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Alexander's Writings on
Practical Bee Culture ©

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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003065244

Alexander’s Writings

Practical Bee Culture

aan

Edited and Compiled by
H. H. Root

THIRD EDITION

Published by

PREFACE.

In 1904 we began the publication in ‘‘Gleanings in Bee Culture,’ an
illustrated semi-monthly magazine, a series of articles from the pen of Mr,
E. W. Alexander, of Delanson, Schenectady Co., N.Y. For a period of
nearly forty years Mr. Alexander had been keeping bees in a large way,
producing honey by the carload. He was regarded during a large portion
of that time as the most extensive bee-keeper in Northeastern New York;
but it was not till later that he began to give to the public the secrets of
his success.

His first writings were so valuable, coming from so ripe an experience
covering so many years, that, as editor of ‘‘ Gleanings,’’ I finally induced
him to furnish us a short series of articles. So much impressed was I with
the value of his teachings in practical apiculture that I tendered hima sum
far in excess of what I had ever offered any other new contributor, and
with only one exception did I ever pay any writer more than Mr. E. W.
Alexander. After he had completed us his first series I induced him to
continue as a regular contributor, and this he did with more or less regu-
larity up to the time of his death, September 19, 1908.

During a good portion of the time that he was furnishing us matter for
the journal he was a great sufferer; and his disease finally compelled him
to lay down his pen, which he had used so long and so well in behalf of
his brother bee-keepers all over thecountry. After his death there came
an almost universal demand for those articles in book form. So insistent
were these calls that we were finally prevailed on to pick out the best of his
ideas, and we now have pleasure in presenting them to the general public.

In this series of articles Mr. Alexander gave out many useful hints and
‘tricks of the trade.’’ Some of these seemed to be almost revolutionary,
not to say unorthodox; and occasionally his methods were criticised as be-
ing ‘‘ impractical and valueless.” But in order to understand the man
and his writings one needs to know something of his locality as well as his
methods of management; for his forty years of experience had shown that
they were in perfect harmony, and, so far as he was concerned, he had no
desire to recall anything he had said. While at times he may have seemed
unorthodox, yet it must be remembered that he occupied a locality where
conditions were peculiar, not to say remarkable. He was the only bee-
keeper in the United States who was ever able to manage from 700 to 800
colonies all in one yard. Others have had as many as 500; but this has al-
ways been regarded as an extremely high figure for one place. Mr. Alex-
ander’s apiary was located, and is now, in fact (under the management of
his son), on one of the hills near the little town of Delanson, N. Y. It is
probably one of the finest, if not the finest, buckwheat bee-ranges in the

United States. From the Alexander apiary, when the fields are in bloom,
one can see from twenty to thirty white patches down in the valley and on
the hills, to which the bees are streaming in countless thousands. Then
the locality is remarkable for the large number of asters which possibly
furnish almost as much nectar as the buckwheat itself.

While the white-honey harvest along in June and July can not be con-
sidered anything remarkable, yet when this is supplemented by the buck-
wheat and aster bloom one can form some idea of the possibilities from
keeping so many colonies in one locality.

These writings are not published in their chronological order, but,
rather, have been rearranged with the view of having one article gradually
lead up to another. For instance, we selected the first article, ‘Taking
up Bee-keeping as a Business.’’ While this was written toward the latter
end of the series, it served as an excellent introductory to that which fol-
lows; for it gives one an idea of the possibilities of the business from the
standpoint of one who has had so large an experience. The next article
deals with what constitutes a good locality; and so there will be found clear
through a harmony of plan and method.

The beginner should not lose sight of the fact that Mr. Alexander did
things in a large way. Some methods that are practical on a big scale
would not be adaptable to the management of bees in a small way; but
nevertheless it will pay any beginner to go over each article very carefully,
for he will find he can pick out a large number of valuable hints which
will be useful in making dollars off his bees.

It may be interesting to note that nearly one thousand copies of this
little volume were sold before it was ready for delivery from the press.
This large scale of matter that has been published once, shows in what
high esteem bee-keepers all over the country held this Gamaliel of beedom.
We may well sit at his feet and learn.

Medina, Ohio, March 25, 1909. E. R. Roor.

PART I

Introduction

BHE-KEEPING AS A BUSINESS.

When our attention is called to some new line of business, usually our
first thoughts are, “How much money can I make out of it?’ or, “How
many dollars can be made annually clear of all expenses from a given
amount of capital invested?” While I will admit that these are questions
of much importance—questions worthy of due consideration—there is still
one question which is of paramount importance above all others, which, I
am sorry to say, we seldom think of. That is, “Am I naturally qualified
for that line of business? If so, then I have the principal requirement
to success; if not, then no amount of study or hard labor can fully take
the place of my inability to fulfill its requirements.” Oh how many of us
spend our whole lives like water seeking its level, and never find the
business that God fitted us best to follow! My young friend, if you have
any thoughts of taking up bee-keeping as a business, then think this
subject over carefully before you invest much money. My advice would
be to work one summer, at least, for some successful honey-producer—
one who would take pains to teach you all he could in regard to rearing
queens, forming nuclei, increasing colonies, wintering, and producing
honey—yes, and a thousand and one little things which only experience
can teach. In this way you could be earning your board and fair wages
while learning your business.

In regard to the amount of money that can be made from bee-keep-
ing, it is like all other rural pursuits—it depends to a great extent on the
season. It is no get-rich-quick business; still, if rightly followed, it will
give as good returns one year with another as any business of a rural
nature, considering the amount of capital invested and labor required.
About five dollars per colony, spring count, clear of all expenses, is a
moderate estimate of the profit from the business—that is, if run wholly
for the production of honey without any special care to see what might
be accomplished; but if run by an expert on high-grade methods, then
15 or 20 dollars per colony can frequently be made.

Here is where the specialist has a great advantage over the man who
divides his capital and time into two or more channels. These men soon
find that they have twice or three times the trouble to contend with, and
only a third or a half the capital to use in making a success of any one
of the several lines they have taken up; but the lack of necessary capital
is only a small factor, for that can be got at the bank. But the necessary
intellect, business capacity, and experience can not be borrowed, and

2 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

without these elements to success there is only one alternative, and that
is and always has been simply failure.

Then there is another thing to take into consideration. It is pleasant
to have a paying business that requires your time only about half of the
year, and that the pleasant part, when you can be outdoors and enjoy
all the pleasures of nature’s spring and summer. With me it is a real
pleasure to breathe free air unsoiled by either beli or whistle calling me
to labor.

I will now take it for granted that you have spent one or two sea-
sons in learning all that you could during that time from some competent
person, and you still want to follow bee-keeping. I can not advise you to
go slow, as some do. That “go slow” is a blight on any man. First be
sure that you are right, then go ahead with willing hands and a good
stock of perseverance ever ready to overcome the unexpected troubles as
you meet them. Make up your mind from the first to take good bee
literature; have good bees; use good tools and hives, and then produce
good honey. Take pride in your business. If you have taken up queen-
rearing, forming nuclei for sale, or increasing your colonies for sale, or
producing comb or extracted honey, don’t forget to look well to quality.
Then advertise and let the public know what you have, and you will in
a short time not only surprise your friends but yourself with your suc-
cess. You now have a clear track and a light grade compared with what
some of us older men had fifty years ago. We then had a hard time of
it—no bee journals, no Italian bees, no comb foundation, no honey-ex-
tractors, no bee-smokers, and no market for the little honey we secured.

_ How different now, with our large markets established, where our
honey is annually sought for, either in small lots or by the carload, and
with our new inventions and improved methods enabling us to produce
five times the amount per colony we did then! To me bee-keeping now
seems like quite a good business. Still, I never advise one to take it up,
not even my own sons, for I have always taught that, when it comes to
choosing a life business, each one should choose for himself. While it
is true that man to a great extent makes his circumstances, still it is also
true that circumstances to a great extent make the man.

I am well acquainted with a man who was born on a farm, and
worked hard on it for several years aftervhe was married. He was tem-
perate and of excellent habits, working early and late; but still his farm
life was a perfect failure. After toiling in close circumstances for several
years his wife’s friends got him a situation in New York city. Then the
scale turned. He struck a place that God had fitted him for, and for the
past thirteen years he has had a net income of over twenty thousand
dollars a year. I speak of this case to show that many of us are trying
to make a success of some business to which we are not at all adapted;
also to show the importance of trying hard while young to start right.

You should look upon your business as your bank; and whenever
you can add a dollar to it, do so, and it will return in due time many
fold. Take pride in having a good apiary, and remember there is far

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 3

more in the man than in the business. If the bee-keeper in the future
will take our leading bee journals he can, through their advice, shun so
many troubles that we older men had to bear that it is almost like
another business—not but that it is still subject to many discouraging
conditions; and our inability to have any control] over the season is and
always will be its worst feature. But all lines of business have some
troubles with which to contend. When the farmer loses his stock it is
hard and costly to replace, and it often takes some time to do it; or when
als crops are ruined by untimely frosts or protracted drouths the loss is
hard to bear and overcome. But when the bee-keeper loses a large per
cent of his bees he still has the hives and combs left; and if he has some
good colonies he can soon have his original number again with but little
expense, and usually secure some surplus besides.

Here is one great advantage our business has over many others.
Taking our bees safely through long cold winters and very changeable
spring weather, with small loss, has been a hard problem to solve; but
this part of the business is now so much better understood by nearly all
bee-keepers than it was a few years ago that we feel much encouraged
in eventually overcoming other troubles as we have this.

Each year brings some new methods perfected whereby our business’
is placed on a more reliable basis than it formerly was, enabling us to
produce honey cheaper than we ever could before. Still, we have some
dark clouds of losses and disappointments hovering over us. I have seen
many through which it was almost impossible to see a ray of silver lin-
ing; but as the mariner’s compass will guide the ship safely through
ocean storms, so will continual perseverence lead you on and on through
the trying hours until a clear unclouded sunset welcomes you to a Jand

of rest.
February, 1907.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A “FAIRLY GOOD LOCALITY’? IS IT BEST
TO ALLOW THE FIRST HONEY TO FILL THE
BROOD-CHAMBER?

It may not be out of place for me to describe what I consider a fairly
good locality. It is this:

Any place, after June 1, that will furnish a harvest for 35 days,
sufficient for one colony of Italian bees of a good honey-gathering strain
to gather a surplus of 100 lbs. of extracted honey, is what I call a fairly
good location, and is as good a locality as this is; and all that we have
been able to secure more than that has been done by adapting certain
methods which the majority of bee-keepers have known but little about
until recently.

Now as to the number of colonies that this or any other fairly good
location can furnish a good surplus for. That is a problem that no one
has ever been able to solve. I know that this location has furnished and
can furnish a surplus of just as many pounds of honey per colony for 750

4 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

colonies in one yard as it ever did for a less number, and IJ think the
same will yet be proven true of any fairly good location.

In regard to breaking up good colonies just previous to the main
honey-flow, I can say that I have never advised any one to do this except
where increase was preferred to surplus honey. I have always advised
doing every thing possible to build up the colonies so that they will not
only be strong in bees but have their hives well filled with brood in order
to keep them strong during the whole honey-flow. Either make the in-
crease long enough before the harvest to enable all colonies to become
strong in time for it, as can very easily be done in a buckwheat location,
or make no increase until the harvest for surplus is over.

LEAVING THE WELL-BEATEN PATH, AND THE CONSEQUENCES.

In regard to the wisdom of cautioning beginners about leaving the
“beaten paths too far, and following what may in their localities turn
out after al] to be a phantom,” I wish to say that, when I was a boy, a
very small minority of bee-keepers left the well-beaten path of setting
their best colonies over a brimstone-pit in order to get a little honey, and
adopted the more humane way of cutting a little out of the sides of their
hives in order that they might save their bees for another year; and I
could never see any phantom about that. I can well remember many
vears ago, of a small minority that left the well-beaten path of box hives,
and in their place adopted movable-comb hives. There was no phantom
about that either. Also a small minority that left the well-beaten path of
keeping black bees, and in their place keep only good strains of Italians—
no phantom about that. Yes, and a small minority that left the well-
beaten path of squeezing their honey through a bag, and in its place
adopted the improved honey-extractors of to-day. No phantom about
that; and it has so happened that a small minority at one time left
that well-beaten path of producing their surplus comb honey in coarse
hemlock boxes holding 15 or 20 lbs. apiece, and adopted the nice at-
tractive section of the present day—no phantom about leaving that
beaten path, that I can see. I might continue to cite many more cases
where a small minority have left beaten paths in all lines of business
and become the leaders of progress. History shows us, in thousands
of instances, where minorities have been in the right, and were a target
for the arrows of critics who only followed in their wake and drifted

with the masses.
June, 1906.

AMOUNT OF HONEY PER COLONY.

WHAT CAN WE REASONABLY EXPKCT TO OBTAIN WHEN WE GIVE OUR BEES THE
BEST OF CARE?

This is a question which we are often asked by those who know
but little about bees, and I sometimes think it might be a good question
for each one of us to ask ourselves, and then do a little thinking along

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 5

this line. For some time I have been thinking this matter over, and I
have come to the conclusion that I never gave my bees what might be
called the best of care, neither have I ever seen a man who did. Now,
why is this? Simply because we have got the idea into our heads that
we must have a great number of colonies in order to make a little money.
Now, this is a big mistake, and the sooner we realize it the better.

Let us apply the same management to bee-keeping that we see put
into practice by all the successful business men of the country. They
make the most out of every thing connected with their business that
they possibly can. Is it so with us? I don’t think it is. There are but
very few who give their bees extra care, consequently their surplus is
small per colony, and they may become discouraged. Now let us look
this matter over and see if we can not do much better in the future
with fewer colonies than many of us are now doing with several hun-
dred; and, by way of explaining this matter, I will suppose that on
April 15, you have 100 fairly good colonies that were just taken from
their winter quarters, and that each colony contains a good well-developed
Italian queen not over ten months old that has been reared from some
good honey-gathering strain of bees. I shall take it for granted that
your hives are filled with nice worker combs.

We will commence the season’s work by putting a feeder under
every hive and giving each colony about 1% cents’ worth of extracted
honey, or sugar syrup, which must be made very thin, of about the con-
sistency of nectar, and feed them about this amount every day that the
weather is such they can not gather anything from flowers until about
the last of May. This will require on an average, one season with
another, about 50 cents’ worth of honey or sugar per colony; and, if
properly done, you will have, May 25, every hive crowded with brood
and maturing bees at the rate of 2,000 or more a day.

About two weeks previous to this we should start the rearing of
four or five hundred queen-cells, which are now, May 26, about ready to
hatch. Now we will divide our 100 colonies, making two of each, and
fix them so that the queenless part will mature two or more of these
ripe queen-cells or virgins into nice laying queens; then about the last
of June we will separate these colonies that have two or more laying
queens, making 100 more increase, or 300 colonies all together.

The old colony, or the part that has had the old laying queen from
the first, we have kept busy drawing out frames of foundation into nice
extracting-combs, and we have also kept them from any desire to swarm
by taking their combs of capped brood away as fast as they had some
to spare, and giving this brood to this newly made increase.

In this way of managing your bees you have no swarming to bother
with, and at the same time you have increased your 100 colonies to 300,
and all are in good condition for any harvest that commences after

July 4.
Now, what I consider a fairly good location (and no man ever
ought to bother trying to produce honey in a poor location) will furnish

6 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

a surplus of three or four pounds of extracted honey per day for as much
as 35 days during July and August. This will give us about 100 lbs.
per colony, or a total surplus of 30,000 lbs. from our 100 colonies, which

we started with in the spring. This, at the wholesale price of 6 cents
per Ib., brings us $1,800. Then we have 200 colonies of an increase,

worth about five dollars apiece, which gives us $1,000 more, or a total
income of $2,800 from our 100 colonies we started with in the spring.
Now we will deduct the necessary expenses.

First, $50 for the honey or sugar we fed them to stimulate early
breeding; and there, my friends, is the key that unlocks all the rest.
Then we have $400 for the expense of new hives filled with foundation
for our 200 increase; then the matter of hired help will cost about $125,
and the necessary barrels to ship your honey in will cost nearly $100
more, making a total expense of about $675. This, subtracted from your
income, leaves a net balance of $2,125—a very nice income for less than
six months’ labor which is not very hard at any time.

Now, don’t say that this is overdrawn, and borders on the visionary,
for I know it is not. I have several times taken a few colonies in the
spring and given them special care as I advise in the above, and in
every case they have done still better than this. No, my friends, there
is nothing in the above that is overdrawn.

The trouble with us all is, we try to keep too many colonies, and in
doing so we do not give them the care they ought to have. The man
who requires 500 colonies to give him an income of $1,000 a year is not
half as good a bee-keeper as the man who will make that amount or
more from 200 colonies.

Study your business so as to keep fewer bees and better bees, and
Make more money; also have less idle capital invested; and I know you
will have less to worry about than if you continue as many as you are
doing. I repeat, study your business until you understand it well, for I
assure you that ignorance of any thing connected with our business is
far more costly than all the bee-books and journals we now have.

Think this subject over well and when another season comes, have
all your plans well laid on a good foundation, the cornerstone of which
must be strong colonies early in the season; and the only way I know of
to secure these is to stimulate early breeding by early feeding; then all
the rest is easy enough. Don’t think for a moment that I advocate
taking any steps backward—far from it. I like to see men push ahead
in their business, and make it a success, whether it be with 100 colonies
er 1,000; but in doing so, do as our successful business men do—look
well to the amount of capital you have invested; look close to your an-
nual income, and then, with a critic’s eye, look to the net profits of your

whole business.
December, 1905

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE T
PROFITS IN BEE-KEEPING.

MODERN METHObS REDUCE THE COST OF PRODUCTION.

