222 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aj)T. A, 



speaks of it as though it were a success. I spent $5.00 on 

 Alley's first self-hiving arrangement, but could not make it 

 work, and as " a burnt child dreads the fire," I am loth to 

 invest any more roouey in that direction, until there is better 

 evidence that automatic swarming is practicable than 1 have 

 yet met with. 



While I believe bees work with a zest after naturally 

 swarming, which they do not evince in connection with any 

 method of artificial swarming, and I enjoy the contemplation 

 of their ardor and interest in founding a new home, I have 

 settled down on artificial swarming as the best for me in my 

 circumstances. I cannot be always with my bees, neither can 

 I keep them closely watched, and I prefer to take the slight 

 disadvantage there is about artificial swarming to the dire 

 affliction of occasionally having a rousing swarm go off with 

 my best queen. 



I read with much interest Mr. Doolittle's article in the 

 American Bee Journal of March 7, 1895, on " How to increase 

 bees when natural swarming is not wanted." The two meth- 

 ods described are perhaps the neatest approximations to nat- 

 ural swarming that can be attained by any artificial plan, but 

 it seems to me there are too many manipulations to be per- 

 formed and they take too much time. On the first of the 

 plans given, I should be afraid the bees might go back to the 

 old hive either by twos and threes, or c« mas-sc ; and on the 

 second plan, I should hate to immure them for four hours in a 

 bo.K with wire sides, checking all active operations and throw- 

 ing them into a state of bewilderment. On the method I 

 employ, the work is quickly done, and the bees will be busily 

 engaged in making the best of their changed circumstances 

 long before Mr. Doolittle has his imprisoned bees liberated 

 from confinement. Bees are quick at accepting a new state 

 of things, and soon adapt themselves even to an untoward 

 condition. 



My method, which I call mine not because it is original 

 with me but simply because I practice it, may not be the best, 

 but it suits me, and works well enough for all practical pur- 

 poses. I wait until the bees give evidence that they are 

 making preparations to swarm naturally. Some of our bee- 

 keepers have been using a phrase lately which has a very 

 scientific smack — " outside diagnosis." It means the same as 

 what the old darkey called, "habits o' bobservation." Any 

 bee-keeper worthy the name, spends lots of time in watching 

 the bees as they go in and out of the hive, linger at the pre- 

 cincts, or cluster near the entrance. 



Some fine day I say to myself, "That colony has a notion 

 of swarming." Then I anticipate them. I take a clean, 

 empty hive having frames with starters, or full sheets of foun- 

 dation in them. I haven't made up my mind which is the 

 better plan, though I incline to full sheets because I want 

 worker-corab, and I think the bees, like a newly-married 

 couple, prefer a furnished residence to an empty house. 



I set the new hive beside the old one, take out one of the 

 middle frames, then open the old hive, find the frame on which 

 the queen is laying, lift it with the adhering bees out of the 

 full colony, and put it in the ne»v hive in place of the removed 

 one. Then I move a full frame of the old hive to the center, 

 close up the ranks, and put the spare frame of foundation on 

 the outside. Then I move the old hive to a new place, and set 

 the new hive on the old stand. This gives the bulk of the 

 working force to the new hive, which has a full frame of 

 brood and the old queen. The working force soon falls in 

 with the new arrangement, and makes itself as busy as possi- 

 ble. In a few days, the old hive becomes strong with bees, it 

 is not long until it has a laying queen again, and all is lovely 

 with both hives. 



The beauty of this plan is that there is no absconding, for 

 the swarm will not leave a frame of young brood, and the 

 other colony is not likely to be populous enough to want to 

 swarm during the remainder of the season. I do not urge 

 every one to adopt this plan — all I say is that it suits me, and 

 in bee-keeping as in some other things, every man should be a 

 law unto himself. 



CONDtJCTED BV 



Rev. Emerfion T. Abbott, St. <7osep2i. Afo. 



