pur|)oses 

 he would use full sheets of foundation. 

 That is right. So would I, and I 'had so 

 stated in the notes from which my ar- 

 ticle was written, but by some oversight 

 I omitted to state the exception. It 

 is not my intention to discourage the 

 use of foundation. On the contrary, I 

 regard it as indispensable to successful 

 honey production ; used in moderation 

 it is certainly a good thing, but used in 

 excess it is a detriment when we view 



results from a dollar-nnd-cent stand- 

 point. I am well acquainted widi men 

 owning irom four to a dozen colonies 

 of bees who have in the last two years 

 spent more for foundation tiian tiieir 

 entire honey crops with bees and hive 

 thrown in would bring in the market. 

 And while I am kicking about needless 

 expense in beekeeping 1 am going to 

 give one gentle little kick about buying 

 so many queen bees. These same men 

 mentioned above, with their half dozen 

 colonies each, have spent more money 

 on queens in four years than I have 

 spent in twice that time with my twenty- 

 five to thirty-five colonies. Is is all the 

 biggest kind of nonsense. If a man has 

 the colonies of black bees that he wishes 

 to Italianize what business transaction 

 is more absurd than for him to buy ten 

 dollar queens to acompiish the result. 

 Two queens will do just as well as ten and 

 a good deal better when the expense is 

 figured. Raise drones from one and 

 queens from the other and the work is 

 done. It is all very well for queen 

 breeders to push the sale of their wares 

 whenever possible, but it is just as well 

 for beginners to understand that it is 

 not absolutely necessary for them to buy 

 unless they really want to do so. There 

 is not half as much difference in queens 

 as some writers would have us believe. 

 Now and then we find a queen hope- 

 lessly bad and of course she should be 

 prom])tly decapitated ; but very likely 

 right beside her hive stands another 

 whose bees have done remarkably well. 

 Now it is just as well to supply a queen 

 from this hive as to send away for an 

 "extra select tested" and pay ^5 for 

 the fun of doing it. I know I am writing 

 rank heresy but I will abide by it. I 

 believe in "fresh blood in the apiary" 

 at frequent intervals, but I don't believe 

 in consuming the profits to get it there. 



BAD WEATHER IN IOWA. 



The bee men of western Iowa have 

 the blues. Last season the honey crop 

 was a failure and most colonies had to 

 be heavily fed for winter. There was 

 considerable honey dew late in the 



