456 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



July 20, 1899. 



GEORGE W. YORK, Editor. 



PUBLISHT WEEKLY BV 



George W. York & Company, 



118 Michigan St., Chicago, III. 



ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. "^Sfi SAMPLE COPY FREE. 



[Entered at the Post-Office at Chicag-o as Second-Class Mail Matter.] 



United States Bee- Keepers' Association. 



Org-anized to advance the pursuit of Apiculture ; to promote the interests 

 of bee-keepers ; to protect its members ; to prevent the adulteration of 

 liouej ; and to prosecute the dishonest honey-commission men. 



Afembersiiip J^'ee— ^l.OO ti&i" Ajxnuin, 



Executive Committee— Pres., E. Whitcomb; Vice-Pres., C. A. Hatch; 



Secretarj', Dr. A. B. Mason, Station B, Toledo, Ohio. 

 Board of Directors— E. R. Root; E. Whitcomb; E.T.Abbott; C. P. 



Dadant; W. Z. Hutchinson; Dr. C. C. Miller. 



Gen'l Manager and Treasurer— Eug-ene Secor, Forest City, Iowa. 



I*lat?e and Date of N^GXt J\£e&tin^s 



In Franklin Institute, 



15_ South 7th Street, between Market and Chestnut Sts., Philadelphia, Pa., 



September 5, 6 and 7, 1899. Every bee-keeper is invited. 



VOL. 39. 



JULY 20, 1899. 



NO. 29. 



Note— The American Bee Journal adopts the Orthojjraphy of the follow- 

 ing- Rule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philolog- 

 ical Association and the Philological Society of Enjjland; — Change 

 *'d" or "ed" final to "t" when so pronounced, except when the *'e" af- 

 fects a preceding sound. 



Introducing Queens — Editor Hutchinson says a cau- 

 tion is needed in regard to introducing; queens bj' the 

 method described on page 435. " Don't use newU'-built 

 comb for caging the queen upon its surface, as the bees 

 may burrow under the edge of the cage, and kill the queen. 

 Such a case has been reported recently. Of course, this 

 trouble might not happen once in fifty times, but it is just 

 as well to use old comb and thus avoid this fiftieth time." 



" The Honey-Bee : A Manual of Instruction in Apicul- 

 ture, by Frank Benton. M. S., Assistant Entomologist," is 

 the full title of Bulletin No. 1, New Series, isstied b)- the 

 Division of Entomology of the United Sates Department of 

 Agriculture. We have just received a copj' of the third 

 edition, presumably thru the kindness of Mr. Benton, who, 

 iu the American Bee-Keeper for July, calls attention to 

 some of the most important changes from former editions, 

 in these paragraphs : 



There have been slight changes made for this edition, 

 onlj- such as seemed quite necessary, as the pages were all 

 stereotypt when first publisht. Chief among these is the 

 change of the scientific name of the honey-bee, .-Ipis mclli- 

 fica to Apis mellifera, the older synonym, which, in accord- 

 ance with the rules of zoological nomenclature, takes the 

 precedence. As this name goes back to the tenth edition of 

 Linnecus' " Systema Natura," 17S7, there will not be a 

 further change, but Apis mellifera will stand as the name. 

 The change will be made wherever the name occurs in 



Bulletin No. 1. Two or three additions to the list of honey- 

 plants are made, and several changes in dates of blooming 

 in different localities. The following has been inserted on 

 page 64 : 



" The great value of bees as cross fertilizers makes their destruction 

 a serious injury to the interest of fruit-growers; therefore spraying with 

 arsenicals during fruit-bloom should never be practiced. The injurious 

 insects can be reacht quite as well before and after the blooming periods." 



The Simmins non-swarming system is better elucidated 

 by an added reference to the necessity of employing drawn 

 combs in the super — a feature too often overlookt in con- 

 nection with the method brought forward by Mr. Simmins, 

 and vet one which is essential to its complete success. 



This Bulletin No. 1 is intended for free distribution, 

 but we understand that the edition issued July 1, and con- 

 sisting of 1,000 copies, is practically exhausted already. In 

 all now there have been 22.000 copies of the pamphlet pub- 

 lisht and sent out in the interest of apiculture. Applica- 

 tions for a copy can be made thru congressmen, or direct 

 to the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 



Sweet Clover a Help to Qood Roads. — From the way 

 in which sweet clover is so commonly cut down along the 

 roadside while weeds of all kinds are allowed to grow, one 

 would suppose that no weed can be so bad for the roads as 

 sweet clover. C. H. Dibbern makes in Gleanings in Bee- 

 Culture a revelation in this regard. So interesting and so 

 important are the facts he gives that they warrant a very 

 full quotation from him, as follows : 



L,ast July, while driving in a distant township I struck 

 a piece of road that was a pleasant surprise and a revelation 

 to me. Evidently some bee-keeper must be road commis- 

 sioner, or else he had learned something. Here, as in so 

 many places in Illinois, the sweet clover was growing lux- 

 uriantly on both sides of the road. By running a mower 

 up and down the road several times dttring the summer it 

 had been kept from encroaching on the driveway. Not only 

 that, but the cut clover had been thrown into the middle of 

 the road ; and how springy and delightful it all was I There 

 was no dust, and the pleasant perfume of sweet clover filled 

 the air. Some cattle in an adjacent pasture were reaching 

 thru the wire fence and feeding on the clover within reach ; 

 and the bees were on hand by thousands, carrying away the 

 nectar and filling the air with their contented hum. Soon 

 I past into another township ; and, tho the sweet clover had 

 extended for miles further, it had all been cut and burned 

 in the road, leaving a scene of desolation ; and. oh, how 

 dustv it was ! 



Again I past over this road in October. I had been 

 wallowing thrti the mud, and was weary enough, when I 

 again experienced thepleasant sensation of my sweet-clover 

 road. Instead of mud there was that springy road-bed, 

 without mud or dust. Upon further investigation I found 

 the sweet clover had all been cut when about done bloom- 

 ing, and carefully piled in the road where the sun had soon 

 wilted it, and the wagon-wheels had crushtand mist it with 

 the soil. Tho this road ran thru a level, mucky country, it 

 was the best road there was anywhere. The millions of 

 decaying roots in the ground on either side seemed to provide 

 a sort of natural drainage that seemed to carry off all surplus 

 water. It appeared that no work with plow or grader had 

 been done on it for several j-ears, and only the intelligent 

 care of the clover had done the business. 



And so new values of sweet clover are being discovered 

 all the time. But just read the following notice, which was 

 issued b)- a thistle commissioner in Antioch, 111., under date 

 of June 26, 1899: 



Notice is hereby given to all propertj- owners in the 

 town of Antioch, to cut all Canada thistle, sweet clover, and 

 weeds to the center of the highway growing on their lands ; 

 also all other noxious weeds found growing upon their lands 

 or upon the highways, before allowing same to mature 

 seed. All persons failing to comply with this notice will be 

 prosecuted under the statute made and provided. 



Thistle Commissioner. 



We have italicized some words in the above so that they 

 will be particularly noticed. It will be seen that sweet 

 clover is clast with noxious weeds, tho there is no law in 