Some may take issue with my statement as to the net profit in the
work—namely, $5.00 per colony, spring count, clear of all expenses.
Well, as to that I am sure a very large per cent will question that state-
ment, and I will admit that perhaps not ten per cent of the honey-
producers of the United States are making that amount per colony. I
will also admit that, during the thirty years of my comb-honey experi-
ence, I did not make $2.00 per colony clear of expenses from the many
colonies I had then. Neither did I make $3.00 per colony clear of ex-
penses in producing extra: ted honey during the first several years I was
engaged in that business. But during the last few years there have been
great changes made in producing honey. First, our bees are now bred
from much better honey-gathering strains than formerly.

Then some have studied out and perfected certain methods in caring
for their weak colonies in early spring, so we now have no more losses
in that way, and we have certain ways of making increase whereby not
a bit of brood is lost—not even an egg. There has also been great im-
provement in extracting and curing the honey, which has much to do
with selling it readily at a good price; and a few of us have dearly
learned the folly of all that out-apiary expense, such as keeping several
horses, paying dear rent for a place to set the bees, and losing a large
part of the working force from cach out-yard in absconding swarms.

It is only a few years since it cost me 4 cents per lb., cash out, to
produce extracted honey. How different now, with these improved methods
put into practice!

According to our books, during the past three seasons we have pro-
duced 181,237 Ibs. of honey. Now, when all expenses were deducted,
such as hired help, including board, barrels for honey, sugar fed in the
spring to stimulate early breeding, interest, and taxes on $5,000 capital
invested, our own labor, including delivering on the cars at this station,
we find the actual cost to have been a fraction less thau one cent per
pound.

Now, when honey has been and can be produced at one cent per
pound, mostly with hired help, it is net far out of the way to state that
bees will pay $5.00 per colony, “Jear of all expenses. But in order to
do so you must learn how te reduce expenses to their lowest possible
minimum, and produce honey in the largest possible quantities that a
certain number of colonies can be made to do.

The fact that thousands of hee-keepers are not making $2.00 per
colony is no disparagement to the business. The same can be said of
hundreds of farmers in this section, who are not making net $100 per
year from their farms. But there is no reason why each could not be
made to pay well if better methods were adopted.

No, my friends, I don’t care to modify my statement in the least,
that about $5.00 per colony, spring count, clear of all expenses, is a

8 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

moderate estimate of the profits from the business. There are those
that are doing even better than that, as well as hundreds who are mak-

ing but little.
June, 1907.

How that word “success” seems to fire our very souls with ambi-
tion! and we again and again think our business over, each time trying
to solve some new problem whereby we can add still more to our income
and at the same time reduce our expenses. There are two things that
always bring success—that is, good seed sown in fertile soil; and that
law of cause and effect which predominates in all things, affects our
business all the way through. There is no question that bee-keeping,
if rightly done, is fertile soil; and it rests with you, my friend, to inform
your mind and adopt methods whereby you will become good seed to
develop in that soil.

You undoubtedly have had experience enough to know whether you
like bee-keeping or not. If not, then sell out and take up something
else; but if you like the business, then “Stand not upon the act of your
going, but go at once” with a determination to succeed. Work at it by
day, and think of it by night. Aim high, and use all the skill you can
command to make it a success; get bees of the best honey-gathering
strain you can find, for honey is what you are working for; let all
other things be secondary to that. If they sting, make the best of it.
If they swarm too much, try to curtail it; but get the bees that will
gather honey by the ton; then you will be on the main road to suc-
cess.

THE DIFFERENCE IN COLONIES.

There is as much difference in the amount of honey that different
colonies will produce as there is in the amount of butter that different
cows will make; so don’t waste your time on any poor stock. When
you have the best, give them good care and you will be surprised at
the results. Look upon every colony as you would an individual whom
you had hired; then see that each one contributes its part toward pro-
ducing a fine surplus,

After you once get your colonies strong in bees, keep them so dur-
ing the whole year. This can be accomplished to a great extent by

keeping only good young well-developed queens. See to it that they con-
tinue to breed well into the fall. This can be done by a little feeding.

WHEN TO PUT IN AND WHEN TO TAKE OUT OF WINTER QUARTERS.

In this cold climate I would advise putting them in their winter-
quarters about the first of November before they have lost many bees
by hard freezing weather. As a general thing I think waiting for a
chance to fly in November is a bad practice. If you winter in a cellar,
and can keep the temperature about 45, it makes but little difference

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 9

how damp the cellar is, providing you have a good mat on top of every
hive; or a good piece of heavy duck will answer if you have not the
mats, and then raise them about an inch off the bottom-boards all
around.

Don’t take them out in the spring until there is something for them
to work on. We have noticed for several years that the first colonies
we put into the cellar are the last to be taken out, and they are our
best colonies nearly all summer. Heretofore there has been about ten
days’ difference in the time of putting in the first and the last, and about
the same length of time in taking them out. Now we have a new cellar
in our bee-yard so handy that two men can put away nearly 800 colonies
in a day, and disturb them but very little.

In regard to this wintering problem, in order to be successful there
are a few things that must work in harmony together. First, good
stores; total darkness; perfect quiet, and an even temperature of about
45. If any of these are lacking it may be necessary to give them a
chance to fly earlier than we otherwise should, in order to save them
from wasting away badly in the cellar; then when spring comes, do all
you can to keep them warm and promote early breeding.

At this time they require man’s help more than at any other time
of the year; and if you expect to be successful, there must be no let-up
until every hive is crowded full of bees and maturing brood. Yes, I
mean all that that implies, and a great deal more; for you should now
have a fine lot of young queens ready to make whatever increase you
may desire; but if you do not understand rearing good queens then
you had better buy what you need from some party that can be relied
on to furnish you good stock.

DON'T BARREL HONEY DIRECT FROM THE EXTRACTOR.

Now as to barreling up extracted honey, as some advise, right from
the extractor. This is something I can not endorse. If one is very
careful it might do; but with some careless honey-producers it is liable
to do much harm. Even if of good quality when extracted there will be
a little scum rising to the top after a few days. This, if left in the
barrels, gives it a bad appearance, and many times hurts its sale. Then
if there should be a little thin honey in the barrel this will also rise to
the top and have a tendency to ferment. Here is one of the reasons
why we have always used large storage-tanks. With them, whatever
rises to the top can easily be skimmed off; and in drawing off from the
bottom of our tanks we get only the thick pure honey of the finest
quality. We are sure that, in giving this part of the business special at-
tention, as we do, it has much bearing on the ready sale we find for all
we can produce. If you expect to make bee-keeping a success, you must
look close to all these things. Don’t be afraid to give a dollar’s worth
of good honey for every dollar you receive from a customer; for if you
are, your customers will soon find it out.

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 mina.

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 MORE
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

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 11

within two or three miles of them. Still, we have had about an average
season. The largest yield we have ever had was 14914 lbs. per colony,
spring count. That was an exceptionally good year. This year, since
weighing up our honey, we find we have 141% lbs. per colony, spring
count, or a total yield of a little over 70,700 lbs, extracted honey from this
one yard, including 80 sections of comb honey. In addition we have had
3,600 sheets of foundation drawn out into nice extracting-combs.

To me the success of this large apiary this ordinary season goes a
long way to show that I am not so much in the wrong in regard to over-
stocking as some people think, and I am sure I should have to have more
than 1,000 colonies before I would go to the trouble of putting any in

outyards away from home.
November, 1904.

BUCKWHEAT AS A HONEY-PRODUCER.

During the time that buckwheat is in bloom, many other honey-
producing flowers are also secreting nectar, principally goldenrod, which
yields a dark honey resembling buckwheat very much, and with us is a
better honey-producer than buckwheat.

Several years ago I kept nearly 200 colonies in a location where
there was barely 100 acres of buckwheat within reach of my bees—that
is, within four miles, or in a circle eight miles in diameter. Still, with
this small acreage per colony it was no uncommon thing to harvest a
surplus of 15 to 20 lbs. of nice buckwheat section honey per colony.
This caused me to feel very anxious to keep bees in a buckwheat loca-
tion where thousands of acres was raised annually, so I moved to this
place. But I soon found out, to my sorrow, that the amount of bloom
had but little bearing on the amount of surplus I obtained, and in this
respect buckwheat is no exception to other flowers, aside from the fact
that it does its best when we have quite cool nights followed by a clear
sky and a bright hot sun with little or no wind; then from about 9
o’clock in the morning until 2 in the afternoon it secretes nectar very
fast. We seldom find a bee at work on it much earlier or later in the
day. But on goldenrod they will work from seven in the morning until
after 5 in the afternoon. It also requires quite cool nights and a very
bright sun during the day. Neither it nor buckwheat amounts to much
in cloudy weather, even if the day is warm. With a temperature below
70 degrees on a cloudy day, bees will waste away fast on either golden-
rod or buckwheat. They simply crawl around, unable to fly; and unless

they get a bright sun the next day they soon die.

This question has a close bearing on the subject of overstocking,
and it is hard to answer it without touching somewhat on that question.
From the reports given in our bee journals the past season, during the
commencement of the clover bloom in several of our Western States,
I noticed that it was all that could be desired; but as to the yield of
honey, it has been in many places almost a failure, and we have re-
ceived many letters of inquiry for clover extracted honey from some of
the best clover sections of the United States. The writers of these in-

12 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

quiries state that, although they had a very large bloom, their bees got
but little surplus.

My friends, the time will come when many will realize that what is
commonly called the “season,” which is, the condition of the ground as
to proper moisture and the temperature, and the electrical condition of
the atmosphere at the time the flowers are in bloom, will have a thousand
times more bearing on our surplus than the amount of bloom or the
number of colonies we may have in one apiary.

A few years ago, during the commencement of our August harvest,
when our bees had at least 1500 acres of buckwheat bloom to work on,
and were getting honey very fast, a heavy thunder-shower came down
from the north about 2 p.m., which caused the mercury to drop 21 de-
grees in less than half an hour. Then this low temperature of about 65
degrees, with windy cloudy weather, lasted some 11 days, during which
time the bees destroyed large quantities of their brood, for there was
no nectar in any flowers during that time, and they were ready to rob
any hive that was opened. We have but very little basswood in this
locality, and two years ago the bloom was very light. We could hardly
find a tree that had any flowers on, but still our bees got a fine surplus
of over 9 tons of basswood honey; but the weather was all that could
be desired. It was clear, hot, and very damp; the moisture of the air
condensed on every thing that was cool, and consequently we got the
honey.

One year we had the most profuse basswood bloom I ever saw.
Nearly every tree was full of flowers; but the weather was cold, cloudy,
and windy during nearly the whole time it was in blossom, and we did
not get enough basswood honey so it could be smelled or tasted in our
surplus. I don’t know that I ever saw the buckwheat harvest stop so
suddenly, with apparently little cause, as it did one August. From the
morning of the 21st to the night of the 24th, bees got honey very fast.
Our hive on the scales averaged a gain of about 8 Ibs. a day, and we ex-
tracted a tankful of a little more than 2 tons each day for four con-
secutive days, and our men all agreed that there was more honey in the
apiary each night than there was in the morning. But on the night of
the 24th we had a light shower with a fall of temperature of 11 degrees.
The bees were very quiet the next morning until about noon; then when
it warmed up a little they were ready to rob anything they could get at,
and there were thousands trying to get into our honey-house around the
screened windows; and we knew from past experience that the honey
season of 1906 was then drawn to a close. The hive on the scales did
not gain 1% lb. any day after that fall in temperature and shower, al-
though there was considerable buckwheat in bloom.

Then at other times I have noticed, when the weather remains
warm without any rain, the flow of nectar would last until Sept. 5; but
if a break in the harvest comes at any time after the 24th of August
we at once take off our extracting-combs, run them through the ex-
tractor, and put them away for another year.

One year we finished the last work in the apiary for the season on
Sept. 1, and our honey was then all either in the barrels or tanks, and

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 13

we had little more to do. We always prepare our bees for winter during
July and August, so our summer’s work was finished until we put them
into the cellar.

I might continue to write page after page, citing cases where the
weather has nearly all to do with our securing a surplus, but I don’t
think it necessary. The one principal requirement in securing a nice
surplus is, as I have stated, the season; but this, being far beyond man’s
control, will always make the production of honey a somewhat uncertain
business. The bloom of 60 acres of buckwheat added to what other
honey-producing plants which would blossom at the same time, would
undoubtedly help 100 colonies very much to fill up their hives for win-
ter and give some surplus. I should consider it quite a help to an other-
wise fair location; but I can not see how we can ever ascertain any thing
like a correct knowledge of what our harvest will be, or the number of
colonies that will overstock a location. My advice is, don’t make any
debts expecting to pay them from your future crop of clover, basswood,
or buckwheat honey; for if you do there are many chances that you

may be badly disappointed.
March, 1907.

A FEW THINGS NOT TO DO IN BEE-KEEPING.
INVENTING HIVES.

First, don’t spend either time nor money in trying to construct a
new form of hive—not but that there are some serious faults in nearly
all of our standard hives, but let the experienced bee-keeper remedy
those faults.

MANAGEMENT OF WEAK COLONIES; HOW TO PREVENT ROBBING.

Don’t allow your bees to acquire the habit of robbing. Hundreds of
weak colonies are lost annually by this provoking habit which is fre-
quently caused by the neglect of their owner. One of the worst features
of taking our bees from their winter quarters, a few at a time, is that it
almost invariably starts robbing. The colonies that are taken out first,
and have had their cleansing flight, being well located are in prime con-
dition to attack every colony that is taken out later, and before they
become located the bees from those that were taken out first have full
swing at their less fortunate neighbors. In order to prevent this costly
and unpleasant state of things, where you have to set out your bees at
different times, first contract the entrance of every colony; then as soon
as you find a colony that is being robbed, even though it is only just
started, close it up and keep it so for several days; then if they have
any brood, set them on top of a strong colony with a queen-excluder be-
tween. If they have no brood, and still have a queen, give them a comb

containing brood from some other colony.
In putting two colonies together in this way don’t disturb either of
them any more than you can help, especially the stronger one.. If you

14 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

keep a close watch on your apiary, and treat them as above described,
you can save nearly all of your weak colonies with but little trouble,
and at the same time prevent your apiary from getting into that demor-
alized condition which they frequently do when they find several weak
colonies which they can overpower with but little loss of bees.

A CAUTION AGAINST MAKING INCREASE TOO RAPIDLY.

Then the desire for more bees is almost sure to tempt the inex-
perienced to divide his colonies to that extent that they are almost
worthless, either for surplus or to try to winter. So, don’t make your
increase too fast. If you do, you will not only lose your prospect of se-
curing a fair surplus, but the chances are that you will lose many col-
onies during the following winter.

KEEP GOOD BEES AND PRODUCE GOOD HONEY.

Then don’t be contented in keeping bees that are not good honey-
gatherers. This is the principal thing we keep bees for; and if they fail
to give us a good surplus when they should, supersede their queens with
queens of a good honey-gathering strain.

Then don’t produce poor-looking comb honey. You have no more
excuse for producing poor stuff than the dairyman has for producing
poor butter; but produce a quality that you will take pride in stamping
on every package of it your name and address.

SOME GOOD “DON'TS.”

Don’t set your bees in a place where they will annoy the public.
Hither keep them where they will not disturb any one, or sell them and
go out of the business.

Don’t allow drone comb in any hive except one or two, and see that
these hives have choice breeding queens. There is no more profit in
keeping a colony of bees where a large per cent of their combs is drone
comb than there would be in keeping a poultry-yard of roosters.

Don't allow king birds, skunks, toads, and snakes to hang around
your apiary. If you do they will weaken the working force of every
colony.

Don’t think that bees will give you good results in either increase
or surplus honey if you neglect them and fail to do your part. The day
is past when the word “luck” has any bearing on bee-keeping. The man
who conducts his business in a careless slipshod way, taking it for
granted that this and that will come out all right, is only fooling him-
self; and the sooner he realizes it to be a fact, the better for all con-
cerned. So, don’t try any thing of the kind, but look close to all the
minor parts; and when you have united them into one fine method for
practice you will be well rewarded for your study and perseverance.

Don’t spend any time in worrying over the frequency of poor sea-
sons, but spend your time in preparing your bees to make the most they
can of any kind of season that comes, then you will be almost surprised
to see how few poor seasons there are. We have not had a really poor

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 15

season in 25 years, while some of my neighbors complain of a poor sea-
son nearly every summer,
SECOND-HAND HONEY PACKAGES,

I almost beg of you not to buy second-hand packages to ship ex-
tracted honey in. Don’t use those poor packages. If you do, you not
only bear down the market price of honey but you indirectly raise the
freight rate.

Don’t bother with starters of comb foundation in your breeding
or extracting frames; but put in full sheets of foundation and prevent
your bees from building that worst nuisance of the apiary—namely,
drone comb. The man with a few colonies may have time to fuss with
starters; but if you have many hives to care for, the sooner you cut
out this starter business, and the shifting around the apiary of brood,
the better it will be for your net income. The earlier in the spring you
can have every hive in your apiary, and every comb in those hives filled
with worker brood, then keep them so to the end of the season, the
less reason you will have to worry about poor honey seasons and over-
stocking. We have never had a strong colony of bees backed up with
a hive full of worker brood fail to give us a good surplus.

PREPARING FOR WINTER.

Don’t neglect to prepare your bees early in the season for winter.
This part of the business should here at the north be all finished
before September 10. To a certain extent we are preparing our bees
all summer for the next season; then when the final finish comes, the
last of August, we have but little to do, and I am sure that they will
winter with less loss if they have a chance to quiet down and are
undisturbed during the fall months.

Don’t try to winter weak colonies. If you are anxious to save all
you can, then feed them syrup made from granulated sugar as soon
as the harvest commences to close, so as to keep them breeding until
they are strong in bees. If you attend to them in this way they will
often be your best colonies in the spring; but if you can not do this
you had better unite two or more together in the fall; for a weak colony
in the fall is usually a dead one in the spring.

Don’t try to winter a queen the third winter. I am sure it doesn't
pay. She is almost sure to die, either in the winter or early spring;
and if she lives she is so slow to start brood in the spring that you
will have a weak colony until mid-summer; and it will require more
valuable time to build it up than three queens would cost.

