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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aug. 1, 



the young queons are mating, which will take place from the 

 third to the eighth day after they hatch. If you have the 

 Alley traps, put them on all but your best colonies, including 

 the one that you reared the <iucens from. There is but little 

 use trying to control the mating of your queens if your neigh- 

 bors keep bees. However, in my case I allowed only Italian 

 drones to fly, and I had only two colonies that had desirable 

 drones, and I had only one queen that produced black bees, 

 out of the 40 odd queens that were reared by the method 

 above. 



I practiced this method 13 years ago, just after buck- 

 wheat bloom. I Italianized the whole apiary of over 40 colo. 

 nies of blacks with only a half-dozen colonies of Italians, and 

 the colonies were not in the least injured by being deprived of 

 a laying queen for 10 days after the last flow of honey in that 

 locality. 



Do not breed from a colony of hybrids ! If you have a 

 good Italian queen, I would use her for a queen mother, but 

 rather than use a hybrid I should select pure black stock, no 

 matter how desirable the hybrid colony. You cannot depend 

 upon the young queens to produce either good workers or 

 gentle bees. North Prescott, Mass. 



What Dr. Miller Thinks. 



Planting fob Honey Alone. — I admire the courage of 

 B. S. Russell who stands up, on page 456, for planting for 

 honey alone. For one, I shall be glad to be a disciple, if rea- 

 sonable proof be given of the correctness of his position. 

 Friend Russell, I think others can be got in the ranks with 

 but little coaxing, if you will point them to a successful case 

 of planting for honey alone. Who has succeeded ? What did 

 he plant ? What can I plant from which I can get enough 

 honey to pay a moderate rent on the land ? I'm ready to have 

 the ground occupied, and have tried it more than once, but 

 was regretfully driven to join in the crime of saying, " It does 

 not pay to plant for honey alone." Let's have the answers, 

 Friend Russell, and I'm ready to recant. 



Vipek's Bugloss. — What the word " bugloss" imports 

 seems in doubt on paga 459. The Standard Dictionary gives 

 " bous, ox ; and glossa, tongue." 



Bees Working on More than One Kind of Plant. — 

 On page 465, W. A. Ditson says he has seen bees go from one 

 kind of flower to another on the same trip. He is undoubtedly 

 correct, but I think I never saw anything of the kind only at 

 a time of scarcity. I half suspect they never work on more 

 than one kind when gathering pollen. 



Honor to Whom Honor. — Some of the most vicious work 

 of which I ever knew was the attempt to deprive Father 

 Langstroth of the credit properly due him, but I'm sure he 

 would himself protest against giving him credit to which he 

 is not entitled. Twice within a week I've seen credited to him 

 the maxim, " Keep all colonies strong." Look at the last page 

 of his book, and you will find he quotes from Germany Oettl's 

 golden rule : Keep your colonies strong. 



Sweet Clover. — There is so much strong prejudice 

 against sweet clover — a plant as to the future of which I have 

 much hope — that I regret to see anything in the American 

 Bee Journal to help that prejudice. And when I see on page 

 456, " Sweet clover is a sort of weed," quoted from so good 

 an authority as the editor of Gleanings, I cannot forbear ask- 

 ing Bro. Abbott whether there is not some mistake. For any 

 one reading the item on page 456, is likely to think that the 

 editor of Gleanings has a poor opinion of sweet clover, which 

 is very far from correct. Look at page 462 of the American 



Bee Journal, and you will see an editorial quoted from Glean- 

 ings that speaks in very high praise of sweet clover. In that 

 editorial you will find these words: "Some people call it a 

 weed ; but it is an exceedingly valuable weed." I wonder if 

 that isn't the sentence to which you refer, Bro. Abbott. You 

 see it makes quite a different impression from the quotation 

 given on page 456. 



Does' Flax Yield Honey? — From the testimony offered, 

 it seems that flax is a good honey-plant, but, like many 

 another, at some times and in some places bees get nothing 

 from it. 



Canada Thistle. — So we're told on page 459 that it's 

 " no more the Canada thistle than it is the United States 

 thistle." Maybe it isn't called " Canada " because it originated 

 there, but because it is common there, just as Kentucky blue- 

 grass is found all over. I think I never heard of a place in 

 the United States where bee-keepers looked hopefully to the 

 blooming of Canada thistle, or where there was enough of it 

 so that they knew anything of honey from it, but Canadian 

 bee-keepers talk of it as a common honey-plant. To say, as is 

 said in Canadian Beedom, " It yields honey of an excellent 

 quality," is as much as to say that the speaker has been across 

 the northern border. 



Burnt Sugar. — On page 465, Bert Lownes thinks burnt 

 sugar poisoned bees in the latter part of May. Burnt sugar 

 has long been considered poison for bees if used as winter 

 food, but, like some other things, as honey-dew, I supposed it 

 was all right if bees were flying daily. If it poisons when 

 bees are flying, that's another reason for being careful about 

 it, and Mr. Lownes will confer a favor by giving any positive 

 information on the subject. 



Draining Cappings.— On page 454, Chas. Dadant tells 

 about draining and then washing cappings. When I used to 

 extract some, I left the cappings to drain in the cellar, and as 

 all bee-keepers know, the honey became thin there, and the 

 cappings would have little or nothing on them to wash off. 

 Perhaps this is not so good a plan, and I'd like to know what 

 Mr. Dadant thinks of it. 



A Grand Soaking. — Northern Illinois has been suffering 

 from drouth, but the middle of July brought a change, and 

 crops are saved. After some good showers previously, a regu- 

 lar soaking came July 18. Marengo, III. 



The California Honey Crop for 1895. 



by "rambler." 

 Editor American Bee Journal — 



My Dear Sir : — I note in your issue of July 4, Bro. Brod- 

 beck's signal of distress in relation to the depressed condition 

 of our honey market, and wherein he charges all the evils of 

 low prices to certain writers who have more enthusiasm than 

 discretion about the capabilities of this State. Inasmuch as 

 Bro. B. has in a private letter charged me with being one of 

 the parties who has wrought such havoc, I feel a desire to an- 

 swer him in a public way in order that we may better under- 

 stand the situation. 



In the first place, about the only utterances that have 

 been made in the bee-journals in relation to a large honey 

 crop in California, was in the early spring, when bountiful 

 rains had fallen, and the flowers were in such profusion as to 

 give a brilliant appearance to the landscape; then Prof. Cook, 

 Dr. Gallup, myself, and perhaps another one or two, in the 

 abundance of our enthusiasm amongst so much beauty, said 

 that the prospect was excellent for a large honey crop. Now, 

 it seems to me that our industry stands upon a very slim basis 

 if we cannot remark up the prospects ahead without ruining 

 the industry. We may be unduly enthusiastic, but our friend 



