THE AMERICAN

BEE

JOURNAL

PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY

GEORGE W. YORK & COMPANY

118 W. Jackson Blvd., Ghicago, Ill.

IMPORTANT NOTICE.

THE SUBSCRIPTION PRICE of this Journal is 75 cents a year, in the United States of America, (except Chicago, where it is $1.00), and Mexico; in Canada 85 cents; and in all other countries in the Postal Union, 25 cents a year extra for postage. Sample copy free.

THE WRAPPER-LABEL DATE indicates the end of the month to which your subscription is paid. For instance, "dec09" on your label shows that it is paid to the end of December, 1909.

SUBSCRIPTION RECEIPTS.-We do not send a receipt for money sent us to pay subscription, but change the date on your wrapper-label, which shows that the money has been received and oredited.

"Songs of Beedom"

This is a pamphlet, 6x9 inches, containing 10 songs (words and music) written specially for bee-keepers, by Hon. Eugene Secor, Dr. C. C. Miller, and others. They are arranged for either organ or piano. The list includes the following: "Bee - Keepers' Reunion Song;" "The Bee-Keeper's Lullaby;" "The Hum of the Bees in the AppleBloom;" "The Humming of the Bees;" "Buckwheat Cakes and Honey;" "Dot Happy Bee-Man;" "Bee-Keepers' Convention Song;" "The Busy, Buzzing Bees:" "Spring-Time Joys;" and "Convention Song.' The pamphlet is mailed for 25 cents, or sent with the American Bee Journal one year-both for only 90 cents. Send all orders to the American Bee Journal, 118 W. Jackson, Chicago, Ill.

"

Farmer Strawberry

A

complete, practical treatise on Strawberries and other Small Fruits. Written by L. J. Far. mer who has spent 23 years among plants and berries.

Price 25c., but "worth its weight in gold" (not a catalog.) Your money back if not satisfied.

We are introducers of Norwood Strawberry, four berries filled a quart (see illustration). Also Royal Purple, Idaho and Plum Farmer Raspberries, etc.

Our catalog describes hundreds of varieties of Fruit, Plants, Asparagus, Roses, etc.

Sent Free

for

Send 100 for 6 plants"Champion" Strawberry trial. They will be sent free if you mention this paper and send 25c., for "Farmer on the Strawberry."

Address

L. J. Farmer

Box 940

Pulaski, N. Y.

Actual Size

4

NORWOODS FILL A QUART

"If Goods are Wanted Quick Send to Pouder."

ESTABLISHED 1889

Bee-Supplies. Root's Goods in Indiana.

Standard Hives with latest improvements, Danzenbaker Hives, Honey-Boxes, Comb Foundation and everything that is used in the bee-yard. Large illustrated catalog mailed free. Finest White Clover Extracted Honey for sale in any. quantity desired.

WALTER S. POUDER, 859 Massachusetts Ave., Indianapolis, Ind.

LEWIS BEEWARE

A Full Stock at Factory Prices

Our excellent location and facilities enable us to give

SOUTHERN BEE-KEEPERS

prompt service and best prices. Write for our Big Catalog of Bee-Supplies, Seeds and Poultry Foods.

Otto Schwill & Co.,

Seedsmen Established 1869

Box 73, Memphis, Tennessee 13t Mention Bee Journal when writing.

Apiary for Sale

Owing to my husband's death, I wish to dispose of his apiary of about 75 colonies of good Italian bees, in new 10-frame dovetailed hives, with supers and extracting frames. I will sell for $4 per hive. Also 4frame Cowan Honey-Extractor, which has been used only 3 seasons-for $10.

The above will include the following books: Langstroth on the Honey-Bee, Root's "A B C of Bee-Culture," Dr. Miller's "Forty Years Among the Bees," Doolittle's Scientific Queen-Rearing;" also 2 or 3 years' numbers of American Bee Journal, Gleanings, and Review. Address.

MRS.ALFRED B. SEWELL, Niles, Mich.

FOR SALE

Bees and Bee-Supplies

I will sell at a reasonable price 88 colonies of bees, not diseased, all in fine, strong condition in the fall, having plenty of stores, in I modern hives. Also material for broodframes, and a large number of brood-frames with foundation in them. Prospective buy. ers will please write me soon.

