36 



THE BEE KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



returns become a few hundred dollars they 

 are invested in some of those sure and con- 

 tinuous great enterprises and the bees are 

 turned over to some new comer who, like 

 his predecessor, has no love for the business 

 only so far as it brings him dollars and 

 cents, and a chance to step into something 

 else. 



The number of bee-keepers upon the Pa- 

 cific Coast run up into the thousands, but 

 the bee-keeping world has heard of but few 

 of them. These few are the enthusiastic 

 lovers of the bee and will have bees around 

 them as long as they live. Owing to the 

 above facts the Pacific coast cannot, or has 

 not, supported a bee paper of its own and 

 but indifferently supported bee conventions. 



In order therefore to bring bee-keeping 

 up to a higher standard on this entire coast, 

 we need more enthusiasm for the bee and 

 less for the dollars ; more care and less slip- 

 shod methods ; more conventions and more 

 stir, so that the rest of the world may know 

 that we are alive. That a portion of these 

 things will come in due time is the abiding 

 faith of the Ramblek. 



Redlands, Calif. Jan, 14, 1893. 



ftueen-Excluders. — Hoffman Frames and 



Burr-Combs,— Experiments.— Testing 



Smokers, 



C. 0, MILLEK, 



JANUARY Review 

 oi is a good one, 

 Bro, Martin discour- 

 ages me somewhat 

 with regard to queen 

 excluders, I have 

 hopes of queen ex- 

 cluders, but have an 

 uncomfortable feel- 

 ing all the while that 

 they're an unsolved 

 problem. Still, the 

 fact that they have 

 failed in one or more cases is not conclusive, 

 for there have been excluders with different 

 sizes of perforations, and it may be that the 

 failures belong with too large perforations. 

 If, however, Bro, Martin is right in saying 

 they fail twice in a while, or even if they fail 

 only once in a while with the best sized per- 

 forations, if that while includes not more 



than 25 colonies, then excluders are not so 



valuable. 



One trouble about deciding as to their ef- 

 ficiency consists m the fact that in p«obably 

 a great many cases they have been consider- 

 ed excluders when they have not excluded. 

 For example, I don't count that they have ex- 

 cluded in cases where the queen has not tried 

 to go through them, and would not go 

 tlirough, were the perforations twice as large. 

 In general, queens do not go up into my su- 

 pers. Now if I should put excluders under 

 the supers and then find the queens stayed 

 down, it would be no proof that the queens 

 could not go up. 



And if queen excluders do not exclude, 

 away go our chances for success with self- 

 hiverg, at least with virgin queens. For all 

 self-hivers, so far, depend on confining the 

 queen and letting the workers go free, 



Bro, Frazier is right in thinking writers 

 ought to go more into detail, and I will add 

 that they ought to give us more of the little 

 things in bee-keeping. But I hardly think 

 he's right in saying the Hoffman frame was 

 intended to prevent brace or burr-combs. 

 The main intention was to have something 

 that would allow rapid handling with practi- 

 cally fixed frames. But will not brace and 

 burr-combs be prevented with Hoffman 

 frames as well as any other if the right re- 

 quirements are followed ? If the top-bar is 

 too thin, or the space between top-bar and 

 section too small, or any one of several other 

 things be wrong, brace or burr-combs will 

 be built, whether the frames are Hoffman or 

 not. 



The first case I ever knew anything about 

 where success in the prevention of these ob- 

 jectionable combs was attained without hav- 

 ing anything between top-bars and sections, 

 was that of J, B, Hall, and Jie claimed that 

 the sole requirement was a top-bar an inch 

 thick. Why not stick to that as long as it 

 proves efficient ? 



Bro. Green's article suggests the thought 

 that it would be of real value if every one 

 would report all his experiments that are 

 failures, I know it isn't pleasant for me to 

 report that I've been a fool, but if by report- 

 ing it I can prevent half a dozen others from 

 making fools of themselves, I ought to be 

 willing to stand the exposure. But if we can 

 get all our experiments made at experiment 

 stations, then we can give up playing the 

 fool, and spend our time getting big crops of 

 honey. 



