THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



•iOi 



and thicker; now they have commenced get- 

 ting thinner again." I have no desire to 

 hinder progress, but I believe that the major- 

 ity of those who dropped the ordinary 'h top 

 bars and honey board for the wider thicker 

 top bars accompanied with some self- spac- 

 ing arrangement, will eventually pick them 

 up again. Have I tried the wide, thick, top 

 bars ? No. Am I prejudiced ? No. In the 

 first place, I am not yet satisfied that they 

 will do all that is claimed for them, and in 

 the next place I want a queen excluder any 

 way. 



Associations of bee-keepers do not, as a 

 rule hold more than one meeting annually, 

 but there have been some suggestions that 

 the North American hold more than one 

 meeting during the year, one man even ad- 

 vising the holding of four meetings. The 

 reason given tor wishing so many meetings 

 is that a meeting in the West is not attended 

 to any great extent by those in the East, 

 hence it becomes more of a convention for 

 the locality in which it is held, than for oth- 

 er parts of the country. To a certain extent 

 this is true. I think that, as a rule, one-half 

 of the persons present at a meeting of the 

 North American do not travel 200 miles in 

 going and coming. Perhaps one-third or 

 one-fourth of those present consist of lead- 

 ers, or extensive bee-keepers, who attend 

 nearly all of the meetings, let them be held 

 where they may. These men cannot, and 

 will not, afford to travel from 1,000 to 2,000 

 miles several times a year for the sake of at- 

 tending a bee convention. With these men 

 left out, the meetings will become simply 

 local conventions, and these any State in the 

 Union can have if its bee-keepers so decide. 

 When the North American attempts to hold 

 more than one meeting annually it is 

 doomed. 



ITALIANIZING AN APIAEY. 



A subscriber wishes me to tell in the Re- 

 view the best way to Italianize an apiary of 

 fifty colonies. He also wishes to know which 

 is the cheapest method. That for which we 

 pay the least money is not always the cheap- 

 est. The best is usually the cheapest in the 

 long run. Yes, he asks one more question, 

 and that is, if the Italians are any better 

 than hybrids for comb honey. I think I bet- 

 ter answer the last question first, as, if he 

 means by hybrids a cross between the Ital- 



ians and blacks, I can simply say " no," and 

 it is done with. As I take another look at 

 his le'ter I see he also wishes to know when 

 he better do the work. This better be clear- 

 ed away before attacking the main question. 

 I would do it after the main harvest is over. 

 If the queens are to be bought they can then 

 be secured at the lowest price, and are prob- 

 ably as good as those that are reared earlier 

 in the season. My next choice would be 

 quite early in the season, before much hon- 

 ey was coming in or the brood nest had be- 

 come very much extended. The greatest 

 objection to this time of year is the extra 

 price that must be paid for queens. From 

 the approach of the main honey flow to its 

 end I would not disturb the reigning queen 

 of a colony that I was working for comb 

 honey. Any slack in egg-laying allows the 

 workers to take the advantage by storing 

 honey in the brood nest, and once they get 

 the start of the queen, the colony is ruined 

 for comb honey purposes. 



The point as to which is preferable, buy- 

 ing or rearing queens is something that each 

 bee-keeper must decide for himself. If the 

 owner of fifty colonies does not propose to 

 do any other work during the working sea- 

 sou except taking care of his bees, he will 

 certainly have abundant time in which to 

 rear his queens. If he has some other work 

 whereby he is earning good wages, and the 

 baes are a sort of side-issue, it will probably 

 be cheaper and better to buy the queens in 

 the fall. 



If the queens are to be reared, how shall 

 the work be done ? I must confess that I 

 have never been called upon to Italianize an 

 apiary of fifty colonies, rearing my own 

 queens, but I think that I should go at it in 

 something this fashion : Early in the spring 

 I should buy two tested Italian queens and 

 introduce them to two of the colonies, allow- 

 ing these colonies a great abundance of 

 drone comb. I should then examine all of 

 the other colonies, cutting out the drone 

 comb and replacing it with worker comb. 

 Of course, the bees will crowd in a few drone 

 cells in corners, but, by using queen and 

 drone traps any stray drones can be caught, 

 and I would like the traps anyway to catch 

 the queens when the bees swarm. When a 

 hive contains a young queen nearly old 

 enough to mate, the trap must be removed 

 until she has flown. This will occasionally 

 liberate a few drones, perhaps, but they will 

 be so outnumbered by the Italian drones 