MRS. AUG. JOSEPHSON,

Box 121, Granville, Ill.

Two-frame nucleus and Queen.... 2.00 Full colony and Queen in 8-frame hive...

.......

7.00 Give me a trial order for Supplies. I can please you in price and quality. 15 years' experience. Order from any standard catalog. 2A8t

A. M. APPLEGATE. Reynoldsville, Pa.

Southern Bee-Keepers!

I have a new and complete stock of
LEWIS BEEWARE

and would be glad to quote you prices on what you may need..

I can furnish a limited number of Caucasian and Italian Bees and Queens.! "Southern Bee Culture" contains 150 pages of practical information along all lines of bee-keeping. Written by progressive bee-keepers scattered over the South. Price, 50 cts., postpaid. 2A3t

J. J. WILDER, Cordele, Ga.

43 leading varieties of pure bred

Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Turkeys; also Holstein cattle. Prize winning stock. Oldest and largest poultry farm in the northwest. Stock, eggs and incubators at low prices. Send 4 cents for catalog. Larkin & Hersberg, Box 24. Mankato, Minn. Mention Bee Journal when writi

Poultry Secrets

This heaping bushel of winter egg-producing green feed cost 17 cts. Poultry Secrets" explains fully this secret and many others.

Disclosed

Every successful poultryman knows, important facts he never tells. They are peculiar secret meth. ods and discoveries he has made in his work with chickens. As a rule he guards these with extreme care for they are the foundation of his success and a valuable asset of his business. He is not to be blamed for keeping them to himself.

We Will Tell You These Secrets

Which have cost poultrymen years of labor and thousands of dollars. They will cost YOU only a trifle and a few minutes time to write us,

There is no man in the United States who has more friends among poultrymen than MICHAEL K. BOYER. A veteran chicken breeder himself, he knows the business from A to Z, and through his wide acquaintance and friendship he has learned many of their most jealously treasured secrets. This scattered material he has collected in book form, and we are offering it to the poultry raisers of America that they may share in the knowledge which these successful men have acquired by long years of study and bitter experience Every secret printed in this book has been obtained in an honorable way, either by permission of the owner or through Mr. Boyer's own experience.

I. K. Felch's Mating Secret One of the best-known figures in the poultry world is I. K. Felch. Many years ago Mr. Felch published his breeding chart, but later, realizing its value, he withdrew it and kept the information for himself. He has now given Mr. Boyer permission to use this information, and it is included in this book.

Secret of Fertile Eggs

Boyer's secret of securing fertile eggs by alternating males we believe is worth $100 to. any big producer of setting eggs. It is something new, and the diagrammatic illustration furnished by Mr. Boyer makes the matter so plain that the novice can easily understand it. The Secret of Feed at 15 Cents a Bushel

An enterprising poultryman has been advertising this secret for $5.00 and pledging those who buy it not to disclose it to any one else; it has, however, long been known to a few poultrymen, Mr. Boyer among them, and the method is fully explained in "Poultry Secrets."

We are Willing to Name Here Some of the Secrets

1 Burnham's secret of mating fowls.

2 Felch's method of breeding from an original pair, producing thousands of chicks and three distinct strains.

3 Mendel's Chart of Heredity.

4 Secret of strong fertility by alternating males. 5 Secret of knowing what to feed and how to feed it. The secret of having green food in winter. 6 Secret of sprouting oats and barley for poultry feeding.

7 Secret recipes for chick feed; practically the same feed is now sold on the market at a high rate.

8 Secret of fatting poultry economically so as to make the most profit out of the crop.

10

9 Secret of telling the laying hens of the flock. Secret of detecting age in stock.

11

12

Secret of knowing how to judge dressed poultry. The only safe way of preserving eggs.

13

A secret of dressing fowls so as to do the work quickly and thoroughly.

200 Eggs a Year.

Of course we cannot go to the length of saying that all the information in the book is new to every one. It is said there is nothing new under the sun, and the Egyptians were hatching eggs by artificial heat centuries ago; but we do say that to the great majority of poultrymen these secrets are absolutely unknown.

