474 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



away, milkweed and snowdrop plenty. 

 Last season I think my bees were 

 more advanced, and tliought 

 rape their best pasture. This season 

 rape is not so jilenty, and seems to 

 yield poorly. Of white clover I found 

 a single plant by the railroad switcli, 

 not larger than my hand, last spring. 

 It grew to a clump 3 feet in diameter, 

 and many seedlings appeared. This 

 spring it grows and blooms finely, and 

 my bees take to it as if an old ac- 

 quaintance. I have nowhere seen 

 white clover grow more luxuriant 

 or abundant than in Eastern Iowa. It 

 beats Ontario badly. Even the fa- 

 mous Canada thistle thrown in, will 

 scarce equal it. If this region proves 

 equally good, and the present small 

 start would indicate it, then with ad- 

 ditional groves for shelter, we will 

 have a good honey region. In May I 

 divided my strongest colony to re- 

 ceive a queen just shipped. She came 

 dead, and since then I have changed 

 the queen weekly, and have two colo- 

 nies as strong as" any in tlie yard. I 

 had .mother queen shipped from In- 

 diana on the 26th of June. She came 

 on the evening of July 3d, and also 

 dead. Why tlie queen should be over 

 a week, while the card announcing 

 the shipment came in less than 3 days 

 is what I cannot imderstand. 

 N. \V. Iowa and S. E. Dakota. 



[1. Syniphoricarjms occidentalis, or 

 wolf berry. 



2. Verbena strictu, or mullein-leaved 

 ■vervain. 



3. Scrophularia nodosa, or flgwort 

 (Simpson honey plant). This latter 

 yields an abundance of nectar, but is 

 very attractive to wasps as well as 

 bees. It is curious to note that on 

 such a plant tlie bees usually work 

 downward, while the wasps visit the 

 lower (lowers first, then the higher in 

 order.— T. J. Bukkill. 



We do not know the better method 

 -of cultivating Simpson honey plant. 

 Perhaps some of our correspondents 

 who have experimented with it, will 

 give full directions tiirough the Bee 

 Journal.— Ed.] 



Rural New Yorker. 



Priictical Hints in Apicultnre. 



PROF. A. J. COOK. 



It is the object of this paper to call 

 .attention to a few practical questions 

 in apiculture, wliicli, in the opinion 

 of the writer, are not sufliciently con- 

 sidered even by many of our best bee- 

 keepers. 



Poor Queens. — IIow often do we 

 notice, in reading the reports of bee- 

 keepers, that some colony in the 

 apiary gave results that far eclipsed 

 those given by most of the others ; 

 while others seemed to gather but 

 little more than their ovi*n needs re- 

 quired. Every attentive apiarist who 

 -observes closely, lias noted tlie same 

 fact in his own experience. The con- 



clusion is obvious : some queens are 

 superior, vi'tiile others are practically 

 worthless. Tlie most successful cat- 

 tle breeders, even with the best 

 breeds, find that to achieve the best 

 results they must continually weed 

 out from ttieir herds, selling off those 

 that vary from the highest standard 

 of excellence, and valuing above 

 price some members of their herds. 

 Bees are no exception to this law, and 

 that apiarist is most wise who closely 

 watches his bees, killing the poor and 

 worthless queens that are sure to ap- 

 pear, and supplying their places with 

 others reared from queens and, so far 

 as possible, mated to drones, which 

 are the descendants of the choicest 

 queens in his bee yard. My first ad- 

 vice then is : Don't retain any but 

 the very best queens. Constantly 

 improve, by the most severe selection, 

 the quality of your bees. 



Stimulative Feeding.— II is well 

 known to all students of apiculture 

 that liave had experience witli Italian 

 and German bees, that breeding 

 ceases whenever the bees fail to find 

 honey. But to keep the colonies 

 strong we must secure continuous 

 breeding, which can be secured by 

 feeding a little each day whenever 

 breeding ceases from a failure of the 

 honey harvest. Xeglect of a little 

 ttioughtful care in this direction 

 takes largely from the pockets of our 

 bee-keepers. With the new Syrian 

 bees tliis seems unnecessary, as they 

 breed continuously irrespective of the 

 honey harvest. 



