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118 



EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



Mr. Taylor: We have not enough 

 John D. Rockefellers! 



Mr. Baxter: I think it is feasible, 

 but it has to be dione in a systematic 

 way, and you have to use methods 

 that are not the kind of methods bee- 

 keepers would use. Tou would have 

 to organize like the tobacco people in 

 Kentucky, and bee-keepers won'i 

 come to that. But I know a great 

 deal depends upon individuals. If in- 

 dividuals in their own localities, now, 

 say the people of this convention, go 

 home and determine to educate the 

 bee-keepers, and to see that no honey 

 is sold in their home market at a ri- 

 diculously low price, they may do it. 

 Take our home town. There are 

 three bee-keepers, and no one 'Of us 

 undersells another. You can go to any 

 of the other bee-keepers, and they will 

 not undersell me. The barber, who 

 makes a side-issue of keeping bees, 

 will sell his small lot, ten, twenty or 

 a hundred pounds, and we cannot 

 control the price unless we buy it. 

 There is no use trying to educate 

 him; but the regular bee-keeper, that 

 depends upon his profit for a liveli- 

 hood, more or less, that man you can 

 educate. If you will go to work and 

 labor with those in your home market, 

 and club together and push the sale 

 of your honey, you will have no 

 trouble in disposing of tons upon tons 

 of it that will never come to these 

 cities that do come now. 



Getting Queens Fertilized. 



"What conditions are necessary to 

 have queens fertilized from an iapper 

 story, with an old queen in lower 

 story, and with excluder between 

 them?" 



President York: How many have 

 succeeded in getting queens fertilized 

 from an upper story, with the olfl 

 queen in the lower story, and with an 

 excluder between them? (Four.) 



Mr. Stanley: It can be done under 

 conditions, by having a queen-ex- 

 cluder between the two colonies and 

 having partitions in, and having the 

 entrances on the side of the hive. In 

 that way it can be done; two or more 

 queens can be fertilized. 



Mr. Taylor: If you have as many 

 bees as you want when a swarm is- 

 sues, if you hive the swarm upon the 

 old stand and shake out some lof the 

 bees from the old hive, then put a 

 queen-excluder upon a weak colony. 



that needs some strength in it, and 

 set the old hive with the queen -cells 

 in it upon the top of the queen-ex- 

 'cluder, and put the cover on with a 

 nail or something under it, raising it 

 sufficiently for the bees to pass in and 

 out, you will get a fertilized queen 

 there in due season. 



Mr. Wilcox: I have had success in 

 a number of instances, but in every 

 instance, so far as I can recollect at 

 the present time, the queen issued 

 from the bottom story, with the queen- 

 excluder on the top of the first. In 

 that case, where we extract from 

 combs containing brood, and set them 

 on the ti»p, with a three-story hive, 

 they do pass out at the upper story, 

 and become mated in both the first 

 and third stories. 



Mr. Wheeler: I would like to ask 

 Mr. Taylor what the object is in set- 

 ting the hive over the weak colony. 



Mr. Taylor: All the object I had 

 was that I had bees enough, and did 

 not want to increase, ibut strengthen, 

 the colany upon which the brood was 

 placed. The result was, without any 

 intention on my part, while the cover 

 was sufficiently loose, I had a laying 

 queen in the upper story as well a^ 

 the under. 



Dr. Miller: So far as I know, I had 

 a case of that kind, the first that was 

 on record. I don't know how many 

 years ago that was. I had some 

 combs that I wanted the bees to take 

 care •of, and over a colony I placed 

 three stories of empty combs, and in 

 the upper story I put a frame of 

 brood, so that I could feel sure that 

 the swarms would not occupy the up- 

 per stories, and have the bees pass up 

 and down. Some time afterward, I 

 went to take off that upper story — 

 quite a while afterward — and was sur- 

 prised to find a laying queen there. 

 That brood-comb was occupied, and 

 the bees, being so far away from the 

 others, started their cells, and there 

 was a hole above. I don't know how 

 that hole happened to get there; but 

 at any rate that queen had gone out 

 and been fertilized, and I had a lay- 

 ing queen there. There was no ex- 

 cluder above. I have some times 

 reared queens in a lower story, having 

 no excluder, but a close cover, so that 

 the bees did not readily pass from one 

 story to another, but I have had them 

 reared in the upper story. But as 

 to putting the thing to practical use, 

 I have not been a success, and as to 