We Will Pay $10 For Any Secret Not in the Book

Provided it is practical and valuable. If it is something both good and new, a check for Ten Dollars will be sent at once. In submitting secrets address all communications to the

FARK

Poultry Department of Farm Journal

FARM JOURNAL for thirty years has conducted a poultry department known the country over for the ability of its editors and the value of its contents. It is the standard farm and home paper of the country, with three million readers. It is clean, bright, intensely practical; bolled down; cream, not skim-milk. Its contributors know what they are talking about, and can quit when they have said it. Besides its unusually strong poultry section, which of itself makes the paper valuable to every chicken owner, its other departments are ably conducted and widely quoted. It is for the gardener, fruit man, stockman, trucker, farmer, villager, suburbanite, the women folks, the boys and girls. It is worth far more than the price asked for it and "Poultry Secrets" together. Its more than half million subscribers pay five and ten ears ahead-a very remarkable fact.

We will send a copy of "Poultry Secrets" and

FARM JOURNAL for five years, both for only $1.00

Or FARM JOURNAL 2 years and "Poultry Secrets" for 50 cts.

WILMER ATKINSON CO., 834 Race St., Philadelphia, Pa.

FARM SEEDS

Choicest varieties of Seed Oats, Wheat, Spring Rye, Speltz, Barley, Cane, Seed Corn, Dwarf Essex Rape, Potatoes and all kinds of field, grass and garden seeds. Large illustrated catalogue of great value to farmers free, if you mention this paper.

IOWA SEED CO., DES MOINES, IA.

LL LANGSTROTH

GEORGE W. YORK, Editor

Uncle Sam's Sweet Tooth

It takes a million dollars a day to satisfy it with sugar, to say nothing about honey. That's according to the latest Government report, which is for the year 1907. A honey-leaflet that has had a considerable circulation says that the average annual consumption of sugar for every man, woman, and child in the United States is about 60 pounds. That was true when the leaflet was written; but the consumption has greatly increased, and for 1907 it was 82.6 pounds! At that rate the average individual eats half his own weight of sugar in a year. Of the more than 7,000,000,000 pounds consumed, 21.3 percent was of home production, 17.7 percent from our insular possessions, and 61 percent from foreign countries. Of the home product, 64 percent was from beets and 36 percent from cane. From all this the bee-keeper may at least glean the crumb of comfort that Uncle Sam's taste for sweet is not dying out.

Does Age Deteriorate Honey?

Mr. Frank Rauchfuss showed some comb honey at the bee-convention, which was three years old. It had candied and liquefied several times; and the comb was but slightly cracked. The honey was liquid, but it had lost all of its original honey-flavor, and was thick like taffy. Mr. Rauchfuss said that it could no longer be considered as honey. All the water, apparently, had left the honey, and nothing but a sticky syrup was left.-WESLEY FOSTER, in Gleanings.

Editor Root adds this footnote:

Honey would evaporate more in a Colorado climate than in the East, generally. The presumption is that a 12-year-old Colorado honey would be very different from an Eastern 12year-old honey.

Evidently the question of the keeping of comb honey is one upon which we

Mr. Aikin's word carries weight, and this is an important matter. It is, however, against the general belief, and the word of even so good authority as Mr. Aikin will not pass current without scrutiny in such a case. If it is true, then is it not a mistake, when running for extracted honey, to furnish entirely drawn combs, giving the bees no opportunity to build?

Mr. Aikin explains that when bees are

not allowed to build comb the great quantities of wax that they secrete are used in other ways. He say, in Gleanings:

"When scraping sections I save the scrapings, which appear to be almost entirely propolis; but when melted they yield considerable wax. Then I have many times seen nice white wax used to fill cracks about combhoney supers; and when there are full sets of combs already built to hold every drop of honey to be stored, I have found workers loaded with wax-scales, cracks stopped with wax, burr-combs put here and there without stint, and, when not needed, bits of wax built against the quilts over the top-bars, sometimes amounting to a quarter or even half a pound-all this apparently is done just to get rid of the surplus wax by using it where propolis would ordinarily be used.

But that "quarter or even half a pound" seems a small quantity compared with the several pounds that must be produced by a colony that has all its comb to build. This is not by way of saying that Mr. Aikin is wrong, only that in a matter of so much importance, he must do quite a bit of "showing" to convince those who hold the general. view.

