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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Septeinber 29. 



Bees Robbing' — P. Pingrenon reports in Revue E:lectiqi)e 

 that he slept a bad case by placing vessels of honey well 

 thinned with water a short distance from the apiary. AH was 

 quiet in a short time. 



To Keep Ants from Hives —Stuff cotton-batting in the 

 cracks through which they enter, and the ants become en- 

 tangled in it. Renew occasionally. Scatter chopt garlic in 

 their runways. — Prakt. Wegweiser. 



Breeding for Improvement should be not by crossing 

 bees of different varieties, but by careful and scientific selec- 

 tion among bees of one variety, according to E. A. Daggitt, 

 in Bee-Keepers' Review. He thinks prominence should be 

 given to color and temper in breeding fur better stock. 



Longevity and Quality of Queens.— The question is 

 raised whether a queen sent through the mails will be as good 

 md live as long as one that has not thus traveled. If travel 

 burts a Queen, will it not be better for each one tn rear his 



raised 



aUu iiYc t»3 luug «i^ uiic Liiau lJa^ u\j\j Luus traveieu. 11 Lravei 



hurts a queen, will it not be better for each one to rear his 



own queens ? On the other hand, will the average bee-keeper 



rear as good queens as the experienced queen-breeder? — 



Gleanings. 



Giving Back Combs After Extracting hinders gathering 

 for a day or two, because cleaning and mending the combs 

 costs time and labor, says Mclntyre, in California. The re- 

 verse is true in our experience. The combs are lickt up in a 

 night, and mending the injured cells is excellent employment 

 for the home bees. Nothing stimulates the bees more to in- 

 creast activity. — Praktischer Wegweiser. 



Boolittle Plan of Queen-Rearing —The editor of Glean- 

 ings is very enthusiastic over rearing queens according to the 

 plan given in Doolltlle's book. The plan was tried by their 

 apiarist some years ago and failed. A late trial by the same 

 man was no more successful, but a new man tried it and se- 

 cured queens of the finest quality. The secret of success 

 seems to be slow feeding all the time cell-building is going on. 



Large vs. Small Hives. — " While I believe that for the 

 bee-keeper who has a single apiary under his care, and that 

 at home where it is constantly under his eye, a brood-nest of 

 at least moderate capacity is best, I will admit that possibly 

 for out-apiaries, or under any condition where neylcct is likely 

 to play a prominent part in the management, large brood- 

 nests may be better than small ones," — Bee-Keepers' Review 

 Editorial. 



Prevention of Swarming — L. A. Aspinwall has entirely 

 prevented swarming in about 50 colonies, the main feature of 

 his plan being that of separating the combs with dummies of 

 peculiar construction. He has taken colonies that have 

 swarmed uuder the old management, cut out the queen-cells, 

 spread the combs with dummies, returned the bees, and there 

 was no more swarming — the bees going promptly to work in 

 the sections. — Bee-Keepers' Review. 



A New Hive is described in Gleanings by W. K. Morri- 

 son. The description is not entirely clear, but the hive seems 

 to have no frames, separators, section-holders, or anything of 

 that kind, only plain sections 6x43^x1 '4, the sections lying 

 longwise, 33 in the brood-chamber and 33 in the super, the 

 brood-chamber and super being exactly alike. The editor 

 thinks such hives would cost very little, but doubts whether 

 any one would be satisfied to extract from frames 6x43^. 



Grading Honey. — The Bee-Keepers' Review quotes H. R. 

 Boardman as opposed to grading honey into fancy and No. 1. 

 After the " fancy " is sold, No. 1 is hard to sell and must be 

 sold at a low figure, and no more can be had for fancy alone 

 than for fancy and No. 1 together. Editor Hutchinson says, 

 " I must admit that I have never practiced these Washington 

 rules for grading. I put the ' fancy ' and ' No. 1 ' all together, 

 and what is lower than these grades I sell to private customers 

 at a reduced price. 



Selling-Qualities of Plain Sections, — Messrs. Niver, As- 

 pinwall, and others, have claimed that plain sections would 

 sell better than others. Gleanings gives a case in which the 

 testimony was especially disinterested. The A. I. Root Co. 

 sent a lot of honey to a commission house, one case of plain 

 sections being in the lot. The commission men didn't seem to 

 know what the honey was, but said they had taken an order 

 for two or three cases from every one of their customers who 

 had seen it, and they could use anywhere from 100 to 1,000 

 cases of honey in plain sections. 



