554 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



September 1, 



and see what a smile he will have on his face when he goes 

 home to that wife of his." 



Yes, Mr. Galloway, that would be a great smile-producer. 

 If we had four or five times the present number of regular 

 subscribers, we would — well, we would do a number of the 

 things we have been aching to do iu connection with the 

 American Bee Journal. But if each one can't send four yearly 

 subscribers, then send two besides your own renewal. That 

 would make three times our present list — enough to put in at 

 least two of the biggest improvements in the old American 

 Bee Journal that we have had in mind for several years. 



Two-Pound Plain Sections are made by Geo. O. Morris 

 by taking two one-pound sections, putting a sheet of founda- 

 tion between them, and then pressing together. — Gleanings. 



Snow-White" or Cream-Colored. Sections.— G. K. Hub- 

 bard is endorst by Review and Gleanings in saying that It is 

 not consumers but bee-keepers that demand such white sec- 

 tions, honey looking nicer and whiter in the darker wood. 



Arranging the Brood-Nest for Winter.— When the four 

 central combs contain little honey, the outer combs on each 

 side having the bulk of it, Mr. Doolittle often puts the four 

 central ones at one side and the combs with honey at the 

 other. That prevents the bees being stranded in winter atone 

 side while there is plenty of honey at the other.— Progressive 

 Bee-Keeper. 



Pacific Bee-Papers.— They never live long. The Fresno 

 County Bee-Keepers' Association voted money out of its treas- 

 ury to pay for "our California newspaper " on the generous 

 terms offered by the publisher. Months have past, and no 

 publisher, paper, nor money has been located yet. J guess 

 California soil or climate is not good for such literature.— 

 W. A. H. Gllstrap, in Gleanings. 



Must Read the Bee-Papers.— The editor of American 

 Bee-Keeper has a distinct conviction that a bee-keeper must 

 take one or more bee-papers If he would keep up with the pro- 

 cession. He says : " In conversation with an up-to-date man, 

 a bee-keeper who neglects to read the journals devoted to his 

 interests, will invariably ' give himself away ' in the opening 

 sentence. There is no disguising a ' back number." " 



Drone-Rearing in Swarms with Young Queens.— Re- 

 ferring to a question by C. Theilmann in this paper, asking 

 whether any one had ever known drone-comb built the first 

 day of swarming wlih a young prolific queen, or drone-brood 

 reared the first two or three days. Editor Hill, of the Ameri- 

 can Bee-Keeper, is anxious to hear whether such a thing ever 

 occurred under the conditions named, within three weeks 

 after hiving. 



Prevention of Swarming.— " With the Heddon hive you 

 can have the lower story on the bottom-board all the season, 

 and put another story of combsor foundation on this one when 

 the hive becomes sufficiently crowded, and you will have prac- 

 tically no swarming," says W. A. H. Gilstrap in Gleanings. 

 " After the swarming fever commences the only way I know 

 of to stop it at once is to kill the bees or close the hive so they 

 cannot fly. . . .My bees will not carry honey up-stairs a la Hed- 

 don wheu the cases of the brood-chamber are alternated." 



Shall AH Farmers Keep Bees?— Somnambulist, in the 

 Progressive Bee-Keeper, refers to the question on this point 

 in the Question-Box of this paper, and quotes "We will be 

 what we icWt to be." " Caji every one be a bee-keeper ? Just 

 as well ask. Can every one be a doctor, lawyer, minister, mer- 

 chant, or any other thing he might desire ?" Referring to the 

 importance of bees as fertilizers, Somnambulist says : 



"Will not the same bees, in the hands of a specialist, ac- 

 complish as much in the way of fertilization, as tho they be- 

 longed to the separate farmers of the neighborhood ? 



Then why not relegate the whole business to the skilled hands 

 of the apiarist, who will not only make the most of the re- 

 sources, but will many times save to the neighborhood whole 

 apiaries that would have died of starvation had they been sit- 

 ting around in out-of-the-way corners waiting for the over- 

 crowded farmer to think of them and their needs." 



