AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



698 



the working qualities of the bees, or the 

 fault of the queen. 



STARTING IN BEE-CULTURE. 



Dr. Marshall then gave a talk on 

 starting in bee-culture. He thought 

 bee-keeping had now become self-sus- 

 taining, and that to start and make a 

 success of it, the beginner should com- 

 mence as cheap as possible, and take 

 advantage of all the new improvements, 

 study and observe closely, and not try 

 to start too extensively, for if a failure 

 should occur, he would not lose so 

 heavily as if he had started more largely. 



BEESWAX FROM OLD COMBS. 



Mrs. Atchley gave her plan of making 

 beeswax when the combs were too old 

 and hard to melt well in the solar ex- 

 tractor, as follows : 



Take a copper-bottom vessel, or an 

 iron kettle, and place it on the fire filled 

 with water ; when it boils, put the old, 

 black combs into a sack made of an old 

 coffee-bag, and as it melts down put in 

 more comb, then when the wax rises 

 skim it off and pour into a tub of clear, 

 cold water, and as it touches the cold 

 water, it will cool instantly enough, so 

 you can take the wax up and work and 

 rinse it as you would a cloth, and by this 

 process we can get all tbe impurities 

 out. Ball it up and lay into another 

 vessel until you are through, then melt 

 and mold to suit you. The wax from 

 old black combs will then be almost as 

 nice as that made by the solar plan. 



QUEENS FROM WHICH TO BREED. 



J. D. Givens and W. H. White dis- 

 cussed the question of " Breeding 

 Queens." Mr. Givens thought that a 

 breeder should be in her second year. 

 After they thoroughly discussed the 

 question, it was decided that a queen in 

 her second year was at her best as a 

 breeder. 



Mr. White asked, " Will a queen that 

 has been confined, or kept in a con- 

 tracted brood-chamber, be as good a 

 breeder as if she had not been so kept '?" 

 Mrs. Atchley thought she would be just 

 as good, if not better, as her constitu- 

 tion would hold out better. 



MAKING HONEY-VINEGAR. 



Next came a talk on honey-vinegar. 

 Dr. Marshall said that he, one year, 

 made and sold 100 barrels of honey- 

 vinegar, and thought it as profitable as 

 the honey. He made into vinegar a 

 large amount of dark honey that would 

 have been almost unsalable. 



Mrs. Atchley makes a barrel or two of 

 good vinegar every year from the cap- 

 pings and broken pieces of honey, and 

 rinsing all vessels that had contained 

 honey, and pouring into a barrel of rain- 

 water. She thinks it is superior to any 

 vinegar, especially for table use. 



QUEEN-REARING. 



Mrs. Atchley was requested to read 

 an essay that she had prepared on 

 "Queen-Rearing," which is condensed 

 as follows : 



As some of our noted writers have 

 said, '-Around the queen centers all 

 there is in bee-keeping," with worthless 

 queens our time is lost, and bee-keeping 

 is a failure, as good queens can be 

 reared by almost any of the plans given. 

 I will state that if the operator fails, it 

 is his fault, and not the fault of the 

 bees or the method, as we should see 

 that all our queens are reared from 

 larvas not more than one day old. See 

 that the queens are well provisioned, 

 the cells well shaped and properly built 

 out, and I will assure you large, long- 

 lived, and prolific queens, which is the 

 foundation of the bee-business. 



BEE-KEEPING FOR WOMEN. 



Most readers of bee-papers have al- 

 ready seen this subject exhausted, so I 

 shall offer no further apology for using 

 it than to say that I have been requested 

 to do so. Between man and woman I 

 see no occasion for a sex line in bee- 

 keeping, but let it rest on the adaptability 

 of either of them, whether they are 

 capable of keeping bees. I contend 

 that women have just as much right to 

 keep bees, or to follow any other hon- 

 orable pursuit, for that matter, as have 

 men. Some of our most famous cooks 

 in the land to-day are men, and worst 

 of all is, they wear the "blue ribbon," 

 so I claim that we have the right to 

 cross the line, as the men invaded our 

 territory first. I do not think it any 

 compliment to woman to ask her if she 

 could keep bees, as it casts a reflection 

 upon her mental as well as her physical 

 ability. 



I think that a woman has a perfect 

 right to try any pursuit that men are 

 capable of running, until she diligently 

 tries and fails. When we undertake 

 bee-keeping, I think we should examine 

 ourselves, and see if we possess grit, 

 grace and generosity, as these are the 

 three essential points of a successful 

 bee-keeper. But, as Josh Billings has 

 said, " We can't tell how far a toad will 

 jump by looking at him," so I guess we 



