100 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Feh. 14, 



a few foot-notes, the editor praises the article and the man to 

 the skies, and on his editorial page, 952, the first words he 

 says are : " Don't fail to read the article by E. France in this 

 number. It is long, but good in proportion to its length." 



E. France is no doubt a practical and successful honey- 

 producer, but from that article it is evident that his success 

 rises more from things he can do, than from those he can tell. 

 Bro. Root offers no criticism. Mr. France says 30 to a 100 

 rods from the public road Is proper to place an out-apiary. 

 He says 25 cents per colony, per year, is the right rental to 

 pay a farmer for the use of ground on which to place an 

 apiary. He advises quadruple, chaff-lined hives, the brood- 

 cases containing each eight Langstroth frames, using three in 

 summer and two in winter. He clips all the queens' wings. 

 He advises taking out all the frames and placing the brood in 

 the lower story, also looking them over every ten days, to 

 make sure no queen-cells are being started in any colony. If 

 the printer has not misrepresented Mr. France, he advocates 

 about 60 pounds of honey per colony, for winter stores. 

 Now, brother honey-producers (for I suppose most of you are 

 practical men) where an editor is a great commentator, and 

 can write whole columns in trying to explain how it was that 

 Bro. Taylor's bees took more kindly to the Given than to the 

 Root foundation, should he not have seen these misleading 

 points and kept them from confusing, or much worse, nits- 

 leadiny, his readers ? But Bro. Root is not a practical bee- 

 keeper. He does as well as he can, under the circumstances; 

 his time is very much absorbed in other matters, and some- 

 times when we stop to consider the many lines of thought and 

 work he is engaged in, and of the voluminousness of his 

 writing, do we not wonder that he is sure of anything ? 



Now, I wonder if some of you are saying; "Heddon's 

 gloves are off again ; how can he be so harsh ?" Why, gentle- 

 men, I am not harsh, I am only truthful. The above state- 

 ments are not from choice, they are of necessity. It is a con- 

 dition and not a theory, that I am dealing with. I am writing 

 what I believe, and what it seems to me I know. We have 

 other bee-Journals whose editors are hardly more practical, 

 and I am not blaming them because they have chosen the 

 editorial field in our pursuit, but I am trying to tell how it (S, 

 as it seems to me, and to suggest to you one of the principal 

 reasons why our literature is so degenerated. [See editorial 

 on page 104, on "Apicultural Literature." — Editor.] 



" One of the reasons," I said. Yes, there is another one. 

 There has recently grown up among us, a sort of a " mutual 

 admiration society," as some astute writer named it. The 

 members not being able to do much in discussing and crit- 

 icising the rvork of bee-keepers, have begun criticising the 

 bee-keepers themselves? Some of them have brought the 

 blackmailing business to bear upon some competitors, while 

 at the same time, to make that work stronger, they have been 

 creating pets and dragging their sickening eulogies into their 

 trade journals. Of late, quite a proportion of the space in 

 our journals has been devoted to little personalities, and a 

 perfectly disgusting attempt at humor. Wit and humor are 

 the spice of life, but a flat, silly attempt at it, an attempt 

 which proves a failure, is the most disgusting matter with 

 which type can disgrace the clean, white surface of paper. 

 This same principle has absorbed our bee-conventions, because 

 that class of people attend them in a greater proportion than 

 any other. In the call for our late North American, Secretary 

 Benton states that " the association was never in a more 

 flourishing condition;" that we are teaching foreign nations 

 the art of honey-producing; and that many good fields are 

 unoccupied, and still greater things may be expected. Now, 

 can any bee-keeper arise and tell this convention just who, 

 where, when and how, some one is to be benefitted ? When 

 you finally find out, won't it turn out to be someeditor, profes- 

 sor or salaried " hang-on "of the pursuit ? Can you see where 

 the honest honey-producer is benefitted, and can you not 

 see where he is injured:' 



Now, I pray you not to discuss the propriety of telling 

 these truths, but discuss the question itself. It makes no 

 difference who I am, or who you are, or whether we have any 

 little blue-eyed babies or redheaded sister Sallies ; we are bee- 

 keepers; we are pursuing a business which commands all the 

 respect warranted by the dignity of honest production. We 

 desire to live ; we want the necessaries of life ; we should 

 have some of its luxuries; if we shouldn't, who should'? 

