JourHaiJ 



• delvote-d: 

 •-ro'BE.EL=> 



•andHoNEY 

 •AND home: 



• INTERESTS 



^^d^^ 



'ublishedby THEA ll^OO'f Co. 

 $l££PER\tAR^'\@ HEOINA-OHIO- 



Vol. XXXI. 



NOV, 15, J903. 



No. 22 



What a warm fall we're having! Here 

 it is Nov. 2, and more like summer than 

 fall— bright sunshine, balmy air, and bees 

 flying gayly. [The same here. — Ed.] 



I always thought a. I. Root was a 

 kind-hearted parent; but it doesn't look al- 

 together like it when he tells us, p. 932, how 

 he coolly abandoned that guileless youth, 

 Huber, just at a most critical time. 



Of all plans offered for automatic hiv- 

 ing, it's just possible that the one suggested 

 by G. W. Strangways, p. 929, is as good 

 as any. Set the hive up where a clipped 

 queen wouldn't easily get back into it, and 

 in a good many cases she and the swarm 

 would find their way into a hive sitting on 

 the ground. 



A. I. Root ma3' be interested to know 

 that, when at the Kane Co. Sunday-school 

 convention, Oct. 27. 28, I spent the night 

 with his friend, S. W. Pike, the florist, St. 

 Charles, and I concluded there were some 

 nice folks outside the ranks of bee-keepers. 

 But it was hardly the best thing for me; for 

 when I saw the wee plants he was starting 

 from cuttings it made me hanker after the 

 same business. 



Mk. Doolittlr, p. 914, speaks of putting 

 dummies in ten-frame hives when sections 

 are given. It should be added that, if the 

 supers cover the whole of the hive, bees will 

 not do the best work in the sections over the 

 dummies. Possibly this might be obviated 

 by mixing the dummies among the brood- 

 frames. That might seem a bad thing, and 

 possibly it is; and yet after trying it in a 

 few cases I could not see that a dummy in 

 the brood-nest did any harm during the 

 harvest. Of course, it would be a very bad 

 thing at other times. 



Ye editor says he isn't a candidate for 

 re-election as director, but I tried that sort 

 of thing once and it didn't work — they 

 elected me " allee samee." I suspect it 

 will work the same way now; at any rate, 

 I'll vote for E. R. Root as one of the direc- 

 tors at the coming election, with the expec- 

 tation that I'll not be alone in my action. 

 Just because a man is big enough to be an 

 editor is no reason he should be too lazy to 

 do his share in other things. [I would not 

 object to the work if I did not think it was 

 about time for some other fellow with more 

 time and ability than I to step into my 

 place. But I am not a candidate, and re- 

 quest my friends to support Mr. William 

 McEvoy. — Ed.] 



No, Mr. Editor, I didn't misunderstand 

 you about the ball of bees found on the 

 ground with a swarming clipped queen, p. 

 912. Of the hundreds of cases we have had 

 of swarms with clipped queens — perhaps 

 thousands— in not one in twenty did we find 

 the queen with a cluster of her own bees 

 with her. I don't say about other places, 

 but I knoiv how it is here. Possibly our 

 hives sitting close to the ground may have 

 something to do with it. Unless we are 

 promptly on hand while the swarm is issu- 

 ing vie may not see the queen at all, for she 

 quickly returns to the hive; and if she 

 doesn't return to the hive, she seems to dis- 

 appear in some way. rarely being found 

 with an admiring cohort. [You may be 

 nearer right than I; but I distinctly remem- 

 ber that, when I was working among the 

 bees, the first thing I looked for when hunt- 

 ing for a clipped queen was a ball of bees. 

 Your hives are arranged in pairs. If a 

 clipped queen does not go back into one, 

 she may into another, whether she belongs 

 there or not; and I suspect that, in the gen- 

 erality of cases, with your conditions, she 

 goes into one or the other before you hap- 

 pen around. — Ed.] 



" While it would be too much to claim 

 that this kind of hay can not be grown with- 

 out bees, yet it is safe to say that a much 

 poorer crop would be the result without 

 them." So ye editor, p. 917. Now, those 