Our friends who produce both chunk and extracted honey in the same apiary might help to solve this problem. To one colony, or to a number of them, let drawn combs be furnished, so that no comb need be built; to an equal number let no comb whatever be given; at the end of the season melt the chunk honey and compare the wax secured from each.

White Clover Prospects

In white-clover regions there is always interest on the part of the bee-keepers as to what white clover will do in the season next to come. That interest seems more than usual this year, and the different views expressed show that we have not the most exact knowledge on the subject so as to tell in advance just what we may expect. There are different views as to the effect on future harvests, of drouth in summer, drouth in fall, winter freezing in wet or dry soil, and in the Bee-Keepers' Review, is a discussion as to the age of white-clover plants, by Harry Lathrop. Editor Hutchinson endorses the view that Mr. Lathrop thus sums up:

"White-clover plants one year old may bloom, but are of no value for a honey crop. White

clover plants two years old furnish the crop. White clover plants over two years old are not in evidence in the production of a crop of honey. It takes a good spell of wet weather to germinate a seed crop-a few showers will not do it."

From this and what precedes, it appears that Mr. Lathrop considers white clover a biennial, and perhaps sometimes an annual, for he says:

"My conclusions are that white clover is not an annual; neither is it strictly biennial."

Very likely this is a common view. We are familiar with the fact that red clover must be reseeded every 2 years, and as there is little sowing of white clover, and we are thus not familiar with its habit of growth, we at once take it for granted that white clover is like red, a biennial.

Examine a red-clover plant. A leafstem may start close to the ground, or it may start high up on the stalk. The whole plant is connected with only the one root, and the whole affair, root and branch, dies outright in 2 years or less from the time the seed started.

Now look at a white-clover plant. Every leaf starts from close to the ground, never high up on a stalk like the red clover. A still more striking difference is that the white clover does something that the red never does. It sends out a stolon, or runner, just like a strawberry plant, which takes root at the end, thus forming a new plant, which in its turn may again send forth runners, and so on indefinitely. It would be interesting to know how manyrather, how few-who are familiar with strawberry-runners have ever thought of such a thing as a white-clover runner. It will thus be seen that a single whiteclover plant in the middle of a 10-acre field, given years enough, might cover the whole field if it never matured a seed. Any bee-keeper who takes the trouble to observe the growth of whiteclover the coming spring, will easily be convinced that the botany is right in classing white clover, not as an annual nor a biennial, but as a perennial.

That still leaves it a matter of interest to know what about the value of single plants of white clover of different ages. Who will tell us whether a plant, say 5 years old, is likely to be worth anything to bees?

We know something in that respect as to strawberries. If we want to set out a strawberry-bed, we do not select old plants to transplant.. If we start the bed in the fall, we use plants that have started from runners only a few days or weeks previous. And in general, an old strawberry-bed is considered of little value. Yet if the runners are kept cut off, a plant will continue fruitful after it has become old, forming a large stool, yielding abundance of berries. That makes it, if we are to reason from analogy, that an old plant of white clover may or may not be a good nectar-yielder according to circumstances, with the chances in favor of the younger plants.

Sealed Covers vs. Absorbent Cushions

We recommend sealed covers to the average bee-keeper because such persons will secure better results than with absorbing cushions. While Mr. Dadant may be able to do better without the sealed covers, it is ou opinion

that bee-keepers as a rule will do better by having the top of the hive sealed, and covered with warm packing. We have worked both schemes at our yard here at Medina; and while some years the absorbing cushions gave the better results, yet year in and year out the sealed cover comes out ahead."-E. R. ROOT, in Gleanings.

Is there not a little confusion about that "absorbent" business? Some use cushions with the idea that the air will slowly pass up through them, carrying with it all moisture. In that case there is no absorbing, and the cushions are hardly "absorbents." If there be no passage of air through the cushions, the moisture merely passing up into the cushions and condensing there, then the Percushions are surely absorbents. haps generally there is a compromise, part of the moisture passing out and part of it condensing in the cushions.

In any case, when the cushions become charged with moisture, there is advantage in drying them out when a favorable spell of weather comes.