Don’t fail to keep your bees as warm and comfortable as is pos-
sible during the first four or five weeks after taking them from their
winter quarters. We contract the entrances of all colonies to % by
1 or 2 inches. In doing so it prevents robbing to quite an extent,
and helps them to enlarge their brood-nest, which is very important
at this season of the year. We also try to retain all the heat we can
at the top of the hive. We put a piece of canvas first over the top

16 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

of the frames, then a board under cover, cleated so as to form two
dead-air spaces; then our outside telescope top, which is kept well
painted so as to prevent any rain from entering the hive. You may
think this is taking more pains than is necessary. We think it has
much to do toward helping the bees to give us a nice surplus during
the summer.

Don’t put your bees into winter quarters that will subject them
to unnatural conditions. If you do you will lose many colonies, both
during the winter and spring. It is almost impossible to save a colony
that has been poorly wintered. We may talk and write of the thousand
and one different things connected with successful bee-keeping; but
when they are all summed up the whole combined is not of as much
importance as perfect wintering. We could make more money the fol-
lowing season from strong colonies when taken from their winter quar-
ters if they were in nail-kegs than could be made from little weak sickly

colonies in the best hive that was ever constructed.
August, 1907.

IF I WERE TO START ANEW, WHAT STYLE OF FRAMES, SUPHRS,
AND APPLIANCES WOULD I ADOPT?

IN FAVOR OF A SELF-SPACING REVERSIBLE FRAME AND 4X5 SECTIONS.

If I were to start anew I would try hard to adopt some one of the
standard hives already in use, mainly for this reason: If I wanted to
sell my bees and appliances I could find a buyer easier, and sell at a
much better price, than if my hives and appliances were of an odd
size.

But, according to my ideas of a practicable all-purpose bee-hive,
there are certain things of paramount importance that would have to
be embodied in it before I could indorse any hive to the extent of
adoption. First, I should want a loose bottom—one that is not perma-
nently fastened to the hive. Next, a telescope top. These are a great
protection to the upper part of a hive from the summer heat and the
cool weather of spring and fall; and they never blow off in bad storms,
which is another good thing in their favor. Then I should want the
frames self-spacing, so no two could ever, through carelessness, be
crowded close together; and I would have them reversible, with some
simple arrangement so there would be no special top or bottom. The
size of the hive I should prefer would be equal to a nine or ten frame
Langstroth.

In regard to the clamp for holding sections, and the size and shape
of section, I think the Danzenbaker clamp-and-section arrangement for
comb honey is far ahead of any other I have ever seen.

There, my friends, when you make a hive with all those require-
ments you will have, according to my idea, the best hive that has ever
been devised.

Since I was invited to partake in this discussion I have spent some
time in examining all the catalogs of different hives I could get, and

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 17

I find that the Danzenbaker hive with its modern improved appliances
has fewer faults and more advantages than any other hive I know of.

The hive we use for extracted honey suits us very well; and as
we now have about 2100 just alike, it would seem foolish and be quite
expensive to make them over into another kind of hive.

FACTORY VS. HOME-MADE HIVES.

In regard to which is the better and cheaper, all things considered,
home-made or factory hives, I will say, don’t be satisfied and contented with
poorly made hives of any kind. I know of nothing more provoking than to
have a lot of slam-bang hives. Bee-stings can not commence to make me
feel as much provoked as to find some parts of a hive left a little too thick
or too thin, too long or too short, to fit the place for which they
were intended. If you are a good mechanic, and have a good planing-
machine and all the necessary fine sharp saws to do good work, and
can buy your lumber at a moderate price, then it is possible you might
save a little in making your hives and appliances right through; but
unless you are so situated I think it would be much better to buy all
those things in the flat from some factory that does nice work. The
one thing which is of far more importance than the first cost is to
have every piece in a hive an exact duplicate of that part in every other
hive. This is where factory hives usually have a great advantage over
home-made ones. I have been fortunate in getting our hives and appli-
ances without much trouble, always living as I have within a short drive
of wood-working factories where I could either buy the rough lumber
or the hives ready to nail together, at a reasonable price.

Please do not infer from the above that I have not had any experli-
ence in cutting up lumber and making hives, for I certainly have had.
Twice one hand has come in contact with the buzz-saw, to my sorrow.
In going over this part of the business, it is not only the matter of
hives but there are our sections, queen-excluders, separators, clamps for
holding the sections in their place on the hives, crates for our comb
honey—yes, even our queen-cages and labels, and, many times, our glass;
for all these and many others we have to look to the large manufac-
turing plants. Now, why not go one step further, and, in sending in
our orders, include the necessary hives, and have all come together in
a good workmanlike manner, even if it should cost a trifle more, which
I have my doubts about, and then for many years enjoy the pleasure
of knowing that you have all your bees in good well-made hives? This
part is certainly well worth taking into consideration, for it instills in
us a certain pride in our business which no man can expect to be suc-
cessful without. Don’t for a moment feel that any old ram-shackle thing
is good enough for you and your bees, but make up your mind from the
first that you will have every thing connected with your business just
as good as any other man’s, and then work hard to accomplish it.

Before I leave this subject I wish I could impress upon the minds
of all those about to engage in bee keeping the importance—yes, I might

18 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

almost say the necessity—of adopting some one of the standard hives
as soon as possible. You must realize that you will have strong com-
petition in the future in producing either comb or extracted honey, and
it will be necessary to have the very best of every thing connected with
the business in order to compete successfully with those who have these

great improvements.
August, 1906.

HIVE-COVERS.

HOW THE ALEXANDER SUPER-COVERS ARE MADE; RETAINING THE HEAT IN THE
SPRING.

A subscriber wishes to know how the under covers to our hives
are made. I will say that they have a rim % wide and % inch in
thickness, with a groove in the center 4% inch wide. In this groove
we slide a board % inch thick, which leaves a %-inch space on each side
of the center board.

The tops of our frames are flush with the top of the hive, so when
we lay this cover on top of the hive and frames there is a %4-inch
space between the under side of the cover and top of frames. Then
when our outside telescope top is put on, which has a 2-inch rim all
around on the under side, and rests on top of this under cover, there
is another 44-inch space between the two covers. This, we find, makes
an ideal top. It is warm in cool weather and cool in warm weather.

We also use, in addition to this under cover, during spring and fall,
a piece of heavy duck No. 8, or, as some would call it, a piece of light
canvas, over the top of the frames under the under cover. This helps
much to retain the heat of the colony during the spring, as it furnishes
a perfect packing around the top of the hive.

The rims of these under covers are mortised together at the corners,
similar to a wood-zinc queen-excluder, and then nailed. They are strong
and durable, and at the same time light and handy to handle. With
the outside cover well painted, no water or cold air can enter our hives
from the top during the spring season.

We are all learning fast that it is very important to retain all the
heat we can during early spring. We also close the entrance until it
is so warm in the hive on a fair day that the bees will fan the air at
the entrance as they usually do in mid-summer. This causes the old
candied honey to liquefy, and prevents the bees from carrying it out of
their hives, where it is lost.

October, 1907.

PART II

Spring Management

TAKING BEES FROM THE CELLAR IN THE SPRING.

THE THREE DIFFERENT METHODS AND THEIR ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES.

Let us think over the many ways of taking bees from the cellar
and see if there is not some one way much better than any other; for
we don’t want to make any mistakes this summer, especially at the
start; for if we do, it frequently means spring dwindling, weak colonies,
trouble from robbing, small surplus, and discouragement in the end.
These can, many times, be traced back to a bad blunder made in taking
our bees from the cellar.

I will first speak of the two most common ways of setting out bees,
and in doing so I will call your attention to some serious fault in each;
then I will describe the way we now do, which we think is far better
than the way we used to do, and as many are doing now.

First, we have a fine warm morning, and we wish the bees were
out; so, come on, boys, let us set out the bees, and out they go. We
finish about 1 o’clock, and find that they have all come through the
winter in quite good condition, and the boys say, “Oh, my! father, what
a nice big fly they are having! I'll] bet there are some hives over there
in the middle of the yard that have two pailfuls of bees now.”

“Yes, I see, boys; and since the wind has sprung up from the east,
nearly all those hives at the east end are getting far more bees than
belong to them. Don’t you see how they head up against the wind?
Then look over here at those hives at the west end of the yard, and
see how very few bees are going into them.”

Then I draw a long sigh and say to myself, “It is done. I have
made a big blunder, and I can see only spring dwindling, weak colonies,
and small surplus for this season.”

My friend, I hope you have never had and never will have your
apiary in that condition. I have been there many times, and I know
well what the result will be.

Now we will take up another way of taking out our bees. It is
this:

As the sun set to-night it had every appearance of a fine day to-
morrow; so come, boys, I think we had better set out about 100 col-

onies of bees to-night, for we have a big lot to handle, and it will not
be so hard to make several jobs of it. So we took out about 100 col-

20 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

onies that night; and after they had been out a little while they quieted
down so they did not commence to fly until about 10 a.m. next day,
then they flew quite well; but as it got some cloudy, and they kept on
trying to fly, many were lost.

Well, we think it is time that they were all out, so we take out
another lot to-night. These have a better fly, for it is much warmer.

But here is a new trouble started—nearly all those hives we took out
the first night are robbing these last hives, which are so busy getting
water and locating their home that they don’t seem to know it. Well,
that is too bad. We are now, as the saying is, between two fires. Those
that are left in the cellar have been so disturbed by taking the others
out that they are leaving their hives badly, so I say, ‘Come on, let us
get all the trouble on one side. We will take out the last to-night, let
come what may.”

This is done, and the next day happens to be the brightest and
warmest day yet; and, oh, what a picture that apiary makes the night
of that last day! Those bees that were taken out the first two nights
have commenced to rob this last lot as fast as they tried to fly, and
not only robbed them of a large part of their honey, but the call that
those strong full hives kept up all day has taken most of the bees from
this last lot we carried out, and now less than 100 colonies have the
greater part of the bees of the whole apiary, and they are so demoral-
ized that it will be a hard job to get them righted, and I know we shall
lose one-half of our colonies this spring.

Now the boys proposed to sit down and talk the situation over, and
see if there is not some way that this loss and trouble can be avoided.
O, experience! thou art a dear school, and I often wish I could give the
many readers of GLEANINGS more of our costly experience before they
make the many bad mistakes I have made.

Now we will take up the third way of taking bees out of the cellar:

First get every thing all ready for a big job, and watch the weather
closely, especially after a few nice days, for it is quite changeable at this
time of the year. Then when the wind gets around in the east, and it
commences to become overcast with hazy clouds, and has every appear-
ance of bad weather for the morrow, we commence about sundown and
carry out all our bees—yes, even if it takes not only all night but into
the next day; and if it commences to rain before we are done, all the
better, for we don’t want any to try to fly until they have been out two
or three days if we can help it. During this time they will become
nice and quiet; and when a fair day comes they will commence to fly,
only a few at a time, and will get their location marked, so there will
be no mixing up or robbing, as they all have their first fly together.
Then when the day is over we find by examining our hives that nearly
every one has apparently retained all its bees.

Now we feel that we have at least learned how to take our bees
from the cellar. We know that close attention hereafter will almost
wholly prevent spring dwindling, and we can see a fair chance for a

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 21

good surplus in the fall. There are some who recommend setting out
their bees quite early, some time before there are any flowers to work
on. This I have tried several times, but never with good results. I'd
much rather wait until there is something ready for them to gather
pollen from, as soon as they have a chance to fly. Some may be unable
to see how this way of taking bees out at night and all at one time
can in any way prevent spring dwindling. It is this: It prevents a
part of your colonies from becoming unnaturally strong by receiving
bees from other colonies that consequently become correspondingly
weak. Then these strong colonies continue day after day to draw many
bees from those unfortunate weak colonies until they have but very
few bees left. I have given this subject much thought and attention;
and while I will admit it is not the whole cause of spring dwindling I
am sure it frequently is one of the principal causes of so many of our
colonies in early spring wasting away to a mere nothing.

Years ago we set out our bees much earlier than we do now, and
we frequently gave them rye meal to work on as a substitute for early
pollen. This practice caused them to leave their hives in search of
flowers, many days when the air was too cold for them to fly in the
shade, and so we discontinued it some time ago. We now like to keep
them in the cellar until the most of that chilly weather is past; then
when they are set out we do all that we can to hurry them along until
the summer harvest is gathered. If those of you who have a large
apiary to set out in one yard will try setting them all out in one night
I am sure you will be well pleased with the result, especially if you can
choose the weather so as to have one or two cool cloudy days before
they attempt to fly. In that way you avoid getting your apiary in that
demoralized condition that is often done by putting out a part at a
time. It is easy to make these bad mistakes; and, if done early in
the season, they many times leave their blighted mark on our apiary
through nearly the whole summer.

March, 1906.

SPRING DWINDLING.
THREE PRINCIPAL CAUSES, AND THE REMEDIES,

During the first month after taking bees from their winter quarters
there are usually more colonies lost than during the other eleven months
of the year; and it seems really harder to bear the loss then than
at any other time, for we know that, if we can keep them alive and in
their hives during those chilly, cloudy, changeable days of early spring,
we can soon have them good colonies for the coming summer. While

22. ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BLE CULTURE

there are several conditions that help to bring about these disastrous
results, there are three that stand out as the principal causes of spring
dwindling.

The first cause is an old queen—one that stopped laying early the
previous fall. Colonies with such queens become weak in bees during
the latter part of winter, and, not being able to keep their hives warm
enough, they are soon affected with dysentery, and, after they are set
out, they waste away until none are left. This cause of spring dwin-
dling can be easily prevented by introducing young queens early in the
summer, so they will have a fine lot of brood at the close of the season.

Another serious cause is poor honey for winter stores. This is a
more frequent cause, and far more disastrous than the loss from old
queens, for the losses from poor winter stores affect all colonies alike,
and the poor bees die by the thousands while in the cellar, and still
faster when first set out, until nearly every colony is dead.

One winter I lost 417 colonies from this cause out of 432; but we
can now prevent all loss from this source by giving our bees sugar
syrup to winter on in the place of unsuitable honey.

Another very serious cause of spring dwindling is the desire of the
bees to fly on those changeable days I spoke of above. This loss can
also be almost wholly prevented by placing the hives, when taken from
the cellar, so the entrance will face the north; then in addition to this
have a shade-board so it can be easily placed where it will shade the
entrance still more, and somewhat darken it. To prevent still further
their desire to fly on cloudy days, give the colonies about a pint of
warm sweetened water every night about dark. This will encourage
them to breed fast, and at the same time prevent thousands from
becoming lost on chilly days in search of water. If you prefer to have
the hives face some other direction it is but a short job to turn them
around to any point after the changeable weather of early spring has
gone by. Please try this method, and you will find that the bees will
have but little desire to fly except when the temperature is warm enough
to fly safely in the shade; consequently the old bees are saved until
the colony has a fine lot of maturing brood.

As experience enables us to cast aside the fatal results of spring
dwindling, it seems as if we had taken another step forward along the
line of progress. The cares and anxiety of another busy season will
soon be here, and our plans should be well matured for the coming
summer. Have you secured your necessary help and your supplies?
Do you know how much increase you will make and how you
will make it? Have you decided whether you will rear your queens
or buy them? If you intend to purchase, have you sent in your order?
If not, attend to this at once. I find that some of our best queen-
breeders by February 25 have all the queens engaged that they can
rear the coming season. These are important matters to look after,
and should be attended to very soon.

You may talk and white about the importance of a good location,
also of the knowledge and experience of the man in charge, each being

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 23

very essential; but to have a good queen of a good honey-gathering
strain in every colony is of more importance than any other one thing
connected with the business; for if the colonies have poor old queens
that can not be induced to keep their hives half full of brood we might
as well give up at once, for we shall get little or no surplus, and our
hopes will be blasted. We should continually try to profit by our
past experience, not only in caring for our bees, but in disposing of
our honey. Don’t be satisfied with the results of the past, but strive
to make the coming season the most profitable one you have ever had.
April, 1908.

THE ALEXANDER PLAN FOR BUILDING UP WEAK COLONIES.
SOME VALUABLE HINTS CONCERNING STIMULATION TO INDUCE EARLY BREEDING.

The early spring is one of the most important seasons of the year
to the honey-producer, for if he neglects his bees at this time it is
almost impossible for him to obtain any surplus from his early harvest.
We should care for our bees so as to gain two or three weeks’ time
instead of losing any precious days. First, I wish to call your atten-
tion to the importance of keeping your bees as warm as possible all
through the spring. If you can, try to have them set where they will
have a natural windbreak of some kind. This is very essential to pro-
tect them from the cold northwest winds; and at all times of the year
avoid shade. There may be some places where shade is necessary in
the apiary, but I have never seen a colony do as well in the shade
of a tree as those out in the sun. During early spring I advise by all
means contracting the entrance until it is quite small. We allow an
entrance only 34x1 inch, and sometimes still less; then when a warm
day comes we enlarge it according to the needs of the colony; then
toward night close it again if it is likely to turn cold. Also cover your
hives with tarred building-paper. This is an excellent thing to retain
the heat from the sun during the day, and in this way you can, with
the natural heat of the colony, keep the whole hive so it will remain
nice and comfortable all night.

Then if you will do as I advise in the above, so far as keeping them
warm is concerned they will gain fully three weeks’ time over the way
they are generally cared for.

Now we will take up the next most important part of spring man-
agement, that of stimulative feeding. This, with its twin brother, keep-
ing them warm, is the magic word that unlocks the door to a successful

summer. I care not how much old capped honey a colony may have,
there is nothing that can be done to your bees during early spring that
will pay like keeping them warm, night and day, and feeding a little
warm syrup daily, made very thin from honey or granulated sugar,
or both. If fed in the feeders I invented a few years ago a very little
will answer the desired purpose. Two cents’ worth per day, or about

24. ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

50 cents’ worth if judiciously used, will be enough to carry the colony
through the whole spring, and will, many times, be the means of giving
you a large increase of colonies long before your harvest for surplus
honey commences.

