AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



179 



that there are about twenty different 

 lines of experimental work that he 

 would like to take up, in some of which 

 he has already planned the experiments 

 that he would conduct, and he considers 

 some of them of more importance than 

 his climatic mailing-cage and food for 

 shipping queens, but he has no oppor- 

 tunity to make these experiments at 

 present. 



Not only this, but there are new prob- 

 lems continually coming up that will 

 need to be solved. One man, working 

 in a careful, methodical way, having 

 bees, appliances and means at his com- 

 mand, can do more to settle the knotty 

 problems of apiculture, than can all of 

 the bee-keepers of the State working in 

 a hap-hazard manner. If each State 

 and Territory had an experimental api- 

 ary manned by a competent person, and 

 the reports of the work published in the 

 journals, so that bee-keepers could read 

 and criticise and suggest as the work is 

 going on, bee-keeping would receive 

 another boom, and such a one as would 

 help those already in the business. 



The Review is going to work to try 

 and have bee-keeping recognized at the 

 State Experimental Stations. Each 

 State and Territory receives from the 

 General Government $15,000 annually 

 to carry on experiments in agriculture, 

 horticulture and the like. you do not 

 need to be told that bee-keeping has 

 been almost entirely neglected at these 

 stations. 



Dr. Miller gives as reasons for this 

 neglect, that the directors of the stations, 

 or the State Boards of Agriculture, are 

 uninformed in regard to the importance 

 and needs of apiculture, and that bee- 

 keepers have been too modest in asking 

 for their rights. I thinlf he is correct. 

 I feel confident that the bee-keepers of 

 any State can have an experimental 

 apiary if they will only go to work to 

 secure it. But, as I said last month, 

 passing resolutions and appointing com- 

 mittees at conventions will not do it ; 

 there must be some ivork done by some 

 one. The resolutions and committees 

 are all right as preliminary moves. The 

 State Board of Agriculture will listen to 

 a committee from the State Association 

 of bee-keepers when it would pay very 

 little attention to individual requests. 

 Put the right men on the committee 

 — men of experience and good sense. 



Another thing : Raise some money, 

 even if you have to do it by subscrip- 

 tion, to pay the expense of the commit- 

 tee in meeting with the State Board of 

 Agriculture. Of course, the expense 

 may not be very heavy, but the individ- 



ual members of the committee ought 

 not to be asked to bear it. Perhaps the 

 funds of the Bee-Keepers' Union might 

 be used to advantage in helping to bear 

 the expenses of such committees. If the 

 Union would bear half of such expenses, 

 I believe it would be money well spent. 

 What does its Manager and others 

 think? 



After a State Board has decided to 

 use money for apicultural experimental 

 work, let bee-keepers look to it, and 

 look sharp, too, that the work is placed 

 in the right hands. This is the most im- 

 portant point of all. Let the bee-keep- 

 ers select the man. Perhaps it would 

 be a good plan to select him by a vote at 

 a meeting of the State Association. Let 

 him be a practical bee-keeper, one who 

 has produced some honey, and managed 

 a good-sized apiary. There is nothing 

 like actual work in a good-sized apiary 

 to enable a man to comprehend what 

 bee-keepers really need to know. Don't 

 get some theoretical writer for the 

 press. Get a man to whom bee-keepers 

 will look with confidence. I could name 

 half a dozen men in as many different 

 States, who, I know, would fill the bill. 



Flint, Mich. 



[For editorial remarks upon this sub- 

 ject, see page 167 of this number of the 

 Bee Journal. — Ed.] 



§oine Exceptions to Oeneral 

 Rules About Bees. 



Written for theAvierican Bee Jourrud 

 BY H. F. COLEMAN. 



Bees sometimes, it seems, delight in 

 exceptions to general rules, and if we 

 would be successful in their manage- 

 ment, we should be acquainted with 

 these exceptions. 



I have observed that, as a general 

 rule, bees will not swarm before capping 

 one or more queen-cells, but they some- 

 times swarm before beginning a queen- 

 cell. 



As a general rule they will — if the 

 weather is favorable — swarm in 24 

 hours after capping a queen-cell, but 

 sometimes, even in favorable weather, 

 they will not swarm for three or four 

 days after capping the first queen-cell. 



As a general rule, when the bees de- 

 stroy young queens in the cell, they do 

 so by cutting into the sides of the cell, 

 but sometimes they destroy such queens 

 by cutting, or working, off the points of 

 the cell. 



As a general rule, if an Italian queen 



