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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



October 



Shade for Bees 



IT was the late E. W. Alexander 

 who first observed that colonies 

 under a dense shade did not build 

 up in spring as would those more ex- 

 posed to the sun's heat. Others have 

 found dense shade at that time detri- 

 mental to the welfare of bees only 'n 

 the early and cool part of the day. 

 Colonies, therefore, placed to the 

 east of trees or buildings, did as well 

 as those in the open. 



Contrary to all such experience, 

 some of our strongest colonies, pro- 

 ducing the highest yields, were situ- 

 ated snugly against the west side of 

 a building. This is but an isolated 

 case, however, and does not prove 

 that bees do not generally need the 

 morning sun. 



Hives with a single thickness of 

 board for cover should, on the other 

 hand, never sit directly in the hot 

 :un, through the warmest part of 

 the summer. Fortunately, such cov- 

 ers are gradually being replaced by 

 the double kind, which do not warp 

 and twist, and that have an air-space 

 between, keeping the inner one, at 

 all times, comfortably cool. 



L. E. KERR, 

 Ft. Smith, Ark. 



Honey 



Production for Home Use 



By C. T. Ohlinger 



I ONCE asked an old farmer why 

 he didn't keep bees in order to 

 get some honey for family use. 

 He recalled that his father killed all 

 enthusiasm for beekeeping when he 

 cautiously advised "My boy, if ever 

 you want to see your money fly, just 

 keep pigeons and bees." The infer- 

 ence was that neither brought any 

 money. I'll not stop to contradict 

 such a sweeping statement. There 

 are farmer beekeepers who get little 

 or nothing from their bees. It's not 

 the fault of the bees. 



In the first place, it must be re- 

 membered that not every section is 

 adapted to honey production. In 

 some parts of the country bees 

 scarcely make a living, to say noth- 

 ing about a surplus they might store 

 for their owner. Then, again, the 

 question of quality must be consid- 

 ered if the honey is to be sold to 

 storekeepers or private customers. 

 At present I am in a locality where 

 these conditions obtain. The so-called 

 Eastern shore of Maryland is no 

 clover belt, the main crops being 

 wheat, corn and tomatoes. The for- 

 ests consist of pines and oaks, very 

 few, if any, basswoods. To go into 

 extensive beekeeping in such a local- 

 ity would, indeed, be a waste of time 

 and money. Yet we are not without 

 bees. There's a "sprinkling" of hives 

 throughout the whole peninsula 

 which is not devoid of honey-produc- 

 ing flora, such as locusts, wild flow- 

 ers, sweet clover, etc. 



Now I find, traveling up and down 

 the State, that many farmers still 

 cling to the old and much <! 



live. They have ihe shape of a 

 chimney, one foot square and four 

 feet high with two cross-sticks in 

 the middle to hold the combs. Most 



of them are old relics and heirlooms 

 of days gone by, bought at public 

 sales with the bees in them like a 

 cat in the bag. Some are of recent 

 construction. Not long ago I caught 

 a farmer beekeeper in flagranti saw- 

 ing out the lumber for one of these 

 makeshifts. Of course, he didn't 

 know what he was doing. 



I told him that I very much pre- 

 ferred the old logs cut out of a bee- 

 tree, since they were not apt to warp 

 or show any cracks. He couldn't un- 

 derstand why I objected to a hive of 

 such simple construction, since he 

 always managed to cut a dishful of 

 honey out of it in the fall. To con- 

 vince me he opened one in which the 

 bees were working "right smart." Of 

 course, the bees were working from 

 the bottom up. struggling to fill the 

 gap between the cross-sticks and the 

 cover made by the previous "cut- 

 ting" 



He had never heard about shifting 

 the hive to another place after the 

 swarm issued and putting the new 

 swarm on the old stand. Getting 

 surplus with this man was very much 

 like being lucky. 



Others again, I find, are using mod- 

 ern hives without a bit of foundation. 

 The combs in them are built criss- 

 cross and are left that way. They 

 never have the intention of moving a 

 frame for the sake of inspection or 

 manipulation. The bees see to it 

 that their brood-chamber becomes a 

 sealed book to the farmer. Of - course, 

 a super is put on. _Tust_ when to do it 

 is a matter of speculation. I remem- 

 ber one day in July, as I was bring- 

 ing a load of new comb honey to 

 market, a man who kept over a 

 dozen hives asked me to sell him 

 some foundation so that he might 

 put on his supers to get the new 

 crop. It is evident that keeping bees 

 is equal to "seeing your money fly" 

 when managed in such a way. 



I could never understand why 

 some farmers persist in using a comb 

 honey super instead of a plain ex- 



tracting super, half depth size, when 

 they want honey merely for their 

 own use. A super fitted out with 

 open frames and foundation is en- 

 tered more readily by the bees than 

 a comb-honey super with its many 

 little compartments. Swarming is 

 also deferred, if not given up alto- 

 gether. Thus the matter of surplus 

 is not quite so problematical. The 

 honey can be cut out of these frames 

 and packed into glass jars. If it's 

 stored away in sections there is a 

 chance for the moths to ruin it. Be- 

 sides, the honey gets an unappetiz- 

 ing appearance if stored in sections 

 that are used several seasons. 

 Cambridge. Md. 



The Naming of Nails 



By J. A. Green 



THE article by Major Shallard, in 

 the August number, and the ed- 

 itor's comments thereon, are in- 

 teresting to me and I would like to 

 pursue the subject a little further. 



In the first place, I think our 

 names for the sizes of nails are not 

 distinctively United States, but some- 

 thing we have inherited from Eng- 

 land. If the Australians use another 

 system, they have gotten farther 

 away from the mother country in 

 this respect than we have. 



There is another explanation for 

 the origin of our way of naming 

 nails than the one given by the ed- 

 itor. Both are recognized by the 

 Standard Dictionary, but the one I 

 shall give I consider the more rea- 

 sonable of the two: When the Eng- 

 lish nail maker hammered out his 

 nails by hand, he called the nail, a 

 thousand of which would weigh ten 

 pounds, a ten-pound nail, or in his 

 dialect, a ten-pun nail. If a thousand 

 weighed four pounds, it was a four- 

 pun nail. Ten-pun easily became 

 ten-punny, and that was readily 

 changed to ten-penny, as we have it 

 now. 



Hrinping home the hone) We I name of the boy, as well as of the photographer wh 