The rearing of early queens is very important; also early drones.
This part of our business has been made very easy and plain by such
men as Pratt, and I will pass it for the present. But there is one thing
I must describe, and that is the proper and best way to care for our
little weak colonies after taking them from their winter quarters. It
is this: As soon as they have some uncapped brood in their hives, take
them to a good strong colony; remove its cover and put a queen-excluder
in its place, then set the weak one on top of the excluder and close
up all entrances to the weak colony, except what they have through the
excluder, down into the strong colony below. Leave them in this way
together four or five weeks; then separate them and you will have two
good colonies and will have saved yourself all worry about these weak
colonies being robbed, chilled, or starved. When we are feeding the
other colonies we usually give these a few spoonfuls of the warm syrup
in a comb next their brood. This encourages them; and if there is not
more than a cupful of bees they don’t get much from the feeder under
the strong colony. I have explained at bee conventions this way of
saving these little colonies, and have received very complimentary let-
ters afterward from prominent bee-keepers, saying that this idea was
worth more than $100 to them.

This is something we have been practicing for more than twenty
years. Some seasons we have a large number of weak colonies on top
of strong ones during early spring, and we don’t lose five per cent of
them. I am sure it goes a long way toward preventing spring dwin-
dling.

I think I have shown you how we can keep our bees warm and com-
fortable through the sudden changes of early spring; also how we
can stimulate them to early breeding by keeping them warm and feed-
ing a little thin syrup every day. This is very important; and how
you may save those little weak colonies and have them ready for your

early harvest.
March, 1906.

WHY SOME FAILED WITH THE PLAN FOR BUILDING UP WEAK COLONIES.

For the benefit of a few bee-keepers who have made a failure of this
method, and also for the benefit of a very large number of new sub-
scribers to GLEANINGS, I will rewrite this method in question, and make
it as plain as I can.

About six or seven days after taking your bees from their winter
quarters, pick out and mark all your weak colonies, also your strongest

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 26

ones, marking an equal number of each; then all weak colonies that
have a patch of brood in one comb about as large as your hand. Set
all such on top of a strong colony with a queen-excluder between, clos-
ing up entrances to the weak colony except through the excluder. Then
there are those that are very weak that have only a queen, and perhaps
not more than a handful of bees with no brood. Fix these last named
in this way: Go to the strong colony you wish to set them over, and
get a frame of brood with its adhering bees, being sure not to take
their queen; then put the queen of the weak colony on this comb with
the strange bees, and put it into the weak hive; leave them in this
way about half a day, then set them on top of a strong colony where
you got the brood with a queen-excluder between. Do all this with a
little smoke, and avoid exciting the strong colony in any way. If a
cool day, and the bees are not flying, I usually leave the strong colony
uncovered, except with the excluder, for a few hours before setting on
the weak colony. The whole thing should be done as quietly as pos-
sible, so that neither colony hardly realizes that it has been touched.
When the weak colony has been given some brood, and put on top in
this careful and still manner, hardly one queen in a hundred will be
lost, and in about thirty days each hive will be crowded with bees and
maturing brood. Then when you wish to separate them, set the strong-
est colony on a new stand and give it also some of the bees from the
hive that is left on the old stand, as a few of the working force will
return to the old location, especially if they are black bees or degen-
erate Italians.

In every case that has come to my notice where this method has
been reported a failure it has been by one of two causes—either from
lack of brood in a weak colony to hold the queen and her few bees in
the upper hive, or by smoking the strong colony so that, as soon as
the weak one was set on top, the bees from below would rush up and
sting every thing above. Therefore avoid using smoke or doing any
thing that will excite the strong colony.

If done in a careful manner the bees in the lower hive never seem
to realize that any strangers have been put above them, and they will

all work in harmony together.
November, 1906.

SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED

In reply to several questions regarding our method of caring for
weak colonies shortly after taking them from their winter quarters, I
can only repeat what I have already written upon this subject; that is,
after the weak colonies have a little uncapped brood set them on top
of a strong colony with a queen-excluding honey-board between, and
close all entrances except what they have through the excluder. This
we do about five days after they are taken from the cellar, and the

26 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

bees seem to locate again so but few if any are lost. The very few old
bees that may be lost by this method are merely nothing compared with
the gain in bees after both queens have been laying three weeks or
more. This is, without any exception, the best and most practical way
of caring for those little weak colonies in early spring that has ever
been made public.

Another question that many are asking is, “What becomes of the
drones that are shut up in the old hive when increase is made?” As I
recommended in one of my former articles, first, we have but very few
drones in our apiary. I never thought they added much to the surplus
honey of a colony, and have often wondered why some bee-keepers rear
millions of them in the place of workers; and for that reason it doesn’t
hurt our feelings if we can trap them in an upper hive until they are
dead. The bees usually pull them to pieces and drag the most of them
down through the excluder. The man who now allows his bees to rear
thousands of useless drones is but one very short step in advance of the
man who keeps his bees in box hives. I am sure we secure at least
three tons of honey a year more than we should if we allowed our bees
to rear drones as some do. In the first place, it requires far more food
than it does to rear workers; and then when you consider the advantage
of having nearly all the bees in a hive producers instead of one-fourth
or more only consumers, it counts much in securing surplus. So far
as we can prevent we allow only one or two colonies to rear a few,
which I think is all that is necessary for any aplary.

April, 1906.

BROOD-REARING IN THE SPRING.

HOW TO BUILD UP THE COLONIES RAPIDLY; EXTRACTING SEALED HONEY IN
MAY FROM THE BROOD-NEST TO MAKE ROOM FOR BROOD-REARING,
BROOD-COMBS OF HONEY NOT DESIRABLE FOR
SPRING FEEDING.

According to our experience along this line I very decidedly differ
with some honey-producers, and say, “Yes, it is not only advisable,
but it is of as much importance as any other one thing connected with
late spring management.” In preparing our bees for the summer harvest
there are two things which should never be overlooked:

1. Every hive should contain a sufficient amount of good worker
comb for a large well-shaped brood-nest; 2. A good prolific queen.

We think it pays us to kill many queens during the summer, with-
out any regard to their age, simply if they are not as prolific as they
should be, or if their bees are not as good honey-gatherers as they might
be, or if they are inclined to be cross and vicious when working among
them. It is not advisable to keep bees that have any serious faults.

Let us consider the brood-nest as one of the principal things con-
nected with securing a good surplus. Until the last few years we took

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 27

the advice of some writers on this subject, and saved a large number
of heavy combs to give our bees during the spring, to increase early
breeding; but with very few exceptions these heavy combs inserted near
the brood about May 1 did far more harm than good. If we uncapped
them it was sure to start a bad case of robbing; if they were left capped,
then they simply formed a division-board which prevented the queen
from spreading her brood across the hive, and, consequently, we had a
small brood-nest which gave us a small colony during the entire summer.

After realizing the folly of this erroneous method of spring feeding
we commenced to extract all capped honey from the brood-nest about
May 1, and in its place, when necessary, we fed a little warm thin honey
or sugar syrup daily for about a month. This soon gave us strong full
colonies; and the best of it was, we soon had our hives packed with
brood from side to side, and top to bottom. In this way of preparing
our bees for summer we can secure three or four thousand pounds of
old honey before fruit-bloom, and leave our colonies in 100 per cent
better condition than they would have been had this old honey been
left in their combs.

About 9 a.M. on a cool cloudy morning before the bees had com-
menced to work in the fields, I counted 237 colonies in the apiary that
had the fronts of their hives completely covered with bees that had been
on the outside of their hives night and day for many days, except when
the flowers were secreting nectar; then it sometimes seemed as if twenty
or more swarms were in air over the apiary all day.

Some may say that we should have put two or more hives of ex-
tracting-combs on each strong colony in order to have secured more
honey. To those I wish to say that I never saw a colony so strong that
it was necessary to have more than one set of extracting-combs on at
a time. I have been all over this ground for 30 years; and in order to
secure the best results, all things considered, I don’t care to have more
than one set of extracting-combs on a hive at any one time during the
season. Now, do you think for a moment that such strong colonies
could ever be obtained from hives that had their brood-nest partly filled
with old capped honey, especially when there had been heavy combs
inserted near the center of the hive, such combs forming a complete
division-board through the brood-nest or a little to one side? When we
visit our friends’ apiaries and find only an occasional colony working
in their supers, if we should take a smoker and open these hives that
are doing little or nothing, nine times out of ten we should find that
their brood-nest was so surrounded with capped honey that the queen
could hardly find room enough to rear the necessary brood for a good-
sized nucleus.

About the first of August a bee-keeping acquaintance called to see
me in regard to his not securing any surplus this summer. He was a
man of considerable experience with bees, and had fairly good Italians.

He was using 10-frame Langstroth hives, and had in the spring about
100 colonies that had wintered well, and was heavy in honey when

28 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

taken from the cellar. After I questioned him some he told me that he
had about 150 heavy combs that he had saved from last season to give
to his bees in the spring to stimulate early breeding as some recom-
mended. These he distributed among his hives, so as he thought he
would surely have strong colonies ready for the first flow of nectar.
But here he was disappointed. His bees would not work in the supers,
neither for comb nor extracted honey. He went so far as to unite sev-
eral colonies, putting the bees of from two to five colonies all in one
hive in order to get up a working force. I asked if those hives were
not crowded with honey which caused them to be weak in worker bees.
He said he had not thought of that, but they certainly were very heavy.
I asked him about how much brood they had. “Oh! not much,” he said.
Some had five and six combs partly filled, and some had only four combs
containing any; but every thing was full of honey, and he could not
understand why the bees did not uncap that honey and carry it above.

Now, my friends, is it any wonder that he did not secure a good
surplus, and that he thought it the poorest season he had ever known?
I can not understand why a man of experience should have allowed his
bees to get in such a condition. If, about the first of May, he had
extracted those heavy combs he foolishly put into his hives, and also
extracted the capped honey that was already in the hives, he would
have had much honey to his credit, and his hives full of maturing brood
which would have given him a surplus of early honey. I honestly think
a moderate use of the extractor through the latter part of May and fore
part of June, especially when running an apiary for comb honey, would
be the means of many bee-keepers securing twice as much surplus as
they usually do. Here at the North, May is the month of all the year
when our bees require the closest attention. It is then that we should
care for them so that every inch of comb in the hive is utilized for
brood-rearing that can possibly be used for that purpose. Bring your
extractor into use, cleaning your hives of nearly all capped honey, and
see to it that every queen in the apiary is doing her very best to crowd
the combs with brood; then you will soon have those strong colonies
that will give you a fine surplus, and at the end of the season you will
hardly believe it when told that the summer has been a poor one for
the production of honey. Spring feeding has never received the atten-
tion that such an important subject should. We have been taught that
honey is the proper food for winter use, and that, if a colony were short
of it in the spring, just give them a heavy comb, and that was all that
was necessary to do through the whole spring season. But experience
has taught many of us that honey is not the best winter food, and that
to give our bees heavy combs of old capped honey in the spring is one of
the poorest ways imaginable to stimulate early breeding.

In conclusion, I repeat that a moderate use of the honey-extractor
during early summer is very beneficial in preparing bees for the sum-
mer harvest.

November, 1907.

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 29
SPRING FEEDING.

WHEN TO FEED THICK AND WHEN TO FEED THIN SYRUP; SYRUP VS. HONEY AS
A WINTER FOOD.

Feeding is becoming a very important part of our business, and from
the many letters of inquiry I am receiving from parties in many places
I find some bee-keepers have rather erroneous ideas of the proper way
to do this work in order to secure the best results, and at the same time
avoid all danger of the feed entering the supers. There is no question
but that we can secure very beneficial results by judicious feeding in
early spring as well as late in the fall; but we must be careful to do
it so no possible harm can come from the practice. I would advise
having every thing as handy as possible before commencing this line of
work; for after it is commenced there should be no stop until the
weather becomes warm and settled, except on fair days, when the bees
can gather nectar from the flowers.

Before taking our bees from the cellar we have our feeders all
ready, and the necessary barrels of sugar for spring use in our bee-
house; then with an agricultural boiler which holds 45 gallons two men
can make the necessary syrup and feed six or seven hundred colonies
in less time than we could formerly feed fifty. It is the advantage
secured from taking these short cuts on both time and expense that I
have called your attention to so often.

There are only a few conditions a colony is likely to be in when it
is necessary to resort to feeding. First, in the spring, if the bees have
little or no honey they should be fed at once five or six barrels to pre-
vent starving. This syrup should be about the consistency of good
honey; then to stimulate brood-rearing it is far better to feed a much
thinner syrup. I find that, if made of 1 lb. of sugar to 3 lbs. of water,
it will give the best results. This furnishes both food and water mixed
together, which is very necessary to encourage early breeding.

When feeding at any time or for any purpose we must use good
judgment; otherwise we may thwart the very object we wish to achieve.
First we must be very careful to feed just enough, and no more than
the necessary amount to secure the desired object. When feeding in the
spring, give only enough for daily use of the thin syrup; and if there
is a spell of a day or two that is fair, and the bees are getting some
nectar from the flowers, then stop feeding until the weather becomes
unfavorable for them to work, but don’t stop unless you are sure that
the flowers are yielding nectar. If you watch your bees and the weather
closely you can stop feeding as it becomes more pleasant, so there will
not be any syrup left in their combs.

If we gave our bees a lot of thick syrup in the spring it would be
of but little use to stimulate breeding, as they require water at that
season as much as they do honey. Then if we gave them the thin
syrup in the fall, such as they require in the spring, it would be one

30 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

of the worst things we could do, as it would cause almost every colony
to have the dysentery before mid-winter.

You may think that, if a colony requires feeding, it is of but little
consequence when, how, or what it is fed; but there is a right and a
wrong way to do all things, and our bees are certainly very exacting
in their requirements. There is a great deal to be gained in turning
sugar syrup into bees in early spring, and by it saving their lives dur-
ing the winter; but remember, even if the law would allow us to do it
there is not a particle of profit in feeding sugar syrup to bees to get

them to turn it into either comb or extracted honey.
April, 1908.

HOW STIMULATIVE FEEDING HELPS TO GIVE A GOOD WORKING FORCE OF BEES
IN TIME FOR THE HONEY HARVEST; HOW IT PAYS
IN DOLLARS AND CENTS,

In order to acquire the best results from our bees it is quite neces-
sary to do all we can to build them up into good strong colonies early
in the season, especially where our main harvest is from clover. We all
know from sad experience what the result will be if it takes three or
four weeks of the best of the summer to rear a working force to gather
the little that is left when the harvest is nearly over. So let us see
what can be done in order to have a good working force in every hive
at the commencement of our first harvest of surplus. I know of only
one way to accomplish this, and that is by stimulative feeding from the
time they commence to gather pollen until their hives are crowded with
bees and brood. This can be acquired within 35 days from the time they
first gather pollen, and costs only about 40 cents’ worth of honey or
sugar per colony, and a little time to build them up into strong full
colonies ready for any harvest that may come, and is much better than
to let those precious days go by and see your bees dwindle away to a
mere nucleus.

THE ALEXANDER FEEDER AND HOW APPLIED.

With the feeder that is here shown which I will describe, it re

quires only one hour or less to feed 200 colonies; and in doing so you

need not kill one bee nor waste a drop of syrup nor lose any heat from
the colony you are feeding.

First, you see the feeder alone by the side of the hive; then you see
it in position under the back of the hive ready to fill, and a 4x4 block
at the end of the hive to cover the end of the feeder when it is filled and

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 31

in use. We feed the thin syrup quite warm; and the heat and odor as
they rise up to the cluster, even though the cluster may be only a mere
handful of bees, will start them at once for the feed, and in a short time
the syrup will all be taken out of the feeder and put into a nice circle
around the brood. There is not any other one thing connected with bee-
keeping that I have tested more thoroughly in all its different phases
than I have spring feeding; and if any other man had invented this
feeder and the way of using it I should not hesitate one minute in say-
ing that it was the most practical feeder that had ever been devised,
for it is as convenient to use in the fall to feed winter stores as it is in
the spring to stimulate early breeding; only in the fall put two or three
under your hive at a time, and feed thicker syrup, all they may require,
at once or twice. They are not in the way if left under the hive all
summer; and if we have a cold wet spell in mid-summer, as we some-
times do, causing many colonies to destroy large quantities of their
brood, all you have to do is to pour in a little syrup once a day while
the bad weather lasts, and you will save their brood, and prevent them
from becoming discouraged. And, oh how they will work when the
flowers again commence to secrete nectar! I can truthfully say that,
with us, spring feeding has been the means of our securing fully twice
the amount of surplus honey from nearly every colony that we ever fed
in this way, over what we could secure when the bees were left unfed,
and they had to use three or four weeks of the clover harvest to rear
brood and bees to gather the little they could find after the harvest was
practically over.

The cut does not show the under cover of our hives. This has a
¥%-inch bee-space on each side, and it is very handy to cover over the
top of the hive when extracting. It forms two dead-air spaces between
the outside cover and the top of the combs, which is valuable both in
extremely hot or cold weather. You will also see in the cut the entrance
to our hive, and the blocks we use to close the same when we wish in
cool weather, so only one or two bees can pass at a time. I wish I
could impress the importance of this one thing, spring feeding, on the
minds of bee-keepers in its true light; for I am sure that, if we give our
bees the proper care in this respect, they will repay it in a bountiful
harvest at the close of the season.

I am well aware that I am again in the minority on this important
part of spring management; and I assure you it is not pleasant to stem
the tide so often; but I find I either have to do it or keep still. I have
only to recall the result of some feeding we did two years ago to show
you why I am so much interested in spring feeding. We fed one half
our apiary (250 colonies) about 40 cents’ worth of syrup apiece, shortly
after taking them from the cellar, and, although these were the lightest
and weakest colonies we had, we extracted during our clover harvest
over seven tons of nice clover honey from the 250 colonies fed, and only
about four tons from the 250 colonies not fed. But during the bass-
wood and buckwheat flow there was no difference in the amount of sur-

32 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

plus these two lots of bees gathered. That three tons of additional honey
that the bees that were fed gathered, brought us 6% cents per lb., or
$390, for about $100 expense in feeding, and I might cite other cases of.
the same kind. And then last season, in order to test this subject still
further, we did not feed an ounce to any colony in the apiary, and our
whole surplus was but little more than half what it was the year
before.

