46 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



apiary that strange swarms will come 

 there. This is, no doubt, owing to the 

 leaders of the swarm getting on, or 

 crossing one of the "lines of flight" of a 

 large apiary, and coming home with the 

 returning bees. 



After an extended trial, I am com- 

 pletely satisfied that a cross between an 

 Italian and Carniolan race of bees is the 

 best. Of course, I find them a trifle 

 more irritable than either race in their 

 purity, but still this is of little moment 

 compared with their other good qualities. 



Come with me now and we will open a 

 colony of my favorite bees. We raise 

 the hive cover gently, blow a few puffs 

 of smoke in over the sections. What 

 beautiful, snowy- white combs, you 

 exclaim ; and the honey, how evenly 

 and whitely it is capped ; what an even- 

 ness characterizes all their work, and 

 what beautiful bees ! 



They all show more or less yellow 

 bands, and several extremely broad 

 bands of white. How fixed and naturally 

 they hang to the combs when examining 

 them ! 



Note the abundance of brood, the 

 immense number of bees, and the clean- 

 liness of their hive inside. Ah ! here is 

 the queen — a large, reddish-gold bee 

 with bright, silvery-colored wings. She 

 does not seem in the least bit discon- 

 certed or excited by the opening of the 

 hive, and the handling of the frames. 

 You see the bees continue to work even 

 while we handle the sections and frames. 

 Now we arrange everything in proper 

 order again ; the hive is closed up — not 

 a single sting, and not a solitary bee 

 killed. 



You ask why not rear queens from 

 such choice stock, and have them all 

 alike. Well, the fact is, I do try to, but 

 it is an utter impossibility to make 

 queens duplicate themselves. Possibly 

 you will get two out of ten queens that 

 will somewhat equal the mother. 

 Hybrid queens, generally speaking, are 

 larger than the full-blooded bees, and 

 are more prolific. 



Some apiarists speak of queens being 

 too prolific, but I have yet to find the 

 first one that I thought was too prolific 

 — the more prolific a queen is, the more 

 bees there are ; and the more bees there 

 are in a hive, the more honey will be 

 stored. 



The practice of clipping the queen's 

 wing, I do not believe in. I am aware 

 that I am stepping on some apiarists' 

 toes by making such an assertion, but 

 if they can prove to me that I am wrong, 

 well and good ; 1 hould be pleased to 

 receive their proof 



Now, a few facts in regard to clipping 

 queens' wings : In an apiary where 

 this method is practiced, there is always 

 quite a loss of queens, and especially so, 

 if the hives are close together and 

 elevated from the ground some distance. 

 If the hives set close to the ground, 

 possibly they will return to their own 

 hive again. If you are not on hand to 

 watch all swarms, there is a great 

 danger of their entering the wrong hive 

 and getting killed. 



Sometimes after the bees have made 

 frequent attempts to swarm, and are 

 unsuccessful, they will kill their queen 

 with a clipped wing, and rear another in 

 her stead, so that the swarming fever can 

 be gratified. 



If the ground around an apiary is 

 infected with ants, it is an exceedingly 

 dangerous practice to clip queens' wings. 

 If you are constantly on hand, all right ; 

 if not, you stand very favorable chances 

 of losing a queen. All things considered, 

 I think that there are more disadvantages 

 than advantages in clipping the queen's 

 wing. — Pacific Rural Press. 



Grizzly Flats, Calif. 



ManajreineDt of Bees in Itie SBriD£. 



I. L. SCOFIELD. 



We have chosen for our subject, spring 

 management of bees, and how to produce 

 a crop of honey for the market. In 

 working for comb-honey, we must have 

 plenty of bees in the hive when the 

 honey season arrives, or a failure is 

 almost certain, as those reared when the 

 season Is drawing to a close, will be 

 consumers instead of producers. 



But how shall we secure the bees ? is 

 frequently asked. The best way that we 

 know of, after years of trial of nearly 

 all the plans which have been recom- 

 mended, is the following : When pollen 

 becomes plenty, say, May 5 to 10, in 

 this locality, we go to each hive, and if 

 the bees will bear spreading a little 

 more, or, in other words, if there appears 

 to be more bees than are needed to 

 cover the brood they already have on a 

 cool morning, we take a frame of honey 

 from the outside of the cluster and 

 break the cappings by passing a knife 

 flatwise over the comb, and place the 

 comb in the center of the brood-nest. 



In ten or twelve days we go over them 

 again in the same way, alv/ays seeing 

 that they have all the honey and bees 

 that are needed to increase the brood to 

 the greatest possible extent, and so we 



