1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



265 



ends, may be seen, but those outside 

 combs are the least interesting and 

 the queen only occasionally may be 

 seen upon them. She usually seeks 

 to hide herself as soon as the combs 

 are uncovered and gone tc the inside. 



With a single-comb observation 

 hive, we can witness the laying of 

 eggs, the nursing of the brood, the 

 building of combs, the rearing of 

 queens and in fact all the perform- 

 ances of the bees and of the queen. 

 If it is arranged so that a little of 

 the comb is built crosswise, so as to 

 have cells attached to the glass, we 

 can watch bees while they are in this 

 comb. In fact, such a hive is an end- 

 less source of amusement and all the 

 information about the natural his- 

 tory of the bee is secured there at 

 first hand and the teachings of the 

 naturalist confirmed. 



An observation hive may be 

 stocked with bees at any time during 

 the season when bees breed. An 8- 

 frame observation hive, on the other 

 hand, should be stocked with bees 

 only at the time of making divisions 

 or natural swarms. 



The single-frame observation hive 

 is supplied with a comb of brood, 

 bees and honey, from some populous 

 colony, usually from a choice queen, 

 so that if we rear queens in it, they 

 may be of some value. If not suffi- 

 ciently strong in bees, after it has 

 been stocked, it may be made as 

 strong as desired by shaking at its 

 entrance, on a cloth, a number of 

 young workers who have never yet 

 taken flight; they will adopt it as 

 their own, since they have no knowl- 

 edge of any other place. Young bees 

 are secured from the brood-combs of 

 a populous colony while the old bees 

 are in the field, in the middle of the 

 day. 



Even a neglected, hopelessly 

 queenless observation hive may be 

 the source of information, as it often 

 contains drone-laying workers, who 

 will give us the spectacle of an oc- 

 currence which some noted beekeep- 

 ers have doubted. There is no end 

 to the pleasure which may be de- 

 rived from such a hive, even for vis- 

 itors who are not in the least in- 

 formed about the bees. The cost is 

 small and when the summer is ended 

 the comb and its occupants may be 

 united to some other colony. 



The Export Market 



The American beekeeper owes 

 much of the present favorable mar- 

 ket to the foreign demand which 

 cannot be met. According to the 

 "Australasian Beekeeper" there are 



more than fourteen hundred tons 

 of honey being held in storage at 

 Sydney for shipment abroad. In that 

 far country sufficient shipping space 

 is not available and the honey must 

 wait a favorable opportunity. Aus- 

 tralia also has a large supply of 

 wheat which would do much to re- 

 lieve the present world shortage, if 

 ships were available to transport it 

 to the European markets. Ships and 

 more ships, is the crying need to 

 meet the losses caused by the sub- 

 marines, and to transport the food 

 necessary to meet the constantly 

 growing demand from overseas. It is 

 apparent that high prices for honey 

 will continue for some time, even 

 though the war should close. How- 

 ever, in Australia, where lack of 

 shipping facilities prevents the bee- 

 keepers from making the most of 

 the foreign demand, honey is quoted 

 at from 9 to 12 cents per pound. 

 With the termination of the war and 

 the consequent release of shipping, 

 the prices in different places can be 

 expected to equalize, on a basis of 

 normal freight charges. 



Foreign Notes 



The Italian editors file away and 

 probably bind their exchanges. Once 

 in a while we read in their magazines 

 something taken out of Gleanings or 

 out of the American Bee Journal of 

 6 or 8 years ago and it reads to us 

 like new matter and we wonder 

 whether it was really published so 

 long ago. Try to save and bind your 

 bee magazines, and read them over, 

 in a few years. In many cases you 

 will find something useful or inter- 

 esting which you had forgotten. 



The April number of "L'Apicoltore" 

 of Milan celebrates the 80th anniver- 

 sary of the President of the Italian 

 association, Count Visconti Di Sali- 

 ceto. We believe the Count is the 

 only representative of an ancient 

 ruling family deeply interested in 

 beekeeping. Beekeepers, as a rule, 

 belong to the middle class, like you 

 and me. We wish Count Visconti 

 many more years of life. We know 

 him to be a true democrat, even 

 though he be a descendant of the 

 rulers of Lombardy. 



The same number of "L'Apicoltore" 

 publishes the death knell of the old 

 German Berlepsch system of hives. 

 This system was represented in Italy 

 by the "Sartori" hive. It is being 

 fast replaced with hives of the Lang- 

 stroth system, under the name of 

 "Dadant-Blatt" hives. 



The "Bulletin D'Apiculture" of 



Switzerland publishes in its April 

 number some studies upon bee par- 

 alysis by Dr. G. E. Turesson taken 

 from the Swedish "Bootanisk Tid- 

 skrift," translated by Dr. Rotschy. 

 Turesson attributes the invasion of 

 paralysis to the fungi of mold. With- 

 out doubt, cool weather, accompanied 

 with dampness is most dangerous for 

 paralysis, May disease, vertigo, or 

 Isle-of-Wight disease. 



Now is the time to Requeen 



If you are a careful beekeeper, you 

 will have kept record of the amount 

 of hone}' produced by each colony in 

 your apiary. 



Now that the crop is nearly over, 

 you can devote your attention to in- 

 creasing the prolificness of your 

 queens by breeding new queens from 

 your best colonies and introducing 

 them in the colonies from which me- 

 diocre queens have been removed. 



The time was, when a beekeeper 

 could breed for honey-producing 

 qualities alone and come nearly hit- 

 ting it right, but with the prevalence 

 of European foulbrood it is also very 

 important to have a strain of bees 

 which are in part or entirely resist- 

 ant, and the comman black bee, or its 

 cross, will not usually measure up to 

 the pure Italian race. Unfortunately, 

 the Carniolans and Caucasians have 

 not been given thorough enough trial 

 to determine their resistance. 



Possibly you do not want to bother 

 with rearing your own queens, but 

 would rather leave it to the experi- 

 enced breeder to give you queens 

 from a good honey-producing stock. 

 In any case, it will pay you to re- 

 queen wherever your stock is impure 

 or where the queen has a colony very 

 much below the average of your 

 yard. 



Leave Enough Honey for Winter 



Many beekeepers will be inclined, 

 with the high price of honey, to ex- 

 tract very closely from their bees, 

 either in the hopes that all colonies 

 can gather enough to winter on dur- 

 ing the late summer or fall, or in ex- 

 pectation of feeding later on a lot of 

 sugar syrup for winter stores. 



It is bad practice at any time to 

 replace good white honey by sugar 

 for wintering. It is doubly bad prac- 

 tice now, since the department has 

 made a ruling whereby beekeepers 

 are only to get half of the sugar they 

 require, and care is to be taken that 

 such beekeepers are not extracting 

 honey and feeding sugar to take its 

 place. 



