• delvoted: 

 •To "Be. ELS'' 



•i\RD MOMEL 



TubhshedW-THE^l'Rool' Co. ' 



^ $ia» PER VEAR'^'\g)"nEDiNA- Ohio 



Vol XXXI. 



FEB. U J903. 



No. 3. 



Kambi-ER gonel H'e've lost a brij^^ht, 

 rac}' writer, but, above all, a man with a 

 true, honest heart. [Yes, indeed. See his 

 obituar}' in another column. — Ed.] 



Unless the bee-papers are laid away 

 and bound at the end of the year some of 

 them are likely to get lost, says G. M. Doo- 

 little, p. 50. In this locality they don't 

 wait to the end of the year to get lost, so the 

 onU' safe way is to begin binding when the 

 first number comes. 



" I WANT gentle golden Italians, good 

 honej'-gatherers: are the 3'ellow as good as 

 the leather-colored bees?" writes a man 

 asking replj^ in Gleanings. Taken as a 

 whole, the leather-colored are probably the 

 better bees; but there are good and poor in 

 each kind. If you can have the very best of 

 the goldens, 3'ou will have something better 

 than the average leather-colored; but if you 

 must shut jour ej'es and grab, j'ou'd better 

 grab out of the dark pile. 



" Where is the best place to buy 

 queens?" says an inquirer. Most of the 

 queens I have bought came from The A. I. 

 Root Co., and from what I hear of them 

 the}' are quite reliable, and that is proba- 

 bly true of most or all of those who adver- 

 tise in Gleanings. [I am glad you put in 

 the last end of the sentence. I do not be- 

 lieve there is ver_v much choice between 

 queens put out by ouf old breeders who 

 have had j'ears of experience in the busi- 

 ness. — Ed.] 



A CORRESPONDENT in Missouri wishes to 

 know whether he should continue to use 

 " tiie Root eight-frame hive" for sections, 

 or change to the ten-frame Dovetail or Danz. 

 hive. If you give j'our bees close attention, 

 making sure that they always have enough 

 stores, and giving a second story when ad- 



visable, you may do best with the eight- 

 frame. If you give them no more attention 

 than other farmers usually do, a larger 

 hive will be safer. A good way to deter- 

 mine the thing satisfactorilj' is to try a few 

 of each kind side by side for three or four 

 years. 



When I read to the women-folks about 

 A. I. Root being down in Cuba, I said, 

 "Well, that will be all new to him for cer- 

 tain." One of the women replied, "He'll 

 enjoy that more than anybody I know of;" 

 and the other said, "Yes, but he'll be get- 

 ting into trouble. I wouldn't trust him 

 alone." Then I read on; and when I read, 

 " When I got lost (as I felt sure I would)," 

 three people smiled aloud. [Your women- 

 folks know A. I. R. pretty well, I guess; 

 but somehow he never gets into any verj' 

 serious trouble. — Ed.] 



"I WOULD LIKE to usc the 4x5 sections, 

 and can not on the eight-frame hives to run 

 lengthwise; can I on the ten-frame hives?" 

 is a query sent me. I suppose one is no 

 better than the other for that purpose; but 

 I know I'd use 4x5 sections on either if I 

 wanted to. [In answer to the question, I 

 would state that both the Root and the 

 Lewis Co. can now furnish supers to take 

 4x5 sections lengthwise of the super for eith- 

 er the eight or ten frame hive. Possibl}' 

 the other manufacturers do, but I have not 

 seen their catalogs, so I can not give anj' 

 definite statement on that point. — Ed.] 



Delos Wood says someone claims that, 

 if a swarm be returned to its hive, the bees 

 will tear down the cells and not swarm 

 again that season. Mr. Wood says his bees 

 will swarm again the same or the next day, 

 and asks my experience. Just the same as 

 yours, friend Wood. To stop all swarming 

 for the season I would have to keep return- 

 ing for ten days or more, till the last young 

 queen was out of its cell. [It is our expe- 

 rience that a returned swarm will swarm 

 out the next day, and keep on doing so un- 

 til there is nothing left of the colony; but I 

 do not know of any authority that claims 

 that returning a swarm to its hive will have 

 the effect of having the bees tear down the 

 cells and give up swarming. — Ed.] 