You can make the syrup very thin after they get used to it, especially
for Italian bees, as they will take it if it is but little sweeter than good
maple sap. They require considerable water in the spring, and I think
it is much better to give it to them in this way, for it saves many from
being lost in search of it outside during those cool changeable days of
early spring.

My friends, in the above I have tried to show you as best I could
how you can feed your bees in early spring easily, and at but small ex-
pense, so you will be able to secure not only a much larger surplus, but
also a much surer one than you otherwise would; and when this is ac-
complished it goes a long way in placing our business on a more solid
and reliable foundation than it has ever been before.

April, 1906.

THE OPINIONS OF SOME OF THE AUTHORS OF TEXT-BOOKS ON THE SUBJECT.

In view of the recent objections to spring feeding, I feel it a duty I
owe to myself and friends to call the attention of the readers of this
journa] to a few established facts along this line. We will now go to
our text-books and see what they say on this subject. I will endeavor
to be as brief as possible.

Commencing with Prof. Cook’s Manual of the Apiary, turn to page
159, where he, in speaking of stimulative feeding, says, “‘As already stated,
it is only when the worker bees are storing that the queen deposits to
the full extent of her capability, and that brood-rearing is at its height.
In fact, when storing ceases, general indolence characterizes the hive;
hence if we would achieve the best success we must keep the workers
active, even before gathering commences, as also in the interims of
honey-secretion by the flowers; and to do this we must feed sparingly
before the advent of bloom in the spring, and whenever the neuters are
forced to idleness during any part of the season by the absence of honey-
producing flowers. For a number of years I have tried experiments in
this direction by feeding a portion of my colonies early in the season,
and in the intervals of honey-gathering, and always with marked results
in favor of the practice. Every apiarist—whether novice or veteran,
will receive ample reward by practicing stimulative feeding early in the
season, then his hives at dawn of the white-clover era will be redundant

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 33

with bees well filled with brood, and in just the trim to receive a boun-
tiful harvest of this most delicious nectar.”

Now we will see what A. I. Root says upon this subject. We will
take the first edition of his A B C of Bee Culture, and turn to page 75.
Where he speaks of a drouth cutting short the supply of nectar he says:
“Many of the queens stopped laying entirely. At this stage a little feed
during the night would start the queens laying wonderfully, and the
fed colony would rush to the fields for pollen in a way that demon-
strated at once that feeding at such a time was a very profitable in-
vestment if one wished to build up weak stocks and nuclei. A stock
that had been fed a half-teacupful only would go out for pollen an hour
earlier than the others, and would bring in double the quantity. A still
smaller quantity will set them to building out foundation most beauti-
fully; and I never in my life saw the work in the hive go on so satis-
factorily as it did during the hot dry dusty days under the influence of
a very moderate amount of feeding during the night.”

And then, again, on page 77, he says, “And after feeding perhaps a
ton of the grape sugar I am prepared to say that it is a decided success
for stimulating brood-rearing, for rearing queens, and building up col-
onies.”

We will now take the late Henry Alley’s Bee-keeper’s Handy Book
and see on page 107 what he said in regard to stimulative feeding:

“When a colony is being fed, the queen commences to deposit eggs
more vigorously, and the colony exhibits greater activity than its neigh-
bors that are not stimulated. Feeding for this purpose should not be
resorted to until the bees commence to carry in pollen as the effect of
the increased activity prior to this time would be injurious. The proper
time is to feed at night, and not over half a pound of food should be
given at any one time unless the bees are short of stores, and it should
be discontinued when honey can be gathered from natural sources.
Food for stimulating should be made quite thin with water, say six
pounds of sugar and five pints of water, and a small amount of honey to
flavor. The water will be utilized by the bees in brood-rearing.”

J should advise making the syrup more than half water. I should
like also to call your attention to the latest edition of the A BC and X
Y Z of Bee Culture, and see what is there said on this subject; and right
here let me say that this edition to our bee literature is worth far
more than its cost, and should be in the hands of every honey-producer
in the land. On page 200 the authors say:

“In getting colonies up to good strength to gather the honey har-
vest, or induce nuclei, or full colonies for that matter, to cells for the
purpose of queen-rearing, the daily feeding of half a pint of syrup
should be practiced.”

They also say on page 203, in speaking of H. R. Boardman, of Hast
Townsend, Ohio, that he practices a plan which often insures a crop of
honey even during poor seasons. “In brief it is this: He feeds all his
colonies as soon as it becomes settled warm weather, whether they need

34 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

stores or not. The syrup is given them slowly to stimulate brood-rear-
ing. This feeding is continued clear on to the honey-flow, when, of
course, it is discontinued. The result is that the hives are overflowing
with bees and brood.”

Then still further on the author says, “While it costs considerable
to feed bees in this way I believe Mr. Boardman’s experience has been
such that he feels warranted in continuing it; and then if the year
proves to be a good one he will get a tremendous crop of honey. One
year when I visited him he had secured a fair-sized yield from each
colony, and a poor year at that, while his neighbors round about him
did not get any surplus, and all they did get was brood-nestfuls of honey
and nothing more.”

Father Quinby and his son-in-law, L. C. Root, many years ago were
the first to call my attention to the value of stimulative feeding in the
spring. They were very enthusiastic on the subject, and advised me to
practice it every spring if I expected to make an early increase or secure
a nice surplus of clover honey. I think you will find in Quinby’s book,
“Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained,” something on this subject. I have
lost the copy I once had, and therefore can not quote his words. And
now while I am in company with these shining lights of apiculture that
I have just quoted above, I wish to be put on record as saying that I have
practiced spring feeding for over 30 years, and during that period I have
fed at least 5000 colonies for the purpose of promoting brood-rearing
during the spring, and I am sure that, all things considered, it has been
one of the most useful and profitable things I have ever done in the
apiary.

May, 1908.

MAKING INCREASE VS. BUYING COLONIES.

BUYING BEES IN HIVES OF ALL KINDS AND SHAPES A BAD PLAN; DANGER OF
BRINGING IN FOUL BROOD; HOW TO MAKE EARLY
INCREASE,

This question is of considerable importance to those who have but
few colonies and are anxious to secure a larger number as soon as
possible. If we could buy good Italian bees at a fair price in the same
kind of a hive we use, filled with good worker combs, then it might be
as well to buy part of our increase as to make them from the colonies
we already have; but this we can seldom do unless we buy of a supply-
dealer. Then we can get a good standard hive with good combs and as
choice a queen as we care to pay for.

If you want to buy bees I think, when all things are considered,
this is the better party to buy from.

If we get our bees of some one who has never kept more than a
few colonies and is anxious to go out of the business, then we usually

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 35

get hives of but little value except for kindling-wood, and combs fit
only for wax, with queens from one to five years old, of all grades,
from fairly well-mated Italians down the line to the blacks.

But sometimes it is best to buy these almost worthless colonies in
order to get them where their drones can be destroyed. In this case
you had better Italianize them as soon as possible, then set on top one
of your standard hives filled with combs, one of which contains brood;

then put their queen on this frame of brood and put a queen-excluder
between the hives so as to keep the queen in the upper hive; then in

21 days take out the under hive and use it as you see fit. Your almost
worthless colony will now be Italianized and nicely transferred to your
standard hive. This we find is the most practical method of disposing
of those undesirable colonies which were in hives of all forms and
sizes,

If your circumstances are such that you can hardly afford to sac-
rifice a part of your surplus in making increase, then you must be care-
ful and make only such increase as will add to your surplus. This is
an easy thing to do where the principal harvest comes in August; but
if it is in June, then it requires the most thorough knowledge of the
best methods of rearing queens and dividing colonies that have ever
been practiced, in order to make it a success.

Those of us who produce extracted honey can make our increase
much cheaper and easier than those who produce comb honey. With
us we can divide our colonies in almost any way without seriously
affecting our surplus. We always make rather more increase in June
than we expect to put into winter quarters in the fall; then when a
colony loses its queen, or is not what it should be, on the eve of our
harvest we unite it with another. At this time we like to have every
colony as strong as possible, and we care but little for weak colonies.

DANGER OF DISEASE.

One of the most serious objections to buying bees here and there
around the country is the liability of bringing diseased colonies into
your apiary. This we should ever bear in mind, and never take any
chances that we can prevent. Then the trouble of finding bees for sale,
and the expense of bringing them home, many times is no small matter.
I have been all over this part of the business, and I don’t care to try it
again.

In regard to making our increase, it can now be done very easily
since we can rear queens with so little trouble that it is easy to have
all we care to use ever ready at almost any time. Then by stimulating
breeding by feeding so as to have strong colonies ready to divide as
early a8 our young queens commence to lay, we can certainly make our
increase much cheaper than to buy undesirable bees; therefore I can
not advise you to buy bees only in exceptional cases, but I do advise
you to study well all the latest improved methods of rearing queens and
making increase.

36 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

IMPORTANCE OF STARTING RIGHT.

You are the architect of your business—yes, of your whole life; so
let no opportunity for improvement pass unimproved. Before entering
upon bee-keeping or any other line of business, be sure you start right.
My friend, did you ever realize the importance of those two words,
“start right?” Teach your little children to study them; and when you
see those poor drifting wrecks of humanity wandering up and down
your highways in their abject poverty, tell your children that those poor
souls which are now fairly steeped in vice and crime are the result of
starting wrong in this life, and that only God knows what the result
will be in the life to come.

Please pardon me in so often drifting from my subject; but when
I think of that short sentence it seems as if I could write a whole volume
on its importance.

THE RIGHT WAY TO MAKE INCREASE.

There are various ways of making increase. We prefer to build up
the colonies to be divided until they are very strong in bees and brood;
then when the division is made and the queenless part is given a laying
queen, we soon have two good colonies ready for the harvest. We think
this is a much better way than to build up nuclei. Let the same rule
apply to making increase, as all other work in the apiary, which should
be a harmonizing with your knowledge and the natural instincts of your
bees. This is quite important in order to secure the best results. If we
adopt methods according to their natural instincts then surely we shall
secure better results than if we try to force them into unnatural condi-
tions, which to quite an extent soon causes them to become discouraged.

July, 1907.

This subject has received, perhaps, as much thought and study as
any other one thing connected with bee-keeping, and I will try to show
that. with proper management, you can have two colonies, each nearly
equal to what the mother colony would have been for the clover har-
vest, if not divided, and fully equal for a later harvest.

In calling your attention to this matter I take it for granted that
you keep bees like myself, for the purpose of making the most money
out of them you can, regardless of increase or the number of colonies
you may have. Simply make what increase will add to your present
season’s crop of honey. In the first place, let me impress upon your
mind the importance of doing every thing in your power, not only to
build up all your colonies as strong in bees as you can after taking them
from their winter quarters, but to keep them in that condition to the

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 37

end of the season; for without strong colonies we can not expect much
surplus. As the day is now past when natural swarming is desired by
any progressive bee-keeper, we will turn our attention to some practical
way of making artificial increase.

The most common way of doing this is either forming nuclei and

afterward building them up into strong colonies, or dividing a strong
colony at once by putting the greater part of the bees with their queen
in an empty hive on the old stand and setting the old hive containing
the brood away some distance in a new place. Bach of these methods
has some serious faults. The nucleus method usually requires so much
time that frequently the best part of the harvest is past before they are
in condition to take advantage of it. They also require much work and
attention, and the other way of dividing the strong colony is all wrong
in every respect.

I think I hear some of you say, “Yes, but that is about the same as
natural swarming, only the old hive is set on a new stand.”

I will admit it is something the same, though not half so good; for
in natural swarming the old hive on its old stand retains part of its
working force, and matures all its brood; whereas if divided, as is fre
quently done after its queen and most of its working force are left on
the old stand, and it finds itself in a new place without its queen, the
greater part of the bees that have ever been out to fly will return to
the old stand and jvin the swarm, leaving the old hive with all its brood
in a deserted condition. Then the few remaining bees will destroy every
egg and nearly all the uncapped larve. Here you lose enough brood,
many times, to make nearly a swarm.

After studying on this subject for many years, and trying every
thing I could think of to prevent this loss of brood in making our in-
crease, and at the same time avoid the loss of valuable time in fussing
with nuclei, and at all times keeping every colony in good condition to
take advantage of any unexpected harvest that might come, I hit on
what I consider the most practical way of making increase of any thing
I have ever tried or heard of. It is this:

When your colonies are nearly full enough to swarm naturally, and
you wish to divide them so as to make two from one, go to the colony
you wish to divide; lift it from its stand and put in its place a hive
containing frames of comb or foundation, the same as you would put
the swarm in providing it had just swarmed. Now remove the center
comb from your empty hive, and put in its place a frame of brood,
either from the hive you wish to divide or some other colony that can
spare one, and be sure you find the queen and put her on this frame of
brood in the new hive; also look it over very carefully to see that it
contains no eggs or larve in any queen-cells. If it does, destroy them.
Now put a queen-excluding honey-board on top of this new hive that
contains the queen and frame of brood with their empty combs, then
set your full queenless colony on top of the excluder; put in the empty

88 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

comb or frame of foundation, wherever you got your frame of brood,
and close the upper hive except the entrance they have through the ex-
cluder into the hive below. Now leave them in this way about five days,
then look over the combs carefully, and destroy any larve you may find
in queen-cells unless they are of a good strain of bees that you care
to breed from, for they frequently start the rearing of queens above the
excluder very soon after their queen has been kept below by the ex-
cluder. If so, you had better separate them at once; but if they have
not started any queen-cells above, then leave them together ten or
eleven days, during which time the queen will get a fine lot of brood
started in the lower hive, and every egg and particle of larva that was
in the old hive on top will have matured, so it will be capped over and
saved; then separate them, putting the old hive on a new stand. It will
then be full of young bees mostly, and capped brood, and in about 24
hours they will accept a ripe cell, a virgin, or laying queen, as they will
realize that they are hopelessly queenless. I would advise you to give
them a laying queen, as I never like to keep my full colonies a day
longer without a laying queen than I can help. In this way you have
two strong colonies from one, as you have not lost a particle of brood
nor checked the laying of your queen; and with me it almost wholly
prevents swarming. This is the way we have made our increase for
several years, and we like it much better than any other way we have
ever tried. In doing so you keep all your colonies strong during the
whole summer, and it is the strong colonies that count in giving us our
surplus.

The mere fact of having a large number of colonies does not amount
to much unless they are strong in bees and are well cared for at all
times. This is a fact that many have sadly overlooked; and when the
season comes to a close, giving them a small surplus, they feel disap-
pointed and lay the fault on many things that have had but little to do
with their failure.

In making your increase in the above way your new swarm on the
old stand is in fine shape for a clamp of sections, as it has a large work-
ing force backed up by having its hive nearly full ot brood, and but lit-
tle honey, as the bees have been in the habit of storing their honey in
the old hive that was on top, so they will soon go to work in the sections
and have no notion of swarming. Then the old hive that has been set
away can usually spare 15 or 20 lbs. of honey, which can be taken with
the extractor, giving its new queen plenty of room to lay, and in a short
time will be one of your best colonies, and also have no desire to
swarm.

Now, if you have done your duty by your bees since taking them
from their winter quarters, as I have recommended in the above, keep-
ing them snug and warm, and feeding them a little thin warm syrup
nearly every day for the first 30 days after they commence to fly, you
can have two good strong colonies in the place of one ready to com-

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 39

mence work on your clover harvest, which here commences about June
15.

From an extensive experience along this line I find I can get nearly
twice the amount of surplus by dividing as above stated over what I was
able to acquire either by letting them go undivided or dividing in a
way that caused the loss of a greater part of their brood. This losing
of brood we must guard against at all times if we expect to secure a
fine surplus. It costs both time and honey to produce it, and it is the
principal factor in obtaining those strong colonies that give us tons of
honey.

Far too many bee-keepers think that the value of their apiary con-
sists in the number of colonies they keep. This is so only to a certain
extent; for if you had 1000 colonies and they were all weak in bees, so
they would give you no surplus, they would not be worth as much as one
good strong colony that would give you 200 or 300 pounds of honey.

Several years ago one of my sons bought nine colonies of bees in
common box hives, about the first of June. He brought them home and
transferred them at once to movableframe hives, and in about three
weeks divided them, making 20 colonies of the 9 he bought, using some
queen-cells I had on hand for his surplus colonies. He then attended to
those 20 colonies so they were all strong at the commencement of our
buckwheat harvest. I then lent him 20 hives of empty combs to put on
top of his colonies to extract from. He too 2849 lbs. of extracted
honey from those 9 colonies and their increase, and left them in good
condition so every one came out the next spring in fine order.

Another son, the same season, took one colony, divided into three,
and received 347 Ibs. of extracted honey. They also came through the
following winter in good condition. I speak of these cases simply to
show that it is not necessary to keep hundreds of colonies in order to
get a little honey. If you will only keep strong colonies and give them
the best of care you will soon find both pleasure and profit in bee-
keeping.

Now in regard to the criticism on this way of making our increase.
I find that nearly all who have made a failure of the method have taken
colonies that had already made some preparations for swarming by hav-
ing eggs or larve in their queen-cells.

I received a few letters from parties who had made a failure of this
method in about the same way. Some had taken colonies that had
capped queen-cells in their hives at the time they put the queen in the
under hive, and, of course, they swarmed in a day or two. I can not
see that these failures are any proof of fault in the method. When we
work with our bees we must always use some discretion in such mat-
ters. If a colony is very strong in bees it certainly requires different
management from one rather weak.

In conclusion I advise you to look over all the combs very carefully
for eggs or larve in the queen-cells of the colonies you wish to divide.
If you find any it is sure proof of their intention of swarming; then

40 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

you had better leave them only a few days together. The number you
must decide yourself according to the age of the eggs or larve in their
queen-cells. If you are careful about this part I am sure you will find
it a fine way to make a large increase, and at the same time have your
colonies in good condition for any harvest.

