1883 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



373 



Do young queens destroy remaining cells? This 

 may be so where there are no workers, as in the 

 lamp nursery; but In a full colony, I am inclined to 

 think the workers attend to that business. At least, 

 this has been my experience. I have seen the 

 workers at it while the young queen was leisurely 

 surveying the combs in a different part of the hive. 



I have often wondered how it is that, in the 

 Northern States and Canada, the bee industry is so 

 much more successful than«in the South. Here, all 

 we need for wintering is plenty of bees and honey; 

 while in your section you must have houses and cel- 

 lars and chaff and leaves and straw and cushions, 

 and many other devices, too tedious to mention, and 

 yet you say you get 100, 300, or 300 lbs. of honey from 

 one colony in a season. Why, sir, if we could get 100 

 as. average from each colony, we would not ask for 

 a better fortune than 100 colonies of bees to start 

 with. Perhaps there is more in the man than in the 

 locality. If that is so, please send some "sure- 

 enough" bee-man here to teach us how to do it. 



Oar bees have stored but little honey up to this 

 time. We have had no "swarming extraordinary " 

 this year, as we have had only 11 natural swarms 

 up to this time. J. M. Harris. 



Cedartown, Polk Co., Ga., June 16, 1883. 



Another friend tells us of tramp bees, and 

 now we have lunatic bees. Yes, I have 

 witnessed the same phenomenon, and I can 

 not tell what they are doing, unless it is 

 scraping off the boards around their door- 

 way, much in the same way the good house- 

 wife sweeps and scours the floor and door- 

 steps. With us they usually take up this 

 employment Avhen there is but little to be 

 found in the fields — after basswood has 

 failed, for instance. I believe the newly 

 hatched queen usually bites open the cell, 

 and the bees then take it in hand, and tear 

 the cell down and carry off the embryo 

 queen piecemeal. — I suspect we get more 

 honey in the North, becau.se of the men, the 

 locality, and the influences of the climate 

 on the men. 



1^ iO» w 



DANGER OF OVERSTOCKING. 



WHAT HEDDON SAYS. 



Sypi HAVE read Bro. Pond's criticism on my views 

 /[[ regarding the above subject, as penned by him 

 — ' on page 315, present volume. I thank him very 

 much for his eulogy of my ability as a bee-keeper, 

 and I am sorry he can not give me more credit as 

 an honest and ucsclflsh man. However, the same 

 way that I have gained his good opinion in the one 

 respect, 1 will try to gain it in the other. I have a 

 little different philosophy from Bro. Pond. When I 

 find a man possessing the amount of knowledge and 

 analytical power that he gives me credit for, 1 al- 

 ways find him either too wise to allow himself to be 

 immoral; or, if he is, too keen to write his immor- 

 ality or selfishness to the public. Regarding the 

 "sugar-coated pill," and the "suspicion that troub- 

 les" me. allow me to say to Bro. Pond, that my pill 

 was not created as an antidote for any internal 

 trouble, but for an c,r(cr/io! one. Docs not friend 

 Pond well know that, years ago, when I was alone 

 in showing up facts upon this subject, reprimanding 

 the vile practice of some supply dealers in trying to 

 get all classes into our pursuit, defaming the skill of 

 tbe lew who were succeeding, by heralding the 



"glad tidings of great joy," that honey-producing 

 was all gold, just the thing for sick men and weary 

 women — in fact, all persons out of a job, who had 

 failed at all else; when no Dr. Miller, Hutchinson, 

 House, Hastj', and a host of others were there to 

 helpmc; when the few who did see the point had 

 not the bravery to stem the current of the calumnies 

 of the majority, that then I was called "selfish," 

 " mercenary," " seared," etc. ? 



Suppose you and [ and a few others had a " cor- 

 ner" on honey-producing. Is it undue selfishness 

 to try to keep that corner exclusive? Our editor has 

 over 5000 names of bee-keepers. I wish I had them. 

 I want to place my circular in fair competition with 

 his. Is that list open to me? I will allow any one 

 to copy my list who wants to, who will do so, making 

 me but little trouble. I will hire it done for them. 

 But I will not put aUoat false reports, because I deal 

 in supplies. When George Grimm tells me his and 

 his father's long experience with many hundred 

 colonies, was that when over 40 colonies were kept 

 in one bee range? The pro-rata yield was very per- 

 ceptibly lessened. When Hetherington, Harbison, 

 and Oatman tell us by their acts, that, after about so 

 many colonies, we had better sell, or move on and 

 increase, I am forced to value every inch of the field 

 I occupy. 1 would not have another put a single 

 colony ia my field — mine by right of priority; and, 

 in the language of the great Confucius, I will "not 

 do to others that which I would not have them do to 

 me." 



Friend Pond, if I know your experience as a hon- 

 ey-producer correctly, I am not willing to admit you 

 as good authority on the subject under discussion. 

 Of sizes of frames, safe methods of wintering, the 

 case is ditferent; but, close that law office; com- 

 mence poor, feed and clothe the ones you love, and 

 who love you, with the products of the bees, or go 

 hungry to bed, and I will admit you, and I will have 

 you as earnest on our side of this question as I am. 



I have sold, during the past spring, 8i colonies of 

 bees. I have 150 left in my apiary. I sold 2 yester- 

 day for $20.00. Well, my field, if exhaustless as it is 

 supposed to be by the doctrines taught in friend 

 Pond's article, $40.00 would not have purchased 

 those two colonies. I have fixtures and knowledge 

 to make them worth more than that to me, while 

 they may prove a poor investment, at half the price, 

 to the purchaser. My field is my capital, to a great 

 degree. I am the friend of every beekeeper that is, 

 now and at all times. I can do him no greater ser- 

 vice than do all in my power to controvert the action 

 of many to plant in this path opposition, both in 

 the field and the market. The great law of supply 

 and demand, and influencing prices, has not yet de- 

 serted the realm of honey-production. 



Dowagiac, Mich. James Heddon. 



Friend II., there is just one little sentence 

 in the above which I feel like protesting 

 against. You have used a quotation from 

 the Bible in a sort of irreverent way that I 

 can not think wise or well, even though 

 your views of such things should differ from 

 those held by some of the rest of us. We 

 are a mixed company, remember; and to 

 shock people, where no good can come from 

 so doing, I can hardly think either courteous 

 or kind.— In regard to our list of bee-keep- 

 ers, it is now something like 150,000, and 

 represents the labor of several clerks for sev- 

 eral years past. As the names are printed 