Feeding: Back.—" During one year that I kept track 

 of everything, 1 made .'^5.00 per colony during the month of 

 August for each colony fed. That year I fed extracted honey 

 to y colonies to finish sections, and I spent only about 15 



minutes per day feeding. Results, S-lo.OO for the month of 

 August. This is nearly S2. 00 per day. Doesn't that pay ?" — 

 F. A. Salisbury, in Gleanings. 



One is led to wonder why such men as R. L. Taylor and 

 Mr. Salisbury do not devote their entire time to feeding back, 

 or at least all the time the bees are not actively engaged in 

 honey-gathering from the flowers. If one can make S5.00 

 per colony for each colony fed one month, surely it would pay 

 to keep a few hundred colonies busy about three months in 

 the year. This will beat bee-keeping in the ordinary way two 

 to one. But for some reason I am led to feel that there must 

 be a mistake some place. I am sure of one thing at least — 

 many plans that seem to work successfully with a few colonies 

 will prove to be a failure when applied to a large number of 

 colonies. I am also convinced that the average bee-keeper will 

 make a failure of feeding back, and the less he has to do with 

 it the better off he will be. Of course, this is only " my notion," 

 but then I look upon myself as being possessed of average 

 intelligence and ability, and I frankly confess that I have never 

 been able to make any kind of feeding back pay. So my 

 advice is, if you feel you must try the experiment for yourself, 

 do not go in too heavy at the start. 



Dampness Injures Flowers. — "Cold, rainy 

 weather is detrimental, chilling the flowers and causing the 

 pollen to fall." — Report of the Secretary of Agriculture for 

 1893. 



Here is a point out of which beekeepers should not fail to 

 make the most they can. We have been insisting that it is 

 not necessary to spray any kind of fruit when in bloom, and 

 now comes the Government Experimenter and says that it is 

 an injury to the fruit to spray when the plant is in bloom. 

 He says, in an experiment made with a Mount Vernon pear 

 tree at Geneva, N. Y., that the tree was "sprayed continu- 

 ously for eight days, the entire time of blooming, and not only 

 was no fruit set, but the foliage was rendered sickly and the 

 tree's condition greatly impaired." If we can make the fruit- 

 growers understand that there is not only danger of killing 

 the bees, but that spraying when the plant or tree is in bloom 

 may destroy the fruit as well, then we may rest assured that 

 we will have no more trouble in this direction. We may not 

 be able to move the horticulturist by showing him our danger 

 of loss; but if we can convince him that he will lose, too, then 

 we appeal to his selfishness as well as his love of humanity. 

 As we are all a little inclined to be selfish, it will be well to 

 give the above facts as wide circulation as possible. 



Nor Any Other Xinie. — "Open air feeding should 

 not be started too early in the spring, and only when the 

 weather is warm. The food should also be very much thinner 

 than ordinary bee-syrup." — Editorial in British Bee Journal. 



It seems strange to me to have an editor of a bee-paper 

 explain how or when to feed in the open air. If bees must be 

 fed syrup of any kind, why not feed it from the top of the 

 hives ? Then you will know exactly what bees you are feeding 

 and how much you have fed them. If fed in the open air, it 

 seems to me that many colonies which did not need feeding 

 would carry away as much as those that did need it. Then, it 

 seems to me that I would not want such a commotion as open 

 air feeding is sure to create, if there is no nectar being gath- 

 ered from the flowers, and has not been for some time. My 

 advice would be not to feed in the open air at any time. If 

 colonies must be fed in the spring, the sooner one can get 

 through with it the better. Bees wear out mostly, and they 

 will wear just as fast when carrying in sugar syrup as they 

 will when gathering nectar. " A hint to the wise issuBHcient." 

 Do not feed too much. 



Are Xhey ? — "I concluded the theory of drone-eggs 

 not being influenced by the impregnation of the queen was all 

 bosh." — W. C. Wells, in Canadian Bee Journal. 



Is there any foundation for the above statement? Does 

 the sperm fluid from a black drone in any way affect the male 

 progeny of an Italian queen ? Or, if a black queen be mated 

 with an Italian drone, will any of her male progeny show any 

 traces of Italian blood ? Might it not be well to do some care- 

 ful experimenting along this line ? While the experimenting 

 is going on will some one please rise and explain why it is that 

 the cell furnished by the /cmttie bee always produces a tmiie 

 when it is not united with a male cell ? Does the mother 

 always furnisli the male element of an animal which is the 

 product of the union of two cells? 