Large Hives Aid Prolificness. — C. P. Dadant thinks the 

 size of the hive has something to do with prolificness of the 

 queen. R. L. Taylor, who uses Heddon hives, says not one 

 queen in a hundred will lay 2,500 eggs daily, continuously, 

 for a certain period. Abbe Colin, who used still smaller hives, 

 and who called a hive of the capacity of an 8-frame Lang- 

 stroth " a hive of great dimensions," says a queen in a strong 

 colony cannot lay more than 600 eggs a day in the good sea- 

 son. In keeping with that, he thinks it useless to use a super 

 of more than 15 pounds capacity, — Gleanings. 



Development of Bees. — Dubini gives the following table 

 of days for the different stages : 



Queen. Worker. Drone. 



Egg 3 3 3 



Growth of larva 5 6 63^ 



Spinning cocoon 1 2 lH 



Period of repose 2 2 3 



Metamorphosis Into chrysalis 1 1 1 



Duration of perfectioning 3 7 9 



Average from time egg is laid until 



bee emerges 15 21 24 



Dangerous to be a Foul Brood Inspector. — F. Boom- 



hower, foul brood inspector of Schoharie County, N. Y., thinks 

 it about as dangerous to be inspector as to go to battle in war. 

 He says the farmers who keep a few bees are ignorant and 

 careless, and the regular bee-keeper suffers for their slipshod 

 ways. They will insist they have no foul brood when their 

 colonies are rotten with it, and when the inspector comes 

 around they think It is only a scheme of leading bee-keepers 

 to clear out the smaller bee-keepers so as to have a clear field. 

 He has been threatened with clubs, fence-stakes, and shot- 

 guns, thinks county inspection doesn't amount to much, the 

 thing needed being a State inspector backt by a good law. — 

 Gleanings. 



The Laying of Laying-Workers. — There seems to be 

 considerable variation in observations made as to the laying of 

 laying-workers. Critic Taylor, in the Bee-Keepers' Review, 

 quotes Devauchelle as saying laying-workers deposit eggs only 

 in drone-cells ; Dr. Miller as saying in drone-cells by prefer- 

 ence, and in their absence in worker-cells so the work cannot 

 be distiuguisht from that of a queen ; Editor Hill as saying 

 that a worker rarely lays an egg on the base of a worker-cell ; 

 while in Mr. Taylor's experience a worker generally lays in 

 worker-cells, placing the eggs on the bottom of the cells, but 

 so irregularly that he can distinguish the work always from 

 that of a fertile queen in good condition. Altho neither of 

 them mentions It, possibly all four would agree that a common 

 practice of laying-workers is to lay a plurality of eggs in a 

 queen-cell. 



Prevention of After-Swarming. — Critic Taylor, speaking 

 of Dooliitle's plan of preventing after-swarms, said: 



" Perhaps Doolittle is led to practice his method from the 

 fact that he is largely using the Gallup hive and wishes to en- 

 gage others toward a favorable opinion of that hive. In the 

 absence of some such reason I would never follow the method 

 he gives ; because it is a laborious, tiLue-consumiug operation, 

 at a season of the year when it Is especially wise to economize 

 both time and labor, without any corresponding advantage." 



Doolittle makes a change of two words in this passage, 

 putting "Taylor " for " Doolittle," and "Heddon "for "Gal- 

 lup," and turns it upon Taylor in the September Bee-Keepers' 

 Review. Says he tried for three years the Heddon-Taylor 

 plan of moving, gradually turning the hive, and it took double 

 the time of cutting out cells, besides the extra expense of the 

 queen-trap. Says the term " laborious " applies particularly 

 to the Taylor plan, even with the Heddon hive, and notes the 

 fact that for every Heddon hive in use there are 50 to 100 of 

 other kinds. Thinks Mrs. Harrison or Mrs. Axtell would have 

 a hard time moving Langstroth hives ; York would have 

 trouble with chaff hives, and Taylor with tenements holding 

 four to eight colonies, and with house-apiaries. 



