52 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



February 



surplus each, now consisted of a dis- 

 gusting mass of moth-riddled combs. 

 Well, I had some honey to pay me 

 for my trouble. Sixteen strong colo- 

 nies went into winter quarters last 

 fall and they all came out this spring 

 O. K. This time I moved my bees as 

 far from everyone as I could and re- 

 peated my efforts of the preceding 

 spring — clip aid watch cells every 9 

 or 10 days, with much better success. 

 By shaking and destroying cells I 

 have had practically no swarming 

 this season. Though the bees were 

 cross, I have examined every colony 

 liable to swarm all the season. One 

 colony was taken to the University 

 of Wisconsin and with the remaining 

 15 I increased my apiary to 41 colo- 

 nies (strong) by drawing brood as it 

 could be spared. I raise my own 

 queens for the nuclei. Besides be- 

 ing drawn upon pretty heavily, the 15 

 old colonies have given me a surplus 

 of about 100 pounds each. As my 

 bees have been hybrids (some pretty 

 black) I have been trying to improve 

 my stock by introducing pure Italian 

 queens. In addition to the 12 queens 

 purchased, I introduced 10 pure Ital- 

 ians of my own rearing later in the 

 season, replacing some of the earlier 

 queens. Perhaps it was poor econ- 

 omy, buying the 12 queens; however, 

 I thought new blood might be bene- 

 ficial; also, I wanted pure queens in 

 all of my colonies at the opening of 

 next season in order to eliminate 

 hybrid drones and to improve the 

 temper of the workers as soon as 

 possible. I said my bees were cross, 

 also in 1916. Perhaps some might 

 differ with me in judgment; they pes- 

 tered the horses so badly that my 

 brother was obliged to give up culti- 

 vating a field of corn 60 rods away, 

 twice the past summer; though I had 

 not disturbed them for two days pre- 

 vious, and when I did work with 

 them I tried my best to keep peace 

 in their family. However, I finally 

 hit upon a plan that improved mat- 

 ters to a certain extent. As I was 

 protected, I didn't pay much atten- 

 tion to cross bees, and as I left my 

 tools some 30 rods away from the 

 hives, there was invariably a small- 

 sized swarm accompanied me the 

 whole way when my work was 

 through, it occurred to me that I was 

 encouraging my bees to follow peo- 

 ple; so I adopted the rule of giving 

 all bees inclined to follow me from 

 the apiary such a smoking that they 

 couldn't see straight. The other plan 

 was to fasten a tin pail to one end 

 of a 5-foot, quarter-inch gas pipe, put 

 some combustible matter in the pail, 

 get a good fire going, leave the pail 

 some distance from the apiary and 

 then encourage the cross fellows to 

 follow by going among the hives 

 (avoiding annoyance by keeping out 

 of the bees' paths of flight), and then 

 give the cross ones a good warm re- 

 ception. 

 Wisconsin. 



which exists here to beekeeping. We 

 have thousands of acres of fruit 

 trees, largely apple and pear, in this 

 vicinity, which furnish the first flow 

 of honey. These trees are all 

 sprayed with arsenate of lead for 

 coddling moth. Most of the orchard- 

 ists aim to spray as soon as the 

 blossoms fall. There are no blossoms 

 secreting nectar after the fruit un- 

 til the locust comes. Arsenate of lead 

 is supposed to have a rather sweet 

 taste and many of the beekeepers 

 have observed that the bees eat this 

 poison when it is put on the trees for 

 the first time and, in consequence, 

 thousands of bees are killed, and 

 very few are kept in the vicinity of 



the orchards I am wondering 

 whether some system of feeding for 

 a short period at this time might not 

 keep the bees away from the fruit 

 trees and make it practical to keep 

 bees in the orchard district, where I 

 reside. 



Many of the orchards are seeded 

 to alfalfa and in the subsequent 

 spraying a great deal of the arsenate 

 poison falls upon the alfalfa under 

 the trees, but it is claimed by the 

 beekeepers that the alfalfa growing 

 in the shade of the orchards does not 

 secrete much nectar. The largest 

 honey flow comes from the second 

 crop of alfalfa. H. M. TAYLOR, 

 Yakima, Wash. 



BEEKEEPERS BY THE WAY 



A beekeeper on thr 



Who Can Answer? 



I .mi wondering if you could not 

 make a suggestion relative to 

 agement in this community which 

 would obviate the greatest objection 



A Beekeeper on Three Continents 



It is given to but few men to fol- 

 low beekeeping around the world. 

 W. I'.. Dickenson, of Chico, Calif., 

 was a beekeeper in England, later in 

 and now in California. He 

 lias tints had experience in honey 

 production on three continents, Eu- 

 Africa a- d North America. 



As a young man he enlisted in the 

 British army and served for five 

 years, part of the time in East 

 Africa, and ranked as a staff officer 

 when lu retired from army service. 

 He was then chosen as government 

 apiarist and sent to Egypt as per- 

 haps the first extension teacher of 

 beekeeping. Hi-* field extended up 

 and down the Nile Valley Eron 

 andria to Kartoum, a distance of per- 

 haps a thousand miles. The Egyp- 

 tian beekeepers practice migratory 



beekeeping with their apiaries on 

 boats floating down the river as the 

 season advances. The methods prac- 

 ticed are crude and the time was not 

 yet ripe for teaching of modern 

 methods in Egypt among the mass 

 of beekeepers. 



Mr. Dickenson has been in Cali- 

 fornia for several years and is now 

 in charge of the apiary department 

 of the Diamond Match Company of 

 Chico. He has been in charge since 

 this concern established a separate 

 department of bee supplies and they 

 now rank third in volume of manu- 

 facture of bee-keeping equipment. 

 Although the Diamond Match line of 

 supplies has only been in the market 

 about five years, it now goes to all 

 parts of the world, and the volume 

 of sales is increasing at a phenom- 

 enal rate. 