The great harm with sealed covers comes about in this way: The cover is a single thickness of board, very cold, upon which the moisture from the bees condenses and falls in drops upon the bees. If cold enough, the moisture condenses as frost upon the under side of the cover, constantly accumulating until the weather becomes warm enough for it to melt, and then there is a small deluge. Something of this kind may occur even in a cellar, and it is easy to see that cold water falling upon the cluster is not conducive to good wintering. But there will not be the same condensation, if, as Mr. Root says, the sealed cover be "covered with warm packing." The point is that in the colder portions where bees are wintered outdoors, there should be cushions or packing of some kind, whether there be sealed covers or not.

Whether that packing should be under or over the cover is not a point here considered. Possibly that ubiquitous factor-locality-may have something to say in the case.

In this connection it may be proper to say that in case of sealed covers there is not the same need of packing or cushions, if, instead of a single board, the cover be one of two layers of board, an air-space between. This, at least to some extent, takes the place of cushions, keeping the under part of the cover warmer in winter and cooler in summer.

Priority Rights in Imperial Valley

In the United States a man has a legal right to plant an apiary wherever he has a legal right to plant a potato patch. While some think that a man has a moral right to do the same wherever he has the legal right, a considerable number of bee-keepers think that no one has a moral right to establish an apiary in a field already occupied. Of this latter class there are not wanting those who believe that there should be legislation sufficient to secure by law what may be considered moral rights.

Without waiting for any legislation, the bee-keepers of Imperial Valley, in California, have determined, according to a report from J. W. George, in Gleanings, to punish any one who, in their judgment, unjustly encroaches on the

territory of established bee-keepers. Imperial Valley, be it said in passing, is one of the richest spots on the face of the earth for bee-pasturage. As a preliminary step, an organization of beekeepers has sent out a circular which reads in part as follows:

1. The average yield per colony of extracted honey for 1908 has been about 100 pounds, or about half as much as the two preceding years.

2. During the fall and winter of 1907, 5,000 colonies of bees were shipped into Imperial Valley, and now with those previously located comprise about 30 apiaries ranging in size from 50 to 300 colonies, and located all the way from one to 3 miles apart.

3. The second statement goes a long way toward explaining the first; for, while the shortage has been in part accounted for in various ways, the difference in the amount of honey obtained from different valley apiaries is easily traceable to the number of colonies kept in their respective neighborhoods.

4. The distance apart which apiaries may be run with profit in an alfalfa country depends altogether upon the amount of alfalfa grown in proximity to the apiaries, and the size of the apiaries. In Imperial Valley a to 3 miles is considered close enough.

Then at the October meeting of the Imperial Valley Bee-Keepers' Association the following resolution was adopted:

Resolved, That the adjustment committee be instructed to accept all bees offered to them, and to use said bees in any manner, and as long as they are deemed necessary for the purpose of discouraging any person from placing or maintaining an apiary at any place where, in their judgment, said apiary might be detrimental to the interest of any bee-man, who, by right of prior location, had the best right to said location.

"After the adoption of the above resolution," says Mr. George, "on roll-call every member present except 2 offered 10 percent of his bees for the purpose of carrying out the resolution," and Mr. George grimly adds; "It looks very much as if any one coming into the Valley and undertaking to override the custom here would get just what he deserves."

Put in plain language, the idea is that if any one improperly encroaches. upon territory already fully occupied, he will be smoked out by having so many colonies set down beside him that his bees will harvest nothing, even if takes

a tenth of all the thousands of colonies in Imperial Valley.

The outcome of this move will be watched with interest.

Editor Sick and Journal Late

Owing to two attacks of tonsilitis and one of "la grippe," the editor of the American Bee Journal has been laid up at home so that he was unable to get out this number earlier. It was his longest illness in nearly 20 years. He has been singularly fortunate in this regard, as the Bee Journal, even when it was published weekly, was never late on account of the illness of this editor. He hopes it may not occur again very soon; and also indulges the further hope that the readers may be patient and forbearing, for this issue, which is 50 per cent larger than usual, was really gotten out under difficulties and circumstances that are always most trying when the editor, upon whom falls the chief work, is scarcely able to be about on account of a sickness that is very weakening, and for a time continuously so.