THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



149 



to mean precisely what you inteqireted 

 him to mean when you wrote that he was 

 "emphatic in the assertion that .... 

 (|ueens are the part of most especial value. " 

 That does not conflict with the editor's 

 statement. 



L.\PKKR, Mich., March 25, 1899. 



EDITORIAL 



ffcrings. 



ItlliNTiNG Wild Bees is a subject up- 

 on which I would like a good article. 



Mr. E. T. Abbott is no longer con- 

 nected with the Modern Farmer and 

 Busy Bee; and may soon start another 

 journal of his own. 



■»»»»<«j^«»^« 



Two Worlds is the title of the fco 

 prize story, written by Mrs. J. M. Null, 

 that has been commenced in the Progres- 

 sive. It starts out quite storified. 



■-H*" «mM^rf*rf« 



"He, She, or It." Which shall we 

 call the worker bee? The choice is cer- 

 tainly between "she" and "it." There 

 are some arguments for both, but it 

 seems to me that "it" gets the best of the 

 argument. 



*^i«.««*«. 



The Le.^hy Mfj;. Co., receives a well 

 deserved, two-column "write up" in their 

 local paper, the Advance. It traces the 

 business from the beginning with Mr. 

 Leahy running a foot power saw, until 

 the present, when it is the largest busi- 

 ness in Higginsville. 



Too M.\NV I'REMHMS aregiven by us 

 bee-keeping editors to suit one of my 

 western subscribers. He says that when 

 he pays his dollar he wants "a dollar's 

 worth of journal; not sixty-five cents 

 worth of journal and thirty-five cents 

 worth of premium." 



Br,.\CK Clothing and the aversion 

 with which it is regarded bj' the bees re- 

 ceives further con.sideration in Gleanings; 

 and it does seem as though the testimony 

 given in proof of this aversion is incon- 

 trovertible. My own experience, as I 

 have before stated, has been that bees 

 have a decided aversion to black. 



*«^^*».*«««^n 



Travel->St.\in has received quite a lot 

 of attention in Gleanings. I think that I 

 have read all that has been published on 

 the subject. There seems to be a differ- 

 ence of opinion as to whether this dark, 

 reddish-brown color is a stain that comes 

 from the bees running over the comb, or 

 from the incorporation of bits of propolis 

 or old comb into the cappings. Per- 

 haps both views are correct. That is, it 

 may sometimes arise from one cause, and 

 sometimes from the other. One thing is 

 quite clear, viz., that it is always found 

 in close proximitj' to old brood combs. 

 The moral is to have the sections capped 

 at some distance from the brood-nest; 

 that is, unless the brood-combs are new. 



^L^ ^ rf ^ B'^^^M^ 



WHEN OUEENS DIE. 



In Stray Straws, in Gleanings, Dr. 

 Miller says "Unless I am entirely mis- 

 taken, the ruleis that all queens in strong 

 colonies are superseded, and that super- 

 sedure usually takes place toward the 

 close of the harvest, when it causes no 

 loss, so its just as well if a queen doesn't 

 last more than a year. ' ' If queens that 

 had been worked almost to death 

 were always .supersetled in the fall, 

 all would be well, but it is exactly 

 as Mr. Dadant has put it, so man\' 

 colonies turn up queenless in the spring. 

 The bulk of the early orders for queens 

 are for queenless colonies. Of course, I 

 do not knoiu that it is overwork of the 

 previous season that causes a queen to 

 die in winter or early .spring, but there 

 are indications that might lead one to 

 that belief. 



