

. yi ••,-(•• 



160 



NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



the whole ground. I could go on plMng 

 up whole stacks of testimony frami the 

 journals, private correspondence, and 

 conversations that proper "stirring up" 

 or "shaking," or manipulations of any 

 description whatever, does "per se" in- 

 duce working energy when condiitions 

 indicate it. But my time is limited, and 

 I have given enough, I think, to estab- 

 lislh my position. 



The point I wisih ito emphasize is 

 this: It is the physical effect of the 

 manipulations themselves that revives 

 the waning energy of the bees when 

 they slack up work for any cause, and 

 it is Immaterial what the nature of 

 the disiturbance is, so that it is suffi- 

 cient to excite the bees to the re- 

 quired degree. 



All the big yields are produced by 

 colonies and apiaries that are fre- 

 quently "dug into" for some cause or 

 other. New beginners and amateurs 

 with new queens frequently outstrip 

 their iw.ore experienced neighbors, and 

 aittribute the phenomenal success to 

 the strain of bees or something that 

 may not be the cause at all. Later, 

 with the same strain of bees, when 

 they have lost some degrees of the 

 "fever," or Qiave so many colonies that 

 they can not "fuss" witlh them so 

 much, they do not secure nearly such 

 good results, and think, maybe, it may 

 be on account of overstocking, or 

 something else. 



At ■ one time I compared the meth- 

 ods and systems of a large number of 

 successful bee-keepers — ^men who pro- 

 duced honey by the ton, and who, I be- 

 lieved, knew the reasons for their 

 success. I can as'sure you that it 

 made better reading than "Peck's Bad 

 Boy" to compare and analyse these 

 conflicting opinions and systems. 

 This was when Etoolittle advocated 

 the Gallup frame and spreading brood 

 in the spring. At that time he attri- 

 buted big success to these two things 

 to quite a considerable extent. (He 

 knows better now.) 



One advocated an 8 frame hive, an- 

 other a 10, and still another a still 

 larger even up to a 24. Heddon want- 

 ed his hives small so as to handle 

 hives and not to be bothered with sin- 

 gle frames. Dadant wanted a broad 

 side as big as a country newspaper. 

 Dr. Miller refused to paint his hives 

 (although I do not remember of his 

 claiming that unpainted hives were 

 better for securing honey.) But he 



did refuse to allow an Italian bee to 

 come on his premises, even to get ac- 

 quainted in a friendly way with his 

 bees. On the other hand, A. I. Root 

 claimed' that his Italians had such 

 long tongues that they could rob the 

 bumble bees of their legitimate birth- 

 right. 



And so on down the list. It was 

 you could do this and you could not. 

 You should do that and you should 

 not. But in spite of doing or not 

 doing these men all made a success. 

 They secured the honey. 



I reasoned that these men — all suc- 

 cessful — and each attributing his suc- 

 cess to different and conflicting, 

 things, could not all be right in their 

 conclusions, for if so how could' the 

 one fellow who did the one thing the 

 other claimed to be fatal, succeed if 

 the other was right? 



Therefore, all the apparent conflict- 

 ing ways were right or rather harm- 

 less, and success did not. depend on 

 either pet theory, but on something 

 entirely different. 



Then I began a process of elimina- 

 tion of the conflicting theories and 

 processes and found that the common 

 factors of success were very few in- 

 deed. They could be counted on the 

 flngers of one hand. All agreed' in 

 the following joints: Given a fairly 

 intelligent bee-keeper, it requires: 



1st. Colonies strong in bees of al- 

 most any old strain at the beginning 

 of the flow. 



2d. Movable frame hives of some 

 pattern or other that admits of tier- 

 ing up. 



3d. A vigorous and prolific queen 

 at all times. ' ; 



4th. A good location. 



5th. And last but not least, all 

 practiced manipulations for various 

 purposes frequently. 



Now by comparing these results 

 with another list which I made of un- 

 successful bee-keepers, I found that 

 even though the first four common 

 factors were present, almost invar- 

 iably no manipulations of any descrip- 

 tion were practiced, and in all cases 

 the degree of success could almost be 

 measured by the number of manipula- 

 tions performed, and it seemed to 

 make but little difference what these 

 manipulations were, either. But I 

 eliminated again and found that 

 where success in any degree was 

 achieved, two common factors were 