 Why should the man who produces nothing, spending all his 

 energies in the transfer of property, live in luxury, while our 

 families dare not entertain an aspiration beyond the actual 

 necessities of life? Why doesn't our pursuit stand upon a 

 better basis ? Why is it more difficult to make a living out of 

 our business now, than it was 10 and 20 years ago? Why 

 have honey-producers only one Adam Grimm, while supply 

 dealers count their successes by the score ? There is some- 



thing wrong, and our literature is mainly at the bottom of it. 



By this time, someone is asking, " What do jyoM propose?" 

 First, put your foot on the mutual admiration business. 

 Second, discuss principles more and men less. Third, have no 

 aristocracy among bee-keepers. Take off your hat to no one. 

 Fourth, use your reason, rather than your emotions. Let n» 

 man be oily enough that you take his falsehoods for facts, nor 

 out-spoken enough that you throw away his truths. 



Hoping that the foregoing hurried and disconnected 

 thoughts may serve simply the purpose of awakening to a 

 discussion of the most important problem now confronting 

 bee-keepers, I wish you all a happy and prosperous 1895. 



Jas. Heddon. 



The foregoing essay was then discussed as follows: 



Pres. Hunt — Mr. Heddon always has to hit somebody 

 pretty hard. 



Mr. Taylor — Yes, and I like him for It. If there is any 

 necessity for hitting, let's hit hard. 



Mr. Aspinwall — I must say that there is a great deal of 

 truth in what Mr. Heddon says. I am opposed to the side- 

 issues in our bee-papers. Religion is all right — I believe in It, 

 and am a member of a church, but a bee-paper is no place for 

 sermons. I am also interested in health and good living, and 

 I take a journal devoted to that very subject that is far 

 superior to anything that the bee-papers can afford to secure 

 and publish. Then there is one more point : Some of the 

 prominent writers are good men and good bee-keepers, but 

 they " have written," have told their story, so to speak, yet 

 they keep on writing, and the straits to which they are 

 reduced to furnish "copy" make their writings very tiresome. 



Mr. Taylor — Yes, but we must remember that some of the 

 papers try to give us the worth of our money in bee-literature, 

 and these side-issues are extra. 



Here, again the discussion drifted into 



FOUL BKOOD. 



R. Graden, who had a discussion sometime ago with Mr. 

 McEvoy, took the ground that when a colony infected with 

 foul brood was robbed, the infection was not carried with the 

 honey. Or, if a swarm was shaken from their combs into a 

 box, and then swarmed out and circled in the air, they would 

 be free from foul brood. He thought that in some way this 

 circling in the air freed them from the disease. He thought 

 that foul-broody honey, extracted and fed to bees, might carry 

 the disease with it, but if the bees carried it from the combs, 

 such would not be the case. He related two instances where a 

 colony was having foul brood, was robbed and the colonies 

 doing the rol)bing did not contract the disease. Upon inquiry 

 it was found that in one case it was late in the fall, and 

 Mr. Aspinwall suggested that the honey was all consumed 

 before the beginning of the breeding season in the spring. 

 In the other case Mr. Aspinwall thought that the honey 

 might have been carried directly to the supers and that none 

 of it ever reached the brood. 



Lansing was chosen as the place for holding the next con- 

 vention, and the following officers were elected: President, 

 M. H. Hunt, Bell Branch ; Vice-President, R. Graden, of 

 Taylor Center; Secretary, W. Z. Hutchinson, of Flint; and 

 Treasurer, L. A. Aspinwall, of Jackson. 



W. Z. Hutchinson, Sec. 



Wintering Bees Out-Doors in Utah. 



BY .1. S. SCOTT. 



In compliance with a request I will try more fully to de- 

 scribe my method of preparing bees for wintering out-doors. 

 The picture of my apiary (see first page) will enable the 

 reader to see more clearly than I could otherwise make it. 



I hive all my bees in 8-frame dovetailed hives, on 2x4 

 scantling placed on the edge with a cleat nailed on each end, 

 and one in the middle just long enough so the front cleat of 

 the bottom-board of the hive will drop over the edge of the front 

 scantling, and the back cleat come to the middle of the back 

 scantling, thus leaving half the thickness of the rear scant- 

 ling exposed (the purpose of which I will explain further on). 

 This leaves the hive ?b of an inch lower at the front than at 

 the back. 



Between the scantling I fill level with lime, ashes, cinders 

 or slack coal (dust from the coal yard) — the latter I find the 

 best, as I am never bothered with ants. 1 allow about 28 

 inches of scantling to the hive, and when it begins to grow 

 cold in the fall, I move the hives toward the center from each 

 end about six inches per day, if the bees can Py a little, if not, 

 I do not move them quite so fast, but give the bees time to 



