1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



455 



covers spotted, where the wind blew the drops from the leaves 

 above. 



I extracted this stuff by the barrel, intending to feed it 

 the next spring, and fed up as many colonies on sugar as I 

 thought I could afford to. I would better have fed them all. 

 The hives containing honey-dew had the fronts spotted with 

 the excrement of the bees early in the winter. The colonies 

 provided with stores of sealed sugar syrup were quiet and 

 clean. My cellar is very dry and warm, and is a first-class 

 winter repository. About the middle of March the weather 

 became warm, the ground was dry, and I put the bees out for 

 a flight. Many colonies were dead, others very weak, and all, 

 except the sugar-fed colonies, filthy in the extreme. In the 

 evening I put the bees all back that were living, and closed 

 the cellar. I did not put out over a dozen of the colonies I 

 had fed the fall before, as they seemed in perfect condition, 

 and the work was hard, as there were many hives to handle. 



In the midst of all this ruin and loss I consoled myself 

 with the assurance that the sugar would bring out a part of 

 the apiary in good condition, but the "Best laid plans of mice 

 and men gang oft aglee." The spring was late and cold, 

 and when. In the latter part of April, I placed the bees on the 

 summer stands, my " sugared " colonies were but little better 

 than the others. Were they not diseased by the foul air of 

 the cellar filled with hives fairly rotten with diarrhea? 



As to what this so-called honey-dew was, I do not know. 

 I believe it exuded from the leaves — how, or why, I leave it 

 to our scientists to explain. In the winter It granulated, look- 

 ing live a very poor grade of brown sugar, leaving several 

 inches of a very dark liquid on the top. The granulated part 

 was not as sweet as the other. There was no fall crop, con- 

 sequently honey was scarce, and many tiee-keepers sold this 

 stuff for what they could ^et. It retailed here in sections at 

 10 and 15 cents per pound. It was not fit to eat, and I never 

 sold a pound of it. In the spring my honey-dew soured, and 

 I threw it away. It cost me several hundred dollars, but if it 

 comes again I will know what to do with it — extract every 

 drop and feed the bees. Monroe, Iowa. 



The Kingbird or Bee-Martin. 



BY J. W. ROUSE. 



According to the report made in 1893, of the Secretary 

 of Agriculture, the claim is made that the kingbird, or bee- 

 martin, as it is most commonly known, is not harmful to the 

 bee-keeoer. I take some exceptions to this claim. Accord- 

 ing to the report, " Among the 171 stomachs of the bee-martin 

 examined, only 14, or less than one-twelfth of the entire num- 

 ber, contained any traces of the honey-bee, while the total 

 number of bees found was but 50 ; of these, 40 were positively 

 identified as drones, and only 4 were unquestionably workers. 

 The remains of the other 6 were so fragmentary as to render 

 impossible anything beyond the determination of the species." 



Since locating here, now nearly five years ago, I have 

 been troubled with the bee-martin, and I am sure it has been 

 a source of considerable loss to me. To settle the matter for 

 myself, I have watched these birds closely, and have seen 

 them either fly, or sometimes sH, near where the bees are 

 flying, and saw them by ruttling their crest on the head to at- 

 tract the bees to them, when they would gobble them up. 

 They seem to understand this method, or operation, perfectly, 

 as I have noticed them very frequently, and whenever they 

 ruffle the crest, it seems to attract the attention of the bees, 

 which attack the bee-martin, but the bee looses her life almost 

 every time. I do not believe this movement of the bird would 

 attract the drones, but to make doubly sure that I had made 

 no mistake, I have, after watching the bee-martin gobble up 

 the honey-bee as described, shot the bird, and on opening the 



bird's stomach and gizzard I would there find the remains of 

 the honey-bee it had been eating. 



The claims of the Report referred to are that the bee- 

 martins are a great insect-eater, but that they destroy a very 

 large number of insects that are harmful to the agriculturist, 

 and but few honey-bees, so that the good they do largely over- 

 balances the value of the bees that they may destroy. I 

 would perhaps be willing to abide the loss of what honey-bees 

 they might get from me in consideration of their destroying 

 other Injurious Insects, but for the fact that when the bee- 

 martin Is plentiful in queen-rearing time I notice that my loss 

 of young queens is very much greater when taking their wed- 

 ding flight than it is when I kill off the bee-martin in this 

 vicinity. While I have never been able to detect them catch- 

 ing a queen, or found any in dissecting the bird, I am sure 

 that they destroy them, for the reason that in rearing young 

 queens when the bee-martin is around my loss is sometimes 

 nearly 50 per cent., until I go gunning, after which my loss 

 of young queens is very greatly reduced. 



As to their catching drones, that does not bother me any, 

 but the size and rather sluggish flight of the queen makes 

 them an especial target, and their rather slow motion makes 

 them an easy prey for the birds. If I was not rearing queens 

 I would not pay much attention to them, unless they nested 

 close to the apiary, as it is when they have a nest of young 

 ones that their depredations are so very pronounced. So if 

 Mr. and Mrs. Bee-Martin choose to make their home in close 

 proximity to my apiary, they do so at a very great risk of 

 their lives. Mexico, Mo. 



Killing the Bees Instead of Wintering. 



BY ED JOLLEY. 



As I read the article by John McArthur in reply to Mr. 

 Bevins (page 297), I was led to wonder if the wheels of prog- 

 ress had slipped a cog, and had the slip taken us back half a 

 century, or whether some of the brethren were really that far 

 behind the times. Has honey-producing degenerated so far 

 that it is necessary to rob the hive of its winter stores and 

 murder the inmates to make a living? If it has, it is time for 

 all bee-keepers who have a conscience, to turn from their be- 

 loved pursuit and take up something less trying. 



Fifty years have come and gone since the invention of the 

 box-hive with top-storage drawers, that the apiarist might 

 take his share of the bees' well-earned stores without resort- 

 ing to the sulphur-pit, which had heretofore prevailed. Since 

 then invention after invention has been made in behalf of the 

 bee. The manipulation of the bee has become a science. We 

 can go to the hive at the close of the harvest, and we can take 

 what we see fit — we can leave much or little — and too often 

 it's little. But here is one who goes a step further and takes 

 all. 



In defense of his position he ridicules the attachment 

 which every true bee-keeper must have for his bees. He ar- 

 gues that no one has conscientious scruples against killing the 

 cow that furnishes him with butter and milk. But that argu- 

 ment is weak in the back. The bee provides its own living, 

 hunts its own pastures, gathers its own winter stores, and 

 furnishes a surplus more than ample to pay for the hive and 

 attention furnished by man ; its carcass is of no use after it 

 has been deprived of its life. On the other hand, the cow 

 must be provided for from the time she is born up to the 

 butcher's block. She cannot more than pay for the feed and 

 trouble of taking care of her, with butter and milk, and 

 Justly surrenders her body in beef to pay for the three years' 

 raising before she became a cow. The food derived from her 

 body is a necessity for man's subsistence. If the cow secured 

 her own forage, gathered and filled her own stable with hay ; 

 then if you killed her and threw her carcass away, that you 