Strong Colonies.- Another great 

 error consists in tolerating weak colo- 

 nies in the bee yard. The heading of 

 this paragraph is the golden rule in 

 apiculture, in spring, in autumn, in- 

 deed, at all seasons ; if neglect has 

 brought weak colonies, unite them, 

 as weak colonies give no returns, and 

 are sure to fall an easy prey to the 

 bee moth, to robbers, and to the other 

 ills that stand in the way of success. 



Increase of Colonies Prevent- 

 ed. — To secure strong colonies, pre- 

 paratory to a large yield of surplus 

 comb honey, and not to thwart our 

 own plans by inducing the swarming 

 fever, has been the sore puzzle which 

 has confronted most bee-keepers. 

 True, this is usually accomplished by 

 proper care to ventilate, to shade the 

 hive, and to so increase the space 

 within the hive that the bees shall 

 not become discontented with the old 

 lionie and essay to move out into a 

 new. Yet who has not found that, 

 despite all these precautions, the bees 

 will sometimes reject all overtures in 

 their mad fury to move into new 

 quarters V In case this inordinate 

 desire to swarm is manifest, there is 

 still a way to satisfy the bees without 

 lessening the working force in the 

 hive If the bees seem determined to 

 swarm usually there are several cases: 

 if there is one, let the first swarm be 

 placed in a new hive. When the sec- 

 ond swarm— I refer to a swarm from 

 some otiier hive— comes out, it will 

 likely be on the same day ; put this in 

 the hive that swarmed first, after 

 having destroyed all the queen cells 

 in that hive. This colony is just as 



strong now as it was before, in brood 

 and bees, and the bees will be satis- 

 tied to settle down to work in the sec- 

 tions. A third swarm can be put in 

 the hive from which came the second 

 swarm ; a fourtli into the third, etc. 

 We tlius liave increased but one, have 

 satisHed the bees and still have kept 

 all the colonies strong. If desired, at 

 the last we may unite the swarm that 

 issued first with the young bees and 

 brood left in the hive from which is- 

 sued the last swarm, in which case we 

 have not increased our number at all. 

 If we now give plenty of room there 

 will be no further attempt to swarm, 

 and we are almost sure to secure the 

 best results in surplus honey. 

 Lansing, Mich. 



For tbe American Bee JoumaL 



Do Bees Void Dry Excreta? 



C. N. ABBOTT. 



This subject appears to be still one 

 of uncertaintv, if 1 may judsre from a 

 letter by Wm. F. Clarke, on page 374 

 of the Bee Journal; but any one 

 having a doubt on the matter may in 

 a few hours satisfy himself that bees 

 do void dry, i. c, solid excreta, if he 

 will take the trouble to do so. 



Let him take a clean, new box, 

 about 1-5 inches square and 9 inches 

 deep, and hive a o-pound swarm of 

 bees in it ; when they are quiet, let 

 him reverse the box and cover the top 

 with a sheet of perforated zinc, or 

 with open strainer canvas to prevent 

 the bee's escape, let him now take the 

 box of bees, with the zinc or canvas 

 side uppermost, to the nearest railway 

 station, and send ttiem a journey of 

 about 40 miles out and home again, 

 and if, after returning the bees to 

 their hive, he does not find thousands 

 of grains of dry excreta on the bottom 

 of the box he may conclude that I 

 have deceived myself, or that I am an 

 imposter. The test is a very simple 

 one, and I can but wonder that it 

 is necessary to suggest it in a land 

 where bee-culture is so largely de- 

 veloped. 



Mr. Clarke does not agree with me 

 that " protracted confinement " pro- 

 duces "dysenteric symptoms," but I 

 hold to my assertion, the conditions 

 being as stated by me, vix : when bees 

 are confined to tlieir combs during a 

 24-liours' journey by railway. I have 

 dealt with maiiy hundreds of pur- 

 chased colonies and swarms, but I 

 have never set a full colony out after 

 a long journey without very decided 

 evidences of " dysenteric symptoms " 

 exhibiting themselves, and I believe 

 them, in all such cases, to be the per- 

 fectly natural outcome of a physiolo- 

 gical condition of tilings which seems 

 to have escaped the notice and the 

 cognizance of otherwise the best bee- 

 keepers in the world, to this date. I 

 say " the cognizance " because, al- 

 though I have many times, in the 

 Biitish Bee Journal, which has a world- 

 wide circulation, alluded to ttip fact, 

 no one appears to have recognized it, 

 though it presents a subject for inves- 

 tigation as to muscular developments 

 and uses, such as doubtless many of 