April, 1906.

HOW TO DISPOSE OF NEW SWARMS AND THUS CONTROL
UNDESIRABLE INCREASE.

While many are trying to invent some unnatural complicated hive,
with the erroneous belief that it will prevent bees from desiring to
swarm, and still others are recommending equally unnatural methods
in spending valuable time in changing their brood from hive to hive all
over the apiary, in hopes that they can overcome one of the strongest
natural laws that the Creator has stamped indelibly on our bees, I for
one will try to use the intelligence God has given me to work in har-
mony with his law, and see if, by so doing, we can not accomplish far
more, and at the same time do it much easier, than to work continually
in discord.

If, in the past, man had only let reason harmonize a little more
with natural law the world would have been the better for it. There is
one thing that I have noticed recently that I was sorry to see; that is,
some go so far as to say that swarming is a curse to bee-keeping, and
that it is a bane to our welfare.

Let us consider which of all the many theories and methods that
are now before us is the practical one to care for a colony that has just
swarmed, in order that they can all be united again, and at the same
time do away with any desire to swarm again that season. From a long
and extensive experience along this line we find the following method
far better than any other that has ever been made public. It is this:

HOW TO MAKE THE SWARM CONTENTED.

We will suppose the colony is swarming, and we give them a hive
which has its frames filled with foundation. This will give them a
chance to use up the material for wax that is fast accumulating in their
bodies; and after they are all in the new hive we will bring it back to
the parent colony and set it on top, facing an opposite direction. This
gives them a new location to work from, and is of much importance.
Now leave them undisturbed until about night of the fourth day,
then just before dark set the new swarm to one side out of the way and
remove every comb from the old colony and shake the bees in the grass
two or three feet from their hive, and be sure you remove every queen-
cell from their combs and return them to the old hive; then shake the
combs of the new swarm on top of the other bees in the grass; look up
their queen and let her run into the old hive with some of her own
bees. Now put on an excluder; and if you are running your bees for

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 41

extracted honey set the hive of new drawn combs on top of the ex-
cluder, and the colony will all work in harmony together. If you are
running your bees for comb honey, put on supers of sections filled with
foundation. This will enable them to continue building comb, which
has much to do with their becoming satisfied. Now as to why this
method is a success: I will say it is all natural. First, the bees have
been gratified in their desire to swarm; their queen has returned, dur-
ing the four days she was in the new hive, to her normal condition of
egg-laying; the bees have and are working off the accumulated wax that
nature had given them, and they become satisfied with a new location;
the old colony that had a lot of young queens maturing has lost them
all, they hardly know how, and gladly welcome their mother home
again, while the bees that constituted the swarm are so demoralized by
losing their location that they soon form a line down one side of the
hive to the old entrance. This gives us again a strong full colony ready
to settle down to work; and, if properly cared for, they will gather
more honey than under any other conditions. With us, not five per
cent when treated as above show any desire to swarm again during the
season. I will admit that he who is competent to care for only a few
colonies may prevent swarming, and secure a fair surplus by this end-
less amount of tinkering with his brood; but it is unnatural, discourag-
ing, and demoralizing to the bees, and, if practiced by our extensive
honey-producers, would require so much help that, from a money point
of view, it could not be otherwise than a flat failure.

I do not like to tear down the theories of any man without sub-
stituting something better in their place, which I am sure I have given
in the above. Since we practiced this method we are pleased to see a
colony swarm, and often wish that more of our bees would swarm than
do, for we are sure to get our largest surplus from colonies that are
treated as above described.

I don’t think that there is any other condition a colony of bees can
be in where they will work with such perseverance as when their desire
to swarm has been gratified. Some of the nearest apiaries to us have
swarmed a great deal this season, while we have had only 31 swarms
all told up to Aug. 1, and this from an apiary of 750 colonies, and about
20 of these were caused by a blunder we made in June.

I speak of this small per cent of swarms during a decidedly swarm-
ing year to show that, while we allow our bees to carry out their natura
instinct, we also apply natural methods to work in harmony with their
desires, thus bringing two or more elements to work together, which has

much to do with success.
August, 1906.

Since the above article was published, giving our way of treating
undesirable increase, several letters of inquiry have been received as to

42 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

how that method could be applied to colonies kept in a close house-
apiary. Yesterday I received a letter from a friend, wishing some more
light on this subject from me, for those who are keeping their bees,
like himself, in close buildings. I can see no reason why this method
would not be practical when applied to house-apiaries. All that will be
necessary is to make a temporary stand for the new swarm as near as
possible to the parent colony on the outside of the building, only have
the new swarm face in the opposite direction, so that they will realize
they have a new location. Then in four days remove all queen-cells from
the parent colony and mix up the bees of the new swarm with those
of the old colony as best you can, using some smoke so as to demoralize
them as they are again united into one large colony. Then remove
the temporary stand that the new swarm occupied, and the bees will
soon locate anew in their old home.

I do hope every bee-keeper in the land, who does not care for in-
crease, will give this method of treating undesirable swarms a thorough
trial another season. With us it is the easiest way we have ever tried
to keep down increase, and at the same time have all colonies strong in
bees and maturing brood to make them still stronger in their working
force; and certainly they will work with more perseverance, and give
us more surplus, than when kept from swarming by removing queen-
cells, which puts them in a sulking condition, wasting much of their
time through our best harvests, which we should always try to avoid.

April, 1907.

TRANSFERRING BEES.
WHY IT IS BEST TO PLACE THE OLD HIVE BELOW THE NEW ONE.

Some have asked, referring to transferring, why I prefer putting
the undesirable hive under the one I wish to keep the bees in, instead
of on top, I will say I have always found them more inclined to com-
ence work above their brood where the temperature is warmer and
more even than under the excluder or near the entrance. I should have
mentioned that it would be much better to place a frame of brood in
the new hive, then the bees would go up, and the queen continue to lay.
She will seldom commence laying in dry combs for several days, either
above or below the excluder, unless the colony is strong and honey is
coming in fast. One of the principal reasons for putting the old hive
under is that, at the end of three weeks, it will contain but little honey,
and its combs will be about ready for wax; whereas if the old hive is
placed on top, then we have but little honey in the new hive, and the
old one is full of honey in an undesirable condition. This is especially
so {f we use foundation instead of empty combs. It is for these reasons
that I prefer putting the old hive under the new one.

In one case the new colony at the end of three weeks will be all
that could be desired. In the other case the new colony would be light

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 43

in honey, and, consequently, scant of brood, and its foundation very
poorly drawn out. I do not put the new hive under the old one. The
object to be gained is to draw all that is good in the old hive into the
new one as soon as possible; and from our experience we find the above
to be the better way.

March, 1908.

PART III

Honey Production

A FEW OF THE MANY THINGS TO TAKE INTO CONSIDER-
ATION WHEN PRODUCING EXTRACTED HONEY.

In order to make the production of extracted honey profitable at
the present time it is necessary to have every thing connected with
the business as handy and convenient as it can possibly be made, and
then try to cut corners here and there and everywhere you can.

First, it is very essential to have the best honey-gathering strain
of bees that you can find; then if you expect to have a large apiary,
location is an important factor.

Then the manner of handling your extracting-combs and taking
them from the hive to the extractor is another important part; and
the number of men who can work to the best advantage, so each one
will bear about an equal part of the labor, and not have to wait for
each other, is also of importance.

How to dispose of the honey after it is extracted is another thing
that will pay you well to look after. The manner of storing it before
it is put into the package you expect to sell it in must also be con-
sidered. These are a few of the necessary things that the successful
producer of extracted honey has to keep fresh in his mind.

As I have received several letters during the past season request-
ing me to give the writers some advice on these subjects, I will en-
deavor, with the aid of the accompanying photos to show and describe
our method of producing extracted honey.

HIVES SHOULD BE OF THE SAME SIZE.

First, we like to have all our hives of the same size, so that any
frame will fit any hive in the apiary, although this season we had to
press into service some hives that were two inches shorter than our
standard hives, but we have promised ourselves that it is the last season
that we will bother with two different-sized hives in the apiary.

HELP TO WORK TO THE BEST ADVANTAGE.

In regard to help, we find that three men can work to better ad-
vantage, and extract more honey per man in a day, than any other num-
ber. In order to accomplish this, one man stays in the extracting-build-
ing and does all the extracting; another man stays with the hives we
are working at, and opens all of them and takes out about half of the
combs and puts all the empty combs back and closes up the hive,
while the third man takes out what heavy combs he can and takes the
full ones to the extracting-building, and bring the empty combs back.

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 45

In this way we find no trouble in extracting from 30 to 32 hives per
hour, or on an average a hive of nine combs in a little less than every
two minutes. We always hang up a watch on the extracting-building
so we can tell at a glance just how fast we are getting along. Each
one, as he removes his comb from the hive, cleans it of all adhering
bees, by first giving it several quick shakes up and down, being very
careful to throw out no honey. Then with a small brush, what few
bees are left on the comb are quickly brushed off. You will notice that,
hanging from my son’s right hip, is a small brush which we like the
best for this purpose of any thing we have ever tried. You can also
see the handle of a large pocket-knife by the brush, which is always
open and ready for use.

THE ALEXANDER HEAD-RIGS,

I wish to call your attention to our head-rigs. They are made from
a piece of common wire cloth, about 9x32 inches, with the ends lapped
together at the back, and sewed. They have a piece of heavy sheeting
in the back, which protects the back of the head, also our ears; then
they have a piece of double cloth forming the top, and gathered at the
center. They also have a little skirt about ten inches lond, which can
be tucked inside the shirt or vest collar. With this on, so far as your
head is concerned, you can bid defiance to all the bees in the apiary.
Please make one of these head-rigs next season, for I am sure you will
like it. They rest on your shoulders, and are very cool, seldom touch
your face, and can be taken off and put on in an instant.

THE ALEXANDER COMB-CARRIERS.

They hold nine combs, the same as our hives, and are made of thin
light pine except the ends, which are % stuff. They have an iron
handle, and are very durable. When we commence to extract we take
a set of empty combs in one of these carriers, and set it down behind
of the carrier of empty combs, then put an empty carrier on top of it.
This will bring it about level with the top of the hive, and saves stoop-
ing over in order to put the heavy combs in the carrier. Then when
the hive is ready to receive its empty combs one man starts for the
extractor with the heavy combs, while the other man puts the empty
ones in the hive. In this way the hive is open only about 114 minutes,
in taking out its full combs and putting in a set of those that have
been extracted.

NO SLAM-BANGS IN EXTRACTING.

Now, don’t think there is any slam-bang about handling our bees,
for there is not. We will not tolerate any thing of the kind. Any man
who works for us must be careful about killing bees or jarring the hive
any more than can be helped.

QUEEN-EXCLUDERS.

We use queen-excluders on all our hives when extracting, so we are

not troubled with any brood in the upper hive; neither do we lose any

46 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

queens if we shake some of the combs outside the hive. Our frames
hang on a wooden rabbet, just even with the top of the hive; then we
use an under cover, which has a bee-space on each side. This, with our
telescope top, makes a cool water-tight cover which we like very much.

THE COLOR OF THE CLOTHING.

When working in the apiary we very decidedly prefer white. It
does not irritate the bees as all dark colors will, and is nice and cool on
hot days. I don’t know of any thing that will make your bees much
crosser than to work among them when wearing dark clothes. If you
are careful about these things you will find it much pleasanter to handle
your bees.

HOW TO STOP LEAKS IN HONEY-BARRELS.

If any of you are troubled with your honey-packages leaking, either
barrels or tin pails, just rub the leaky place with common hard soap
and see how nice and quick the trouble is over; also when barreling
up your honey, after you insert the bung a little, tip the barrel over
so as to bring the honey up solid over the bung, then you can drive it
in tight and run no risk of splitting or breaking the head.

A GOOD HONEY-STRAINER.

This is one of the handiest and best strainers that was ever used
for straining honey. A tin-smith can make them by cutting off the top
of a stout tin pail 2 inches, then make a frame of folded strips of tin,
soldering these strips to the top rim of the pail you cut off, then line
the inside of this frame with the same fine copper wire cloth that is
used for milk strainers, and you will have a strainer that will never
clog or run over, as the honey can run through the sides all around
as well as the bottom, and it will take out every particle of foreign
matter from your honey, and with proper care will last a lifetime. I
now have three that I had made over 25 years ago and they are ap-
parently good for 25 years more. The way we use these strainers is
this: Our honey-tanks are covered with sheeting, except about two

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 47

feet at one end; this has a board on with a hole cut in the center that
will let the strainer go down through as far as the rim that has the
wire cloth fastened to. Then the pipe that conveys the honey to the
tanks has an elbow on, that we turn down over the strainer. This con-
ducting pipe is made in sections about 12 feet long of heavy tin, and has a
bore of about 2 inches. We keep it painted on the outside to prevent rust-
ing. Now when all is ready we start the extractor and our honey is deliv-
ered and strained into the tanks and we don’t have to pay any attention
to it whatever.
January, 1906.

I now wish to write a few lines direct to my brother competitors
of extracted honey. The ever increasing demand for this product of
our apiary is inducing many to turn their attention toward its produc-
tion; and I hope to see you all so situated that you can produce it in the
future cheaper than it has ever been in the past; for this reason, and
this only, I write this article. If you have read the advertising columns
during the past year in our bee-journals as you should, you must have
noticed descriptions of an outfit for doing the most laborious part of
producing extracted honey by gasoline power. Many people naturally
hesitate in regard to investing their money in new implements, pre-
ferring to let (if I may be allowed to use some street slang) the other
fellow invest his money first; then if it is all right they are ready to
invest also. Now, my son and myself were just that other fellow that
was ready to test this outfit to its very core. With three first-class
extractors in perfect working order standing in our extracting-room we
bought an improved eight-comb extractor and a gasoline-engine, to do
our extracting.

Well, as to results, the first test we gave it was to extract about
3000 lbs. of last year’s capped candied honey. The combs were mostly
new and brittle, having been foundation last year, had never contained
any brood; neither were they wired in their frames, as we have not a
wired comb in our apiary. When the extractor was started and the
comb-baskets began to hum like a buzzsaw, I at once knew that the
old candied honey would have to leave the combs, which it did quite
clean; but I expected that the combs and their frames would then and
there dissolve partnership; but, not so. They were so well supported
by the comb-baskets that we could not find a cracked or broken comb in
the lot. The reversing of the reel is so perfect that you don’t have to
stop either engine or extractor in order to do this part. Taking it as
a whole, it is certainly one of the most advanced steps in relieving us
of laborious work ever made in modern bee-keeping.

Now the question is, in your mind, “Can I afford to buy this outfit?”
Well, I will tell you what it is doing for us; then you can answer that

48 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

question yourself. One year ago, with about the same number of col-
onies, we employed two men during the season, and a third man part
of the time. Now we can do the work much better and easier with
one man. You can figure out the amount here saved. During the ex-
tracting season we usually extract our comps six times, and we now
find that such sets of combs, when taken from the extractor, are about
2 lbs. lighter than they have ever been before. Here we gain at least
10 lbs. per colony during the season. I leave this also for you to figure
out—the many dollars’ worth of honey saved on nearly 700 colonies.

Now, my friends, I think if you are running 100 colonies, or even
less, for extracted honey, you can not afford to be without this outfit.
The total expense to run the engine is less than 11% cents per hour;
and it is a willing laborer, always ready, and never tired. It can be
used at any season to furnish power for running the cream-separator,
churning, sawing wood, grinding bones for poultry, or any other work
requiring one horse power. The directions sent with it are so plain
that anybody can use it. Two men can carry it to any convenient place
to work, and in a few minutes it can be leveled and ready to com-
mence.

As I now recall to memory my first extractor, of some 37 years ago,
which was a Peabody machine, the can as well as the combs revolved,
and they had to be removed from the extractor and reversed by hand,
the honey running out through the bottom into a small-sized milk-pan;
and the waste and muss were dreadful. I can hardly realize the great
improvements that have been made in honey-extractors.

Some time ago I called your attention to the importance of pro-
ducing honey with comparatively small expense; but then the work
was all done by hand. Now, when the most laborious part can be done
with gasoline power, it reduces the cost of production to a still lower
figure.

Why, I would as soon think of mowing a large farm with the old
scythe as now to attempt to do our extracting with that poor right
arm. No, that day is past and it will never return. We are surrounded
with an element of progress, and every thing connected with the life
of man is improving. The greatest achievements of the past are but
milestones marking his progress to the sublime structures of to-day.
There! I wish I could keep my mind on my subject.

Some may think that it is of little importance if one and a half or
two pounds of honey is left in a set of extracting-combs, with a few
colonies that are extracted only once or twice during the summer. I
admit it is but little; but in our apiary it amounts to more than three
tons in a season. This is saving enough in one summer to pay for
several of these new outfits. You may think, “Well, if I don’t get it
all this time what is the difference? I shall get it the next time around.”
Yes, but you don’t get it, and you never will get it. Under the excite-
ment caused by disturbing them it is mostly eaten by the bees, and

50 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

size you wish, but I wouldn’t advise having them over 32 inches deep.

Ours are 4 inches deeper than I wish they were.
June, 1906.

EXTRACTING UNCAPPED HONEY; A REMINISCENCE OF THE GOOD
OLD DAYS OF FATHER QUINBY.

We extract our honey about every six or seven days when the har-
vest is good, never using more than one hive of empty combs on top
to extract from; and, although this way of extracting is a perfect suc-
cess with us, I can not recommend it to the inexperienced bee-keeper
with none of the necessary appliances to ripen his honey artificially.
But I do say that the man who has had experience, and has the neces-
sary storage-tanks, can ripen his honey after the bees commence to cap
it so that it will be just as good in every respect as if left with the bees
all summer. In this way we not only get twice the amount, but we
save our bees much labor and waste of honey in capping it over, and
ourselves at least half the work in extracting.

