10 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 
BEE-KEEPING AND OTHER SIDE LINES NOT ADVISED. 
In regard to running some other business with bee-keeping I must 
say I don’t think much of it. If you want a larger income, just add on 
one or two hundred more colonies. I don’t know of anything so nice 
to go with bee-keeping as plenty of bees. Some are so slack that a large 
per cent of their colonies give them little or no surplus. This is all 
wrong, and shows that their owner is not caring for them as he should. 
The idea of having 100 colonies, and getting surplus from only 75, is on 
a par with box-hive apiaries. It is now high time that we get away 
from that slipshod way of caring for our bees. Don’t let one single 
colony sulk away its time. If they will not work without it, take away 
from them all the honey they have, and then let them work or starve. 
Sometimes we have swarms that have to be treated in this way. We 
don’t keep bees for the fun of lugging them out and in the cellar spring 
and fall, and what stings we can get through the summer. We care for 
them simply for the dollars we can get for their surplus honey; and if 
we don’t get some from every colony we know it is our fault. My 
advice is, just as soon as you find a colony that is not doing well, attend 
to it at once. That is your business. Either put it in a shape so that 
in a few days it will be all right, or unite it with another. If you don’t 
want to do this, put it with your nuclei, and consider it one of them. I 
frequently find bee-keepers who allow far too much drone comb in their 
hives. It is certainly much better to restrict the rearing of drones to 
two or three colonies than to allow many thousand drones to be reared 
in the place of worker bees. This one thing of itself often makes the 
difference of several pounds of surplus in many of our colonies. It will 
pay you well to bear this in mind. 
My friends, in the above you will find a few of the many necessary 
things spoken of that make bee-keeping a success. Please weigh each 
one separately, and in doing so make all the improvements you can; for 
it is my hope that you will some day enjoy success in bee-keeping. 
Delanson, N. Y. 
July,1906. 
THE CONDITIONS THAT CONTROL THE FLOW OF NECTAR; THE SEASON MOBE 
IMPORTANT THAN THE AMOUNT OF BLOOM; OVERSTOCKING; 
PREPARING FOR WINTER IN JULY. 
OUR LOCATION. 
In regard to this location, let me say that we seldom get any surplus 
until August. Of the 19 years that I have kept bees here there have been 
-only four seasons when we got any surplus honey until our buckwheat 
‘harvest; but this season we got a fine lot of light honey in June and 
July; but when our buckwheat harvest commenced the weather turned 
cool, cloudy, and wet, so the bees could find honey only a day or two ata 
time, although there were thousands of acres of buckwheat in full bloom 
