1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



409 



when she will not move to another 

 comb." 



Right, Brother Manley, we have 

 talked ourselves hoarse explaining 

 this. But even your 16x10 combs are 

 not large enough, and you would say 

 so if you ever tried larger ones on a 

 sufficient scale. That was our ex- 

 perience and many are getting awak- 

 ened to that fact. 



ARE WE GOOD SAMARITANS? 



Third List, Belgian-French 



Relief 



Cash subscribed in former lists.$272.85 



Porter C. Ward, Allenville, Ky. 5.00 



H. Christensen, Toppenish, 



Wash 10.50 



S. Barbeau, St. Eustache, Que- 

 bec s.oo 



C. E. Fowler, Hammonton, N. J. 5.00 



F. E. Millen, Guelph, Ontaria— 5.00 



I. N. Arnold, Kanola, Iowa 5.00 



J. F. Diemer, Liberty, Mo 2.00 



R. E. Newcomb, Cleveland, O.— 5.00 



A. S. Ferry, Naugatuck, Conn.- 5.00 



L. Van Butsele, Collinsville, 111. 1.00 



F. W. Lesser, East Syracuse.— 10.00 



Total cash subscription to 



November 9 $331.35 



Queens promised: 

 Former lists 83 



Ben G. Davis, Spring Hill, Tenn.._ 50 

 Hardin S. Foster, Columbia, Tenn. 25 



Total number of queens prom- 

 ised 158 



Of the above number of queens, 123 

 are from Tennessee. Are beekeepers 

 of Tennessee more generous than 

 those of other States? 



Additional supplies promised value 

 $324. 



Adding up these different items, we 

 have already about $800 in value 

 promised, and all the cash is paid in. 

 We should readily get $5,000. This 

 would make a donation worth while, 

 especially when we transfer it into 

 the sadly depreciated currency of 

 Belgium and France. Late news in- 

 dicates that France has less than half 

 the number of bees owned a few 

 years ago, in the undamaged regions, 

 while the devastated areas are en- 

 tirely bare. 



This is the holiday month. Cotne 

 on, friends, and make a little Christ- 

 mas present to your brothers across 

 the water. We will prove once more 

 that "A friend in need is a friend in- 

 deed." 



All donations will be published and 

 the destination of the gifts will be 

 made known as soon as arranged. 



Bear in mind that, when you sub- 

 scribe to charitable organizations, 

 you are entitled to deduct the amount 

 from your income tax report, thus 

 lessening your tax. 



Direction Bees Fly 



In the British Bee Journal, con- 

 tributors discuss the direction in 

 which bees fly. One man says they 

 go against the wind, "presumably to 

 have the wind in their favor when 

 coming home." Is it not rather be- 

 cause the wind brings them the odor 

 of the flowers? 



The Dadant Apiaries in 1919 



A number of readers ask for a re- 

 port of our Dee seaso'i of 1919. Here 

 it is : 



We began the season with some- 

 thing over 550 colonies in 9 apiaries. 

 There was no white clover at all. So 

 we could not expect much of a crop. 

 To cap the climax, the spring season 

 was very dry. Having bees in plenty 

 and nothing for them to do, we con- 

 cluded to make some increase arti- 

 ficially, and raised the number of 

 colonies to about 730. We were 

 hoping for a fall crop of persicarias 

 (heartsease) and Spanish needles, of 

 which there is always a fair amount 

 in average seasons in this section. 

 But the drought did not permit 

 them to develop so as to give us any 

 hopes of a crop, and we faced the 

 probable necessity of feeding largely 

 for winter, when sugar was scarce 

 and high. Not a very delightful pros- 

 pect, indeed. 



The Mississippi river was high 

 during the spring months. For that 

 reason there was more moisture 

 than usual on the low lands which 

 are protected by levees, for quite a 

 great deal of water seeps through 

 the sands, from the big stream. A 

 visit to the low bottom lands situated 

 from 10 to 30 miles from us con- 

 vinced us 'that it would pay to again 

 practice nomadic beekeeping. So 

 some 400 colonies were moved to the 

 bottoms. With some 240 already lo- 

 cated near the edge of the bluffs, 

 above the bottoms, we thus had ap- 

 proximately 640 colonies near im- 

 mense fields of fall flowers. About 

 300 of them were right in the center 

 of the bottom lands. 



The bees were moved on our two 

 large trucks capable of taking 60 of 

 the large Dadant hives at a trip. This 

 is where the small hives would have 

 the advantage. But we are quite 

 sure that their crop would have been 

 less than that of the large hives. 



The hauling was done the last of 

 July, the bees transported an aver- 

 age of 30 miles. The caps and supers 

 were carried separately, each brood- 

 chamber being covered with a wire 

 screen nailed on a strong wooden 

 frame fastened on the brood-cham- 

 ber with staples. The hives were 

 closed at 4 o'clock in the morning, 

 on cool nights, loaded and hauled at 

 once, so as to reach the destination 

 by 7 o'clock. 



Had the colonies been as strong as 

 is usually the case in July, the crop 

 would have been immense. As it 

 was, the harvest from Spanish nee- 

 dles, boneset, persicarias and asters 

 was 78 barrels, or something over 

 40,000 pounds. 



The bees are now back in their re- 

 spective apiaries on the hills for the 

 winter. Although the clover pros- 

 pect is not very promising, we be- 

 lieve that they will do better on the 

 hills next spring than on those low 

 lands where there is little early 

 bloom outside of willows and a few 

 spring flowers. 



Do Bees Need Water 

 in Transportation . 



The late Harbison, of California, 

 the first man to ship colonies of bees 

 in large numbers from New York to 

 California by way of Panama, a joui- 

 ney of 5,900 miles, in 1857, wrote as 

 to the need of water by bees in tran- 

 sit : 



"Bees do not need water in transit. 

 The different management of bees by 

 different parties who shipped them 

 from New York to California, is proof 

 in point; those who did not water or 

 feed any during the voyage succeeded 

 much better than those who did so 

 regularly; this was the result as tried 

 side by side on board the same ship." 



Bees do need water, and very urg- 

 ently when they have brood to feed, 

 though they can get along some time 

 without it. 



Attend the Meetings 



Beekeepers today have more 

 chances than at any time in the past 

 to extend their knowledge of bees by 

 attending meetings. Besides the reg- 

 ular State meetings, many counties 

 meet, department experts conduct 

 courses and State experts give dem- 

 onstrations. 



No beekeeper is so well informed 

 but that he can glean some good 

 from contact with other beekeepers. 

 A single idea in practical application 

 may save, many times over, the cost 

 of such trips. 



