306 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



thought that I wanted the same arrange- 

 ment. But I don"t believe it will work 

 with our "gummy" honey, so 1 have in 

 mind something better (I hope) the in- 

 vention of a friend. 



Page 46. Mr. Ail<in and I don't agree 

 on where to add room to control swarm- 

 ing. I say on top is the best place, as 

 soon as the bees need more room. Queen 

 and bees will move upward, in most cases, 

 far more readily than downward to rear 

 brood, after one body is fairly well filled. 



THE ASPINWALL HIVE A NOVELTY. 



In the March number I was interested 

 in the Aspinwall hive, though I expect it 

 will be nothing more than a novelty, as 

 we must soon control swarming with as 

 little labor, in any common hive. 



Page 79. Evidently Mr. Chapman has 

 not grasped the possibilities of the out- 

 yard plan. Some of the Chapman me- 

 thods are totally inapplicable to some 

 other men and other conditions, as are 

 some of my methods, no doubt. Mr. 

 Chapman insists on the great value of 

 the old method of "tiering up." Here, the 

 Dudleys, with their 400 colonies in the 

 home yard, all run for comb honey, do 

 not practice it. The empty super is put 

 on top. I seldom practice it in raising 

 comb honey, and for extracted I practice 

 it only as I have time. Perhaps there 

 may be a little less tendency to swarm by 

 putting the empty super next to the 

 brood-nest, but I have not seen the proof 

 of it. Some of Utah's best bee-keepers 

 put the empty super on top; so does the 

 veteran Doolittle. Therefore. Mr. Chap- 

 man's "grandest truth" is debatable. 



Page 81. I like to use excluders after 

 the flow is on, but as we have a ventilator 

 (1>^ inch-hole) in the front end of our ex- 

 tracting supers, the bees take a short cut 

 to the supers and some pollen is often 

 stored there, but it does no harm that 1 

 can see. 



THE OLMSTEAD METHOD. 



Page 104, April. What shall we say 

 of the "Olmstead method" of pulling out 

 a comb through a hole in the back of the 



hive to detect swarm-preparations ? Un- 

 reliable. Better treat the colonies and 

 have done with swarming. His method 

 of rearing and mating a queen in the 

 same hive before the flow — 1 think that 

 ordinarily the bees will destroy the virgin 

 before she mates unless wire-cloth is used 

 instead of queen-excluding zinc. Also it's 

 too fussy. He intends to kill the old queen 

 and allow the young one to be the new 

 mother of the colony, thinking this suffi- 

 cient to control swarming. Here is his 

 vital error. 



Page 107. Mr. Gill's recommendation 

 to "keep bees, queens and sections all to- 

 gether" is grand. I will add, keep the 

 brood and emerging bees with the above 

 trio, and success is assured 



Page 110-111. Mrs. Frey, and a host 

 of others, may find her problems solved 

 in the "Dudley Tube" plan which 1 am 

 describing for the "Review" for use in the 

 production of comb honey. 1 only hope 

 that the method proves as successful 

 with others as it has here. 



DARK COLOR IN SPRING PROTECTION. 



In the May "Review," page 139, 1 

 think that you will find that oiled paper is 

 not to be compared to tarred or other 

 black 'or very dark colored paper for 

 spring protection. Half the value of such 

 protection is in the color which absorbs 

 so much heat from the sun. 



As an occasion may arise when a dis- 

 tant yard needs feeding, I'll tell you how 

 we fed 1 1 colonies in one of our yards 

 last spring. We took sugar, a spray 

 pump and a big tub to the yard. We 

 mixed the feed, then filled the combs by 

 spraying the feed into them with the 

 pump. A super of combs partly full of 

 feed was put under each light colony. 



GLEANING GASOLINE AND KEROSENE CANS. 



Page 152. You are mistaken in think- 

 ing that gasoline cans must he thoroughly 

 cleaned before filling them with honey. 

 Gasoline is, 1 think, wholly volatile, and I 

 know from using hundreds of such cans 

 that it is only necessary that they be 

 clean of everything else than gasoline. 



I 