Before a few of you commence to criticise this point I want you
to understand that I never advised any man to extract and barrel up
unripe honey, for, as sure as you do, you not only injure your own
reputation but you do much harm to the whole bee-keeping fraternity;
so, unless you have the proper place, and storage-tanks where it can
be ripened as well as it should be, you had better leave it with the bees
until fall.

I know I am one of a small minority on this particular way of
producing extracted honey; but I would rather stand alone, and feel
that I was in the right, than to be one of ten thousand and in the wrong.
Please do not forget that we leave it with the bees until they com-
mence to cap a few cells along the top of the combs. If the harvest is
poor we sometimes leave it over two weeks before we extract, and run
it into the tanks, where it always remains until it is good thick honey
weighing fully 12 lbs. to the gallon. If I am not mistaken I think
Editor Root sampled our honey in four different tanks last summer when
he was here; also some that was in barrels ready for shipping, so I
will leave him to tell you as to its quality.

When honey will granulate within three or four weeks after ex-
tracting, so it will not run through a large faucet, but has to be dug out
of the tanks with a stout shovel in chunks like cheese, I don’t see any
need of letting it remain more than six or seven days with the bees.

Here is one question I should like to ask those who advocate letting
their honey remain with the bees until it is nicely capped over. It is
this: Will you please tell me where the profit comes in when you extract
nice comb honey that is well capped, and can be sold for 10 to 12 cents
per lb., then uncap it and run it through the extractor and sell the

same honey for 6 or 7 cents per Ib.?

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 651

If we could just reverse the prices of our honey I might see a profit
in extracting nice comb honey; but as it is, and ever will be, to me it is
the most foolish of all foolishness, and I doubt if any man in the United
States can show and prove how he can enhance the price of extracted
honey in the New York market, which handles more honey than all
our other markets put together, a fourth of a cent a pound more than
those large dealers can buy it for from other parts of the world. It
is all right for you to make all the handle you can over this point to
your customers who take only a few pounds in a retail way; but when
your product goes into the markets of the world in carload lots, then
you will find that all this nonsense about leaving your honey with your
bees until it is nicely capped over amounts to naught. The dealers want
honey of good flavor, thick and heavy, that, as soon as the weather gets
cool, granulates solid, so if the head of a barrel should be knocked out
it could be laid down and rolled across their storehouse the same as
a box of cheese with the cover off. Sell them honey of that kind and
they will not care whether it was extracted every day or left with the
bees until Christmas.

February, 1906.

FEEDING BACK EXTRACTED HONEY.

HOW THIS PLAN CAN BE MADE PROFITABLE IN THE PRODUCTION OF COMB HONEY;
THE IMPORTANCE OF THINNING THE HONEY AND FEEDING
DURING A NATURAL HONEY-FLOW.

My first experience along this line was something over 30 years
ago. The honey fed was thick extracted, and fed in its natural state
after the August harvest was past. This I fed for the purpose of finish-
ing up partly filled sections. I soon found this was a very unnatural
time of the year for bees to build comb, as nearly every night was quite
cold, with frequent frosts. I also found that it took on an average a
little more than 3 Ibs. of extracted honey fed in this way to produce
1 lb. of comb honey, and it frequently granulated in the sections in a
short time.

I next tried thinning the honey with boiling water to about the
consistency of nectar. This made a great difference in results. The
bees took it from their feeders more readily, and it did not require
nearly as much honey to fill their sections, and I was not troubled any
more with its granulating in the combs; but I was not satisfied to stop
here when I could see that it required nearly 2 lbs. of extracted honey
to produce one of comb, and I realized that I was fighting natural law
in trying to force my bees to produce comb honey decidedly out of
season.

My next step was to make extracted honey very thin with hot water,
and feed it to certain colonies producing comb honey during the entire
summer harvest, giving each colony about all it could handle during the
night. At first I was afraid it would have a tendency to check their

52 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

work during the day; but, not so. It seemed to act as a stimulus to still
greater activity when they could go to the flowers. Then I felt I had
solved the problem of producing comb honey from extracted. There were
no more partly filled sections to bother with; no more travel-stained
sections to sell at a reduced price, but every one nicely filled out clear
to the wood, and well capped.

I then found I had at my control for about 60 days as rich a harvest
for the colonies I ran for comb honey as I could desire, and with not
a break of even a day it was a pleasure to see those sections filled with
choice comb honey.

I don’t think it possible to feed thick extracted honey to bees for
the purpose of producing comb honey so as to derive any profit from it
after the honey-producing season is over. I think that nearly all those
that have ever tried it, and went only so far along this line, have given
it up in disgust. But when I took up this line of the business I went
much further than any I had ever heard of, and made it a success.

The day is coming when the comb-honey producer will find it as
I have stated above. He will have complete control of his harvest for
comb honey simply by keeping a few more colonies and running them
wholly for extracted honey to help his comb-honey colonies along during
those natural changes of the atmosphere which frequently cause the
flowers to stop secreting nectar several days at a time. Then the bees
stop working in their sections, their combs turn yellow, and, if the
honey-dearth lasts many days, as it sometimes does, it requires a good
harvest to start them at work again in their sections, and then those
sections will never sell for the highest market price. This can all be
prevented when there is a good feeder under every hive, and tanks full
of extracted honey.

I repeat that, in order to produce comb honey from extracted at
any profit, it must be done during hot weather while the bees are gath-
ering nectar from the flowers, and the honey, before it is fed, must be
thinned with boiling water to about the consistency of nectar. To feed
thick extracted honey out of season to produce comb honey is a waste
of both time and honey; and the small amount of comb honey that is
produced is likely to granulate and become unsalable.

This is one of those leading subjects which should receive our at-
tention until our markets are free from so much unsalable honey as
we often see. With the knowledge and appliances for producing honey
we now have, no man is excusable for putting a poor article on the
market; and it is a duty we owe to ourselves and each other to con-
demn this practice wherever we see it. I can not see how locality
can make much difference in this matter; but I can readily see that,
if honey is thinned to the consistency of nectar with boiling water, it
will have a tendency to prevent its granulating; and if fed to bees in
this condition during the season when it is natural for them to build
comb and are gathering nectar from the flowers, a short slim harvest can

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 53

be changed to a long rich one, for the bees will simply be helped to
carry out their natural instinct, and success will be the result.
August, 1907.

PRODUCING COMB HONEY.

HOW TO RAISE A GREATER PROPORTION OF FANCY HONEY; A PLAN TO HOLD BACK
SWARMING AND AT THE SAME TIME KEEP WORK GOING IN
THE SUPER DURING A LULL IN THE HONEY-FLOW.

Although it is now about 20 years since I gave up this part of the
bee business I often think I should like to call the attention of comb-
honey producers to some important points connected with this branch
of bee-keeping. The natural desire to swarm has always been a serious
trouble in producing comb honey. Then the frequent change in our
atmosphere, causing the flowers to stop secreting nectar sometimes for
several days at a time during our otherwise best harvest is another
serious trouble in producing comb honey of the finest quality; and with
many the trouble of getting their sections all well filled at the close of
the season is a hard problem to solve.

We will first consider the natural desire to swarm. This is the
honey-bees’ natural way to perpetuate their race, and is the most strongly
imbeded law, not only of the whole animal world, but the vegetable
world also, except the desire for food, of any law connected with our
existence. This is why we have made no progress in changing the nature
of our bees since man first tried to domesticate them. It is true that
certain strains, or, more properly speaking, certain families, have far
less desire to swarm than others. This same law can also be said to
apply to other animals, including man. Now let us see what we can do
to prevent the desire on the part of our bees to carry out this main
object of their creation. First we will keep only bees that have but
little natural desire to swarm; then we will raise their hives from their
bottom-boards all around about % inch as soon as the weather begins
to get warm. In this way we shall give them two or three entrances
in the shade at all hours of the day. This, I know from experience,
goes a long way to prevent the desire to swarm. Then we will supersede
every queen at the commencement of our harvest, with one just fer-
tilized, which, we all know, of itself will to quite an extent prevent the
desire to swarm. Then we will see that their hives, including their
clamps of sections, contain but a small amount of capped honey for any
length of time.

Here is one thing that I used to be very particular about during
my thirty years of producing comb honey: As fast as I could find four
or five nicely finished sections in a clamp they were taken out and
empty ones put in their place, never using more than two clamps at
one time on a hive. I don’t wonder that your bees swarm when two or
three clamps of mostly capped sections on a hive and a lot of capped

54 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEH CULTURE

honey in the hive below, and then only one entrance where the sun
can shine down on the bees through the hottest hours of the day. This
will make almost any colony restless, and frequently start a desire to
swarm.

The honey-producer, until recently, has been justified in keeping
his queens longer than one year, for it is only since Pratt gave us his
method of rearing queens that we can have all we want early in the
season with only a little trouble. If you will do as I have suggested
in the above you will almost wholly prevent the desire to swarm.

Next we will consider the matter of a steady harvest, with no lost
days, even if the flowers do fail to secrete nectar for several days at a
time. This can easily be acquired in this way: First divide your apiary
into two equal parts as to number of colonies, but have all your strong-
est colonies in one part and your weakest ones in another. Then run
the weak colonies wholly for extracted honey and the stronger colonies
for comb honey; and attach a good practicable feeder under every hive
that is producing comb honey, and extract all you can from your weak
colonies and feed it to those that are working in sections. Be sure to
give them some every night. If the weather is fine, and they are getting
considerable from the flowers, it will not be necessary to give them
much; but if from any cause they fail to gather from the flowers, then
feed enough to keep them busy in their sections night and day, with no
stop until the harvest is over and every section is finished in fine
shape.

Now don’t say this can not be done, for I know it can. I used
to produce comb honey in this way twenty-five years ago, and I am
sure fifty colonies managed like this, with fifty more to furnish them
with honey during bad weather, to work over into comb honey, will
produce more first-class section honey than you could possibly obtain
from the 100 colonies if they were all run for comb honey at the same
time, as nearly all comb-honey producers do. The point is right here:
In this way your comb-honey-producing colonies can have a good steady
harvest from the day you put on your first clamp of sections until the
last section igs finished, and that is what counts, both in quantity and
quality.

Nor, don’t get this method mixed up with that of feeding back at
the close of the harvest, but do the feeding when the harvest is on
and every thing is in proper condition to produce comb honey. Make
your extracted honey quite thin and give them one grand big harvest,
and you will see your sections finished as if by magic. With two clamps
of sections on, and a good young queen in the hive below, you need
not be afraid of their storing too much in their breeding-combs. Then
examine them often; and as fast as you can find five or six full sections
in a clamp take them out; don’t leave them to become soiled and travel-
stained by the bees, in order that you may save yourself a little work,
and take off a whole clamp at a time; for, as sure as you do, your bees
are liable to sulk away their time and possibly fix for swarming.

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 56

It looks nice to go into your storehouse at the close of the season
and see several tons of choice comb honey with hardly a section that
is not of the finest quality; and to see the clamps all empty, with no
partly filled sections lying around is another thing which shows there
has been some skill used in producing that crop of honey.

Some of you may think that this implies lots of work, which I will
admit, and so does every thing connected with the successful manage-
ment of bees. I know many let them take care of themselves, and
appear to be satisfied with whatever they can get; but I never should
like to run a business in that way.

In the above I have called your attention to the three worst troubles
in producing comb honey, and I have also given you a practical way
of overcoming them.

About twenty-six years ago I sold nearly three tons of comb honey
that was produced in this way to a dealer for two cents a pound above
the market price, on account of its fine appearance. It is the same
in producing comb honey that it is with extracted. You must adopt
methods whereby you can combine a fine quality with a large quantity,
and then you are on a straight road to success. If I should ever again
return to the production of comb honey the above method is the one I
should most decidedly adopt.

When I was running my bees for comb honey we had no practical
feeders as we have now, whereby honey can easily be fed to our comb-
honey-producing colonies; neither did we realize how easy it is to have
an abundance of choice young queens early in the season to supersede
our old queens with. Had I known then as I do now how easily these
two important factors can be acquired I would not have changed from
comb honey to extracted as I did; for I am sure there is more money
in producing a choice grade of comb honey, as I have described, than
there is in producing extracted honey.

May, 1906.

COMB VS. EXTRACTED HONEY.

COMB HONEY REQUIRES A RAPID HONEY-FLOW; MORE EXPENSIVE FIXTURES, MORE
LABOR TO PRODUCE; SWARMING CONTROLLED MORE EASILY IN
COLONIES RUN FOR EXTRACTED HONEY.

Frequently I receive letters from different parties wishing to know
which is the more profitable to produce—comb or extracted honey.
This, in some respects, is a rather hard question to answer, for much
depends not only on the location and season, but also on the man and
his methods. Rather than produce extracted honey as some do I should
prefer comb honey.

There are many localities where the surplus is gathered so slowly,
even in good seasons, that it is almost impossible to produce a nice
quality of comb honey. Then there are many seasons, even in good

56 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

locations, when the surplus comes so unevenly, by unfavorable condi-
tions of the atmosphere, that this, too, to a great extent prevents the
securing of nice comb honey. We all know that, the sooner the sections
can be filled and well capped, then removed from the bees, the nicer
will the honey appear.

Some years ago, in conversation with one of our principal honey-
merchants, he called my attention to a fine lot of comb honey he had
just received. Each section was glassed on each side, and the combs
were as white as any new comb I ever saw. I don’t think the sections
could have been on the hive more than ten days. They were so white
and free from travel-stains he told me he could sell that honey for 4
cents per lb. more than ordinary honey, on account of its fine ap-
pearance.

A location that will require the whole summer in order that a
colony can secure 30 or 40 lbs. of comb honey should never be used to
produce honey of that kind, for only a rich harvest with strong colonies
and warm nights, so the bees will continue their work in the sections,
night and day, will give us choice comb honey, and usually it is rather
hard to have these requirements all at the same time; and if either
is lacking, then we have a surplus of poor quality and a large number
of unfinished sections.

Then there is the expense connected with comb honey, which we
must consider. This is no small item in large apiaries. I hardly know
just what it would be now, as it is a long time since I produced comb
honey. But when I did, it cost me at least 2 cents per Ib. for the
necessary sections, comb foundation, glass, and crates. Then the freight
charges were high, and frequently the honey got badly damaged in tran-
sit; and the worst of all was the uncertainty of securing much surplus.
Then when I got the net returns from the commission men, and found
they were only 10 or 12 cents per lb., with still another discount to be
made of 2 cents per lb. or over for supplies, I gave up the production of
comb honey in disgust.

The desire to swarm is hard to overcome in producing comb honey—
much more so than with extracted. It is much handier to make in-
crease, rear queens, or form nuclei in running an apiary for extracted
honey, for I think these all require some brood when started, which
never should be taken from a colony at work in sections, for it soon
reduces their working force and causes them to be somewhat dis-
couraged. This can be easily proven by removing their brood and put-

ting in its place combs partly filled with honey.

5 Now, the question of labor is one we must consider. From our past
experience we find, from the time sections, creates, comb foundation,
separators, and glass are received from the manufacturer until the
comb honey is sold, it has required far more labor than it would to
produce a given amount of extracted honey. Whichever you produce,
I consider it of as much importance to prepare your bees well in the
spring for the summer harvest as it is to prepare them in the summer
for the long cold winters of the North.

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 57

In the above I have briefly called your attention to a few of the
many troubles in producing choice comb honey. With extracted honey
it in many ways is so different that it is almost like another business.
We have the whole spring season to rear young queens, make increase,
and build them up into strong colonies; and although when the harvest
comes there may be some still weak in bees, we know that they will
give us some surplus, even though the season is a poor one, and the
harvest is strung along all summer with only now and then a good
honey day.

As soon as a colony is strong enough in bees, and is full of brood
and honey, all that is necessary to do is to put on top a hive of empty
combs with a queen-excluder between; and if you want them to com-
mence storing honey above, at once exchange an empty comb from your
upper hive for a comb of brood from below.

Some prefer shallow combs to extract from; others prefer combs
of the same size as those below, and use one or two combs less in
their extracting-supers. We prefer all combs in the apiary to be of the
same size, and use the same number in the extracting-super as in the
main hive. This gives more comb surface, so the honey will evaporate
much faster than in thick combs.

Here is one of the principal reasons why we are never troubled with
thin honey. A strong full colony that has plenty of room to spread
out their honey and keep it hot night and day will thicken it very
fast.

Storage-tanks are very important in producing extracted honey of
fine quality. After it is strained into them there will be a little scum
rise to the top, which can easily be skimmed off, and never should
be allowed to go with the honey. Then it is easy to draw off the thick
honey from the bottom, which gives you the very best quality that can
be produced.

Comb honey is rather unfortunate in many ways. It is used only
for table use, and here it has to compete with nearly all kinds of fruit,
maple syrup, and a small per cent of extracted honey. But not so with
extracted. There is a growing demand at nearly all times of the year
for it. This is used mostly for manufacturing purposes.

As to the amount of comb or extracted honey that an apiary can
be made to produce this is well worth considering. Some good bee-
keepers estimate 2 Ibs. of extracted for one of comb. We are sure we
could never secure more than one-third as much comb as we do ex-
tracted, even though it cost far more labor.

Still another thing I like about producing extracted honey is that,
as soon as the harvest is over, the work in the apiary is nearly done,
except putting the bees in their winter quarters.

In the above I have tried to show both sides of the question to
the best of my ability, and I leave you to answer your own question

as to which is the more profitable to produce—comb or extracted honey.
July, 1907.

PART IV
Disposing of the Honey-crop

SELL EARLY; KEEP THE OLD CUSTOMERS; ADVERTISE; HOW TO UTILIZE THE
HONEY IN CAPPINGS.

This is a very important part of our business—one which we should
look at from several different points. First, we should take special care
in producing either comb or extracted honey so that it will be of the
very best quality; and we should put it up in the most convenient and
salable package possible. Then we should have it ready for market
as soon as the market is ready for it.

