134 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



April 



He \\ as assisted by 

 Mr. W. A. Wefr, Mr. Jas. Armstrong 

 and Mr. F. W. L. Sladen, Dominion 

 i. as well as by the various 

 members of the college staff in the 

 several departments. This was one 

 of the largest short courses in bee- 

 keeping ever held at the institution. 

 GORDON DIXON, Toronto, Out. 



Tennessee and West Virginia 



I had occasion to visit friends in 

 Kentucky in January and took ad- 

 vantage of the opportunity to attend 

 both the Tennessee meeting at Nash- 

 ville and that of West Virginia at 

 Charleston. 



About 50 Tennessee beekeepers at- 

 tended the Nashville meeting and 

 among them one of the old war 

 horses of beekeeping, John M. Davis, 

 who has been known to readers of 

 the American Bee Journal for over 

 45 years. I also met one of the win- 

 ning lady writers on bees, Mrs. Grace 

 Allen, of Nashville, who read a very 

 interesting paper. Mr.G. M. Bentley, 

 the secretary of the State organiza- 

 tions of Fruit Growers, Florists, 

 Nurserymen and Beekeepers, is a 

 live wire and turned out to be a prac- 

 tical apiarist, in spite of his cumu- 

 lative office. Dr. J. S. Ward, the 

 State Inspector, was abed with the 

 influenza, but he was ably repre- 

 sented by his brother, Porter Ward, 

 who was elected president. 



Among those from the North, I 

 met J. C. Allen, of Wisconsin. The 

 Tennessee beekeepers have a grow- 

 ing and interesting association. 



At Charleston the meeting was pre- 

 sided over by T. K. Massie, an old, 

 experienced apiarist. Mr. Chas. A. 

 Reese, the State Apiarist, exhibited 

 some moving pictures of apiary 

 work. The State of West Virginia 

 appropriated $10,000 last year to pro- 

 mote apiary work. It was needed, 

 for I was told that the majority of 

 bee owners are still "bee-gum" api- 

 arists. The gum tree, which is usu- 

 ally hollow, is cut down and sawed 



into lengths of 3 or 4 feet, with a 

 board at each end and a few notches 

 for entrances. 



The few beekeepers who nut at 

 this convention are all practical men. 

 Luzader and Griffith, who 

 live in the north Pan Handle country, 

 gave timely descriptions of the re- 

 sources of their section. Mr. Griffith 

 is full of jokes and can keep a meet- 

 ing in a roar of laughter. 



For the first time I met a deaf-and- 

 dumb apiarist, Mr. L. O. Simmons, 

 who had a very interesting paper 

 read by the secretary. Here, also, I 

 heard of war cripples taking up bee- 

 keeping, and on my way home met a 

 young soldier who lost an arm at 

 Chateau-Thierry and wants to try 

 beekeeping. 



West Virginia, from all reports, 

 does not have very special honey- 

 flows. But there are lots of fruit 

 trees, much sumach, some white clo- 

 ver and fall blossoms. The honey I 

 saw was nearly all amber of good 

 flavor. 



On the whole, West Virginia ap- 

 pears to have a bright future for 

 honey production, if its Legislature 

 continues to sustain an eflort to draw 

 the mountaineer out of the rut of 

 log-gum beekeeping. The gums 

 should disappear with the moonshine 

 and give room for more modern 

 methods. 



The writer was elected an honor- 

 ary member of both associations, an 

 honor much appreciated. — C. P. Da- 

 dant. 



Are Queens Reared from Grafted 

 Larvae Short-Lived? 



After closely noting the careers of 

 queens raised on the transference of 

 larvae to artificial cell cups and those 

 raised in cells built over eggs without 

 removal, I am strongly in favor of 

 the latter. I have found those raised 

 by the former method, as a rule, 

 short-lived and inferior all around 

 to those raised by the latter one. I 

 have no hesitation to attribute our 



repeated failures to get queens 

 through alive from America during 

 the past fifteen years to that meth- 

 od. In former years, before trans- 

 ferrin!,' came into vogue, I could al- 

 ways depend upon getting 50 per cent 

 in good condition, and often all of 

 them. ISAAC HOPKINS, 



Epsom, Aukland, N. Z. 



Getting Rid of Ants 



Beekeepers who are troubled with 

 ordinary ants about the beehive will 

 do well to prepare a strong solution 

 of borax or boracic acid and water, 

 to be mixed with some sweet, such as 

 syrup or honey. 



This, if used where the ants are 

 found, will soon poison all of them. 

 Care must be taken, however to put 

 the poison in a receptacle so that the 

 bees cannot avail themselves of it, or 

 they too will suffer. 



HENRY BEST, 

 Hibbetts, Ohio. 



Group of West Virginia beekeep* Left to rig] Lai 



Will C. Griffith, T. K. Massie, C. P. Dadant, O. D. Lanham, 

 mons, K. L Richardson, Grant Luzader. 



More Farm Manuals 



The Lippincott series of Farm 

 Manuals, which has been mentioned 

 in our pages before, now numbers 12 

 volumes. Each volume is written by 

 a recognized authority and the series, 

 as a whole, forms a valuable library 

 of agricultural information. Produc- 

 tive Beekeeping, by our associate 

 editor is one of this series. 



Productive Sheep Husbandry, by 

 Prof. Walter C. Coffee, of the Uni- 

 versity of Illinois, is another valuable 

 volume. There is no more profitable 

 adjunct to the farm than a flock of 

 sheep. This volume opens with an 

 interesting account of the develop- 

 ment of the sheep industry since 

 early times. It also contains an ex- 

 tended account of the characteris- 

 tics of the various breeds, the dis- 

 eases to which they are subject, 

 methods of profitable management, 

 production of wool, feeding for mar- 

 ket, etc. In all it contains 479 pages 

 of indispensable information for the 

 sheep owner. 



Injurious Insects and Useful Birds 

 is by F. L. Washburn, also of the 

 University of Minnesota, and for 

 many years State Entomologist. It 

 contains several colored plates show- 

 ing well-known insects and birds 

 which add much to the volume. 

 Most of the common insects which 

 injure farm and garden crops are 

 described, and may be recognized 

 from the pictures. There are more 

 than 400 illustrations, nearly as many 

 as there are pages in the book. 



A work of this kind is useful to 

 every owner of a garden or larger 

 area of cultivated land. Insects are 

 apparently becoming more destruc- 

 tive .is the country grows older, and 

 a knowledge of their life history and 

 habits will often save the owner 

 many times the cost of such a book. 



These books are all published by 

 the J. B. Lippincott Company, of 

 Philadelphia. The price of the Dairy 

 and Sheep books are $1.75 each, and 

 of the Bird and Insert book, $2. They 

 can be had from the publishers, or 

 from this office, for the prices named. 



