504 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Aufc. 10, 1899. 



PUBLI^iHT WEEKLY liY 



George W. York & Company, 



118 Michigan St., CliicaQO, III. 



ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 



SAMPLE COPY FREE. 



[Entered at the Post-Office at Chicago as Secoud-Class Mail Matter.] 



United States Bee-Keepers' Association. 



Organized to advance the pursuit of Apiculture ; to promote the interests 

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

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



AletntK^rsblp Fee—^l.OO per Aantuzi. 



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



Secretary, Dr. A. B. Mason, Station B, Toledo, Ohio. 

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



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

 Gen'l Manager and Treasurer— Eugene Secor, Forest City, Iowa. 



P. 



Place and Date of Ifext Aleetiag i 



In Franklin Institute, 



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



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



VOL. 39. AUGUST 10, 1899. NO. 32. 



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

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

 ical Association and the Philological Society of England: — Change 

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

 fects a preceding sound. 



Removing Comb Honey from the hives is quite a job 

 for some bee-keepers, a few even not liking the bee-escape 

 method. We have mentioned it before in these cohimns, 

 we believe, that Dr. Miller uses a large wire-cloth pyramid 

 sewed over a hole in a piece of heavy cloth larger than to 

 cover a super, so that the edges can hang over. He then 

 piles up eig^t or ten supers full of honey, and puts the es- 

 cape on top of the pile, leaving it there until the bees have 

 gone up and out thru the escape. 



We found a good plan is to lay a regular bee-escape 

 board crosswise on top of an empty super or box on the 

 ground, which leaves an open space at each side of the es- 

 cape-board. Then pile on the supers of honey from several 

 hives, and on top of all invert another bee-escape board. 

 We have done this towards evening, and by the next after- 

 noon all the bees were gone back to their hives, and the 

 honey was removed just as you would take bricks out of a 

 wagon-box. By using two escape-boards the bees can go 

 both ways — out below and out at the top of the pile of 

 supers. It works splendidly, and by this method only a 

 few escape-boards are needed in an apiary of quite a good 

 size. 



The Philadelphia Convention will be in session in less 

 than one month. The time is short. We would be glad to 

 announce the names of those who expect to be present, es- 

 pecially the ones who come from a distance. It is nice to 



know in advance who expects to be there, and it might also 

 induce some hesitating ones to decide to attend. It is worth 

 much to meet the leading bee-keepers of the countrj-. 



We felt well repaid for attending the Buffalo conven- 

 tion two years ago, where we met so many splendid bee- 

 keepers, among whom we might mention P. H. Elwood, 

 Capt. Hetherington, and G. M. Doolittle, of New York ; 

 R. F. Holtermann, F. A. Gemmill and D.W. Heise, of Canada ; 

 J. F. Mclntyre, of California ; F. Danzenbaker, and man3', 

 many others that it was a delight to meet and talk with. It 

 is always an inspiration to meet in annual convention so 

 many who have contributed so much toward the progress 

 and success of bee-keeping in this country. We trust that 

 just as many of our readers as possibly can do so will ar- 

 range to be present at the Philadelphia meeting, Sept. S, 6 

 and 7. 



Later. — Since writing the foregoing, we have received 

 a letter from Secretary Mason, in which he says : 



•' Mr. Hahman, of Philadelphia, writes that they expect 

 a large gathering, and applications are being made for en- 

 tertainment as per request in the American Bee Journal, 

 and I presume many more will send in when they get the 

 notice in the August bee-papers." 



If you have not already done so, and j'ou are going to 

 attend the convention, write ai once to Mr. Hahman, Har- 

 rowgate Lane, Sta. F., Philadelphia, Pa., and he will en- 

 gage a room for you. Mr. Hahman is secretary of the Phil- 

 adelphia Bee-Keepers' Association. 



Honey in Hotels. — One cannot help wishing that 

 honey might be more commonly found on hotel tables in 

 this country, upon reading in Ostdeutsche Bienenzuchterei 

 that the use of honey has become a need to the traveling 

 public, so that the hotels in many regions, especially hotels 

 of the better class, find themselves obliged to serve honey 

 as well as butter, making no little demand thereby. 



The Leisure of Bee-Keepers is a thing that F. L. 

 Thompson, writing for the Progressive Bee-Keeper, thinks 

 should be carefully guarded. The business is such that at 

 certain times in the year there is little or nothing a bee- 

 keeper can do, and at such times he protests against the 

 time being put in at peddling honey under the plea that be- 

 cause one man has made a success at peddling another can. 

 His idea is that instead of so much talk about cultivating 

 the home market, the honey-trade should go thru the usual 

 channels, for people go to the groceries for their food, and 

 the groceries go to the wholesale houses for their stock. 

 Short cuts should be also studied, so as to have more leis- 

 ure, " that is, the opportunity for disinterested activity." 



The Kingbird a Bee-Enemy. — A. J. Wright, the man 

 who made the remarkable statement that some animals see 

 by means of rays of dark instead of light, having been 

 criticized for it, makes reply that after much observation 

 he is " convinced that manj' animals can see perfectly only 

 in total darkness." However wild his views may be on 

 that point, he gives in Gleanings in Bee-Culture some very 

 interesting observations with regard to the kingbird. A 

 report of the Secretary of Agriculture made out the king- 

 bird as innocent, because the stomachs of 171 kingbirds 

 were collected in 19 States, Canada, and the District of 

 Columbia, and only 14 stomachs contained any traces of 

 the honey-bee, and a total of only 50 bees were found, and 

 of these only 4 were workers. 



Then Mr. Wright gives a verj' interesting account of 

 his own investigations. At six in the morning, when no 

 drones were flying, he shot a kingbird right among the 

 bees after seeing him capture'six ^of them. Cutting the 