Some Rich Advice. — The American Bee-Keeper gives a 

 clipping from an agricultural journal as a sample of the bee- 

 lore therein contained, and follows it with some remarks 

 about " visionary amateur " and " delirium tremens." It will 

 bear reading more than once : " Iu the spring and summer 

 provide the bees with plenty of hoaey-makiug food and pure 

 water, and do not keep them near orchards on which insecti- 

 cides are used. A field of Alsike, white or crimson clover, 

 with a flower garden near by, will remove all necessity for the 

 bees seeking the orchards for nectar." 



A Pretty Picture of an Evening in Cuba, with a refer- 

 ence to the music of an apiary at night which will thrill every 

 uenuine bee-keeper, is thus given in an editorial in American 

 Bee-Keeper: 



" When the brilliant hues of sunset had faded from the 

 mountain peaks, and in their stead a craggy outline of the 

 southern horizon was dimly seen through the shades of night, 

 and the doleful sounds of the tom-tom from the slave quarters 

 of a distant plantation came faintly upon a zephyr from the 

 sea, gently rustling the coarse leaves of the towering palms, 

 then it was, after a day of active work in the apiary, we re- 

 turned again, to hear the one familiar sound — that of an 

 apiary at night. No sweeter music ever fell upon more ap- 

 preciative ears. There is something akin to magic in the in- 

 fluence of this sound ' like rushing waters ' — the rapid vibra- 

 tions of a million wings— and the odor of nectar upon the air, 

 by which a bee-keeper is instantly translated from this ordi- 

 nary old world of ours, through spontaneous meditation, to 

 another realm. It is the voice of success — the hum of pros- 

 perity — which captivates the mind, and he becomes for the 

 time monarch of the municipalities represented." 



Finding the Queen. — The Progressive Bee-Keeper has 



some good hints from Messrs. Aikin and Doolittle. Aikin says 

 avoid much smoke, jarring, or anything to make bees run or 

 leave the combs. Commence lifting out the combs next to 

 yon, and before looking at the comb you lift out, look first 

 over the face of the next comb. Often you'll see the queen on 

 that, when you can quickly put down the comb you have and 

 secure the queen. Doolittle says take an empty hive, or pref- 

 erably a light box, and set the frames In this as you take them 

 out, setting the first frame on the further side from you, next 

 close to it, and so on. That gives a chance to see if the queen 

 has been left In the hive, and the order of placing gives a 

 chance to glance over the sides of the frames in the box before 

 lifting out, as you give them a second search in putting back 

 into the hive. Hold the frame well from you, so as to be able 

 to glance over the whole of the comb at one glance. Holding 

 the comb obliquely will also help, a larger part of the comb 

 coming In the field of vision, and the abdomen of the queen 

 showing better at a side glance that if you look square upon 

 her back. 



Nature's Plan of Enlarging the Brood-Nest — Advis- 

 ing a beginner how he might become a successful bee-keeper, 

 G. M. Doolittle, in Gleanings, instructs to shut off with a 

 division-board as many brood-combs as the bees can cover, 

 and when these are filled with eggs part them in the middle, 

 and insert a comb of honey with the sealing broken, and in a 

 few days this will be filled. "Thus it will be seen that. In- 

 stead of the queen laying her eggs ou the outside of the clus- 

 ter, she lays them in the center of the brood-nest, where they 

 should be." A Stray Straw (July 15) says: "That 'where 

 they should be ' raises the question whether Nature's plan of 

 enlarging the brood-nest in spring is all wrong. To this Mr. 

 Doolittle replies : 



"Say, Doctor, what is Nature's plan of brood-rearing? 

 Where are the first eggs deposited — in the center of the clus- 

 ter, or on the outside of it ? ' Ah !' I hear you saying, ' in the 

 center, always.' Then that's Nature's way, is it not? And 

 the queen would lay all of her eggs there every time were it not 

 that, as the brood increases, she is obliged to lay her eggs in 

 the next nearest cells to those in which she laid the first, and 

 so on and on, keeping just as near the center at all times as 

 possible, consistent with those already iu the cells. To prove 

 your point. Doctor, you must show that the queen would 

 naturally lay the very first eggs of the season on the outside 

 of the cluster or brood-nest. Can you so prove?" 