Here is a point that many are very negligent about. They have other
work to attend to, and think their honey can wait until they can do
their odd jobs, and foolishly they try to make themselves believe the
price will rise, and they will get more later on. I have never known
this to be so. On the contrary, the price is sure to decline until it is
hard to sell at any price. Now, don’t allow valuable time to slip by,
leaving your honey on your hands. and then complain that there is no
money in bees. Just watch a successful manufacturer or merchant and
see how he is ever on the alert for any thing that can be turned to
advantage; and if you expect to succeed as they do you must also watch
these points.

In regard to sending your honey to commission men to sell for you,
i must say that many times tb-ir returns are far from satisfactory.
When you find a square commissicy man it is a very good way to dis-
pose of your crop. But I pity you if you are caught as I have been by
different parties. Before we commenced to sell our honey direct to deal-
ers 1 thought seriously of yoing out of the business, as we could not
produce extracted honey for the returns these men sometimes made. One
lot in particular, of about four tons of as nice clover honey as I ever
saw, he claimed tu hav> sold at four cents per pound. Another lot of
nearly a carload co another party brought us only three cents net, and
I have good reasons for believing that each lot in question was sold
for a good price. So from past experience my advice is to be careful
where you send your honey. If you are a little short of customers, just
advertise it in our bee journals and you will soon have chances to sell
at a fair price; then you will know what you are to have, and when to
expect it; and, as a general thing, you will be better satisfied with the
result.

Another important part is, don’t try to sell your honey for more
than it is worth in the common markets. Here many make mistakes.

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 59

Some years ago we made this mistake, and lost a customer who had
for several years bought quite a large amount. This time he paid us
one-fourth cent per pound more for nearly five tons than he could
get for it, losing about $25.00 thereby, where he expected to make that
amount, and we lost a customer who at that time was worth nearly
as much annually to us. If you can sell your crop in a small retail
way I can see no reason why you should not have the same price as any
other retailer. But when you sell in large quantities to parties who sell
to those who have to retail it out in small packages, then remember
that they must have a margin of profit to induce them to invest their
money in it. This matter of holding a customer is well worth our con-
sideration.

No man in business can afford to lose one if he can help it. Since
we have given this part of our business especial attention we have had
no trouble in selling our honey at a fair price early in the season. We
think this a better way, and have the money soon on interest, than to
hang on trying to squeeze out the last cent from a dealer who will never
buy from you again if he can help it. I always like to have a pleased
customer, for such are sure to buy another year. We have been censured
many times by some honey-producers for selling our honey at the price
we do; but I like to see the summer work all finished up before bad
weather comes, and know that every thing is prepared for winter; then
we can turn our attention to other matters for a few months.

During this winter season is a fine time to visit distant friends and
make our plans for the coming summer. I think it does man good to
have a rest from hard labor and mental anxiety. In natural law nearly
every thing has a rest during part of the year except poor man, and he
toils on until the worn-out body is lowered into the grave. But I will
stop my sermonizing, and call your attention to another part of our
business.

It is the caring for the cappings when extracting. I see many rec-
ommend rinsing them so as to save the honey that will not drain out,
and then make this sweet water into vinegar. I used to try this plan,
but I could never make a vinegar but that had an unpleasant odor and
taste, and was nowhere when compared to cider vinegar. Then later
we used to let the bees clean them up; but this had its bad features,
and we were glad to adopt the following way of handling them: We
now use an old honey-extractor with the baskets and reel taken out for
an uncapping-can. We put in the bottom a screen of coarse open wire
cloth for the honey to drain through, which keeps the cappings back
while the honey goes out at the open faucet into the same pipe that
conveys our honey from the extractor to the tanks. When this can
is full we empty the cappings into a tight barrel and set them away
until spring; then when we wish to feed our bees we turn boiling
water on to these cappings until they are melted, and the wax rises
to the top, which we remove, and then use the sweetened water to
feed. Sometimes we add a little granulated sugar if we have used

60 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

water rather freely, and it makes the finest feed to stimulate early
breeding that we ever tried. In this way you save every bit of the
honey from the cappings, with but very little trouble. I think if you
will try this another season you will never again set out your cappings
for your bees and your neighbors’ bees to clean up, nor go to the trouble
of making (to my mind) a very poor substitute for vinegar. I will
admit that honey vinegar is sour enough, but I for one can not go
that unpleasant taste.

Still another subject I wish to speak of is this: During those cold
stormy days of winter, when time hangs heavy on your hands, and espe-
cially winter evenings, get out a lot of those old back numbers of bee-
journals and look them over. You will be surprised to see how many
good ideas you can pick up from them, especially the summer numbers
that came when you were so hurried about your work that you hardly
took the necessary time to read them, and still less time to remember
and put those good points into practice. To sum it all up in a few
words, don’t waste any time in worrying about good or bad luck, but
put yourself at the head of your business and realize that it is according
to your skill and intellect that you either succeed or fail.

October, 1906.

SECURING CUSTOMERS.

According to what experience we have had in advertising our honey,
there seems to be no trouble in disposing of a large surplus: and I am
quite sure that a few dollars spent in this way will soon bring the
producer and consumer or dealer together, and be a mutual benefit to
each.

During the past three years we have sold honey in nearly every
State east of the Mississippi River, and in a few States west of it. We
have had some large orders from parties in Illinois and Minnesota.
These customers we got by placing a small notice in the bee journals.
If we would all try as hard to sell our honey as we do to produce it we
should soon find a good market for the most of it. I hope to hear from
others this winter on this subject, for surely we can not do anything
of more importance to our business than to prepare ourselves for a
large surplus before it comes, for come it will, and then we shall wish
we had customers ready to take our whole crop. So, lose no time, but
make it a point to secure some customers every season. The time has
now come when we must advertise our produce in some way, if we
expect to make a success of our business. I am sure I can see no other
way to work off this surplus. Our village grocer can retail quite a
quantity of extracted honey if we will furnish a keg to commence with.
I know one party who sells nearly 1000 Ibs. a season in a village of Jess
than 600 inhabitants. He pays us 6% cents, and sells for 10. His comb-
honey sales are not as large nor as profitable as his sales of extracted
honey. Give them a chance to make three or four cents a pound on

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 61

what they can sell, and they will work off a lot of it. His customers
bring a pail, and he weighs out whatever they wish. I have tried hard
to produce and teach others how to produce large quantities of honey
at a small expense; but one important thing in doing this is that you
must have the best strain of bees that can be procured, and give them
the best of care.

Now a few words in regard to getting good customers to buy your
surplus. First, produce honey of the best quality—honey that is of good
body and fine flavor; then through advertising in our bee journals let
the public know what you have and its price. In this way we have been
successful in procuring more customers than we can supply, and every
season we have to return postal money orders and checks sent to us for
honey after our crop is all sold. This season, about Oct. 10, soon after
our honey was all gone we had an order from a party who has sold over
100 tons of our honey, for a carload to fill out a shipment to Europe.
This order had to be canceled, and our only wish was that we had
twice as many colonies of bees.

In conclusion I will say, deal honorably and squarely with your
customers, so that, after they buy of you once, they will have confidence
in what you say, and send their orders to you again in preference to
a stranger. In this way you will find an outlet for your honey all over

the United States.
December, 1906.

WHY IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE, AND TO GIVE AWAY SAMPLES.

I can think of no better way of getting our product before the
public than to do as all successful business men do and manufacturers
are now doing—that is, to advertise honey in every way we can think
of. This is one thing we as honey producers have sadly neglected. If
we expect to be successful in producing and selling large crops of honey,
we must apply the same methods to our business that these successful
business men do to theirs. Now as to the manner of advertising, each
man must decide for himself. But advertise we must in some way. It
is now high time we awoke to the necessity of this.

From the little experience I have had in having a small notice in-
serted in our bee journals and seeing its effect, I am sure that through
them a nice large advertisement would be worth ten times its cost to
any honey producer; and why so many of us, myself included, should
be so negligent in this important part of our business is hard to under-
stand. We know we have a good thing for sale—one of the best foods
God ever gave to man; so let us join hands and place this before the
public in a profitable way. Many business firms give away thousands
of dollars’ worth of sample packages in order to induce the public to
buy their goods; and I sometimes think that if the honey producers of
this country would give away a small per cent of their honey in sample
packages for a year or two, it would go a long way toward bringing

62 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

honey into general use. Then when the poorer classes get into the habit
of using it on their bread in place of butter we would surely have a
large demand for all we could produce. Most children are very fond
of honey, and will nearly always prefer it to butter if they have a
chance. This fact I often noticed in bringing up my family of four
children. Here is a tender spot with many parents. They will buy for
their children many things that they would hardly think of buying for
themselves.

This is where the sample package would count big. The child would
have some, then it surely would want more; and the indulgent parents
would commence to buy, and they too would soon like it and buy often;
but don’t make your sample package too small. I would advise about a
pound. Be sure to have it large enough to do for a meal or two. A
mere taste would amount to nothing. Some may think to give away a
pound of honey is rather expensive in order to induce a family to pur.
chase some, so we will do a little figuring along this line.

We will suppose a man has 10,000 lbs. of extracted honey for sale.
This at wholesale will bring him about $600. Now, if he gives away
1000 Ibs. to as many families, and in so doing he finds 500 familes that
commence to buy his honey at 10 cents, this shows his customers have
cost him two pounds apiece or 12 cents each, and if they buy on an
average 18 lbs. apiece during the season he comes out $300 ahead, or
in other words, he receives $900 for the honey he would otherwise have
sold for $600. This $300 would pay for all expenses of selling, and he
would have a nice lot of customers to supply another year that had
really cost him nothing. This is a case where it is necessary to sow
before you can reap and like nearly all other cases you will reap accord-
ing to what you have sown. So I repeat, don’t be afraid to give away
some honey in order to advertise your business.

There is one thing we should all bear in mind; and that is, when
we get customers try hard to please them so as to supply them with
whatever honey they may want year after year. No business man can
afford to lose a customer if be can help it. First furnish a good article,
then offer it at a fair price, and always be square in your dealings. If
there is anything about your honey that is not as it should be, call
the purchaser’s attention to it. Don’t wait until after it is sold, and
then let him find it out as best he can. If you do, it is only natural that
he will be a little careful about buying of you again. It might be of
some help to have a circular go with each sample telling the value of
honey for many purposes, and how the children were delighted to have
it on their bread.

I sometimes think that we as honey-producers have never taken
just the right course to bring our honey into general use. It is all
right to teach the public as to its purity and healthfulness, but that
is not enough. We must go still further and show them that they can
save money by using it. When this is once accomplished we can then,
and not until then, let this question rest. I have retailed in small lots

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 63

but very little honey; but I have always noticed that, if rightly done,
it is sure to bring good results. If we get a family to commence using
honey they are sure to continue as long as we supply them with a
good article at a moderate price. We have several customers who buy
a 160 lb. keg of dark extracted honey every year for their own family
use. They have got used to having it on their table, and they tell
me they don’t see how they could get along without it. They started
by buying a ten-pound pail once a year. One man in particular bought
six kegs this fall to retail out to his neighbors. This man never bought
any honey until four years ago, when a friend of mine sold him a pail-
ful. I speak of these incidents to show how easy it would be to start a
large demand for our honey if each one went to work in the right way
to bring it about.

Now in connection with the selling of honey let me say a few words
in regard to producing. For some time there has been an almost un-
limited demand for light extracted unless it is water-white and can
compete with the water-white honey of California. This white honey
is a hard thing for us to compete with and for this reason I would
suggest that we try hard to have all our light honey put in sections,
and sold as comb honey, and all our dark honey extracted. This
would relieve the comb-honey market to quite an extent, and cause those
who prefer dark honey, as many do, to buy dark extracted for their
table use. I am often asked what our dark extracted honey is mostly
used for. I find out from those who handle large quantities that the
Jews are our best customers for this grade of honey. They not only
eat a great deal, but use it extensively to make a certain drink which
they like during their holidays. One of the largest dealers in New
York told me last summer that these people used more dark extracted
honey than all other classes put together. Then our large bakeries use
considerably more dark extracted than they do light, and it is the
same with all manufacturers who use honey. A very intelligent Jew
once told me that their people were suspicious of all light honey, but
had confidence in dark honey being what it claimed to be.

Personally we have been very fortunate in being able to sell all
the honey we could produce, at a good price, as soon as it was ready
for market; but I know that many others are not so fortunate, and it
is for them that I hope some way will be devised so they may turn
their surplus honey into ready money.

In attempting to write on this subject I fully realize that I am not
competent to do justice to the question; but I hope you may find in
the above some little thread that, when woven in with the knowledg+
of others, will be the means of bringing a better market to us all.

64 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE
ORGANIZING FOR BETTER PRICES ON HONEY.

THE PRESENT UNSATISFACTORY METHOD OF PRODUCERS WORKING AGAINST EACH
OTHER IN THE DISPOSAL OF THEIR CROPS.

The weakest link in the whole complicated chain of modern bee-
keeping at the present time is a lack of practical organization. I will
admit that we have national, State, and county organizations, and we
hold many conventions; but when it comes to the most vital part
of our business, that of disposing of our honey, then each producer is
not only a competitor against all others, but, according to his circum-
stances, will sell at almost any price he may be offered, thereby in-
juring the sale of other producers far more than ten times the amount
he produces would if we were organized and sold at one price. This
spoils the market, and the speculators take advantage of it and tell
us and show us how cheap they can buy our honey, using the price
and name of every party that has sold cheap, as a lever to bear down
the price and enable them to buy our honey as they have many other

lots.
It makes but little difference whether we count our colonies by

the dozen or by the hundred, if, at the close of the summer, we sell
our honey at cost. Then we are making no money from our bees, and
there is something wrong. I know that, to organize for the purpose
of securing better prices, would be a rather hard thing to accomplish.
Still, I think something might be done to improve this part of our
business. I have never known a season during the past 50 years of my
bee-keeping life, when honey was sold at such a variety of prices, from
ocean to ocean, as it has been during the summer and fall of 1906.
Speculators have been scouring the country trying to engage honey at
low prices. Many parties that had debts to pay sold at prices they
would not care to have made public, while some, fearing that they
would have their crop left on their hands, have also sold cheap. We
see manufacturers, mechanics, and merchants all over the country or-
ganizing for self-protection, and it does seem to me that we as honey-
producers might do a little in this Hne that would be a help to all. I
am well aware that, when a man has debts crowding him he is in
rather poor condition to argue with a speculator as to the price of
his honey, which each party knows must soon be sold; but, fortunately,
these are exceptional cases.

There is no doubt in my mind but that, if we could hold together
as a company, we might secure one or two cents per Ib. more than
many do, and still sell at a reasonable price. This would mean thou-
sands of dollars to those who sell cheap, and in doing so they spoil
the market price for others. We, as producers, are too indifferent to
this part of our business, and it is certainly high time that we awoke
to the importance of this subject. If some of the valuable time that
is usually spent over minor matters at our conventions could be spent
on this subject it would be much better for us all. Now that the win-

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 65

tering problem is quite well solved, I know of nothing connected with
bee-keeping of so much importance as that of organizing for the pur-
pose of securing a more uniform price for our honey. So long as we
continue to sell as we have done in the past for at almost any price
that is offered, we are doing an injustice, not only to ourselves, but to
all other producers. Like the drifting derelicts at sea, which cause
loss and trouble wherever they go, so we, in disposing of our honey,
sell for this and that price until we have spoiled the market and caused
trouble to come to those who otherwise would be able to sell at a fair
price.

For a long time I have been in hopes that this subject would
receive special attention; but we don’t seem to have any man who has
the natural ability to organize us on this particular line. I have never
taken any interest in organizing for the purpose of paying each other’s
lawsuits, for I never had a lawsuit in my life; neither do I take any
interest in organizing for the purpose of getting supplies cheap, for
I think the supply-dealer should have a fair profit on his business,
especially the men who are spending both time and money in testing
new methods, and are working with us to advance modern bee-keeping.

May, 1907.

PART V

Queens and Queen-rearing

SHOULD THE HONEY-PRODUCER REAR HIS QUEENS OB BUY THEM? USING EXTRA
CELLS FROM COLONIES THAT CAST SWARMS ONLY PERBPET-
UATES THE SWARMING TENDENCY.

Frequently I am asked whether it pays a producer to rear his own
queens. This is a rather hard question to answer, for so much depends
on the ability of that producer, and on his experience in rearing good
queens. Many circumstances also have a bearing on the subject, such
as the number of queens required annually, the kind of honey pro-
duced, whether comb or extracted, the time the surplus is secured, and
the Hability of the young queens mating with undesirable drones. All
these circumstances and many more should be well considered before
the producer decides to rear his queens. If he has but few colonies,
and is anxious to learn all he can about bee-keeping, without any re-
gard to the amount of surplus he may secure, then I would advise him
to purchase a good breeding-queen and learn as soon as possible how
to rear choice queens. In that way his experience will be worth much
to him as long as he continues to keep bees.

One of the worst troubles in rearing a large number of choice early
queens here at the North is our cold backward spring weather. We
use about 400 young queens a year in our apiary, and have tried many
times to rear them during the latter part of May and fore part of June,
so as to have them laying about June 10; but it is almost impossible
to rear so many good queens at that season of the year. If we wait
till the latter part of June to rear them, then the bees from these
queens are of but little use as honey-gatherers until after the best of
the harvest is over. So we find it much better to pay considerable
money each year for our queens instead of trying to rear them.

About the first of December we gave a noted queen breeder our
order for 400 queens, to be sent us between the 1st and 20th of June
next. It requires time, bees, skill, and honey to rear good queens; and
when they can be bought for from $65 to $75 per hundred, and ex-
tracted honey is worth 7 and 8 cents per lb. by the carload, it does
not pay to sacrifice much surplus in order to rear queens.

When the ordinary honey-producer attempts to rear his queens he
is very apt to make some serious mistakes, partly through ignorance
and partly through a lack of time to give this part of his business the
close attention it requires.

If he would procure a good breeding-queen and rear all his queens
from her, then weed out and destroy all small inferior queens as soon

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 67

as they hatch, he might have choice queens without much expense
except for a part of his time, and a certain per cent of his surplus.
There is quite a difference of opinion as to the necessary amount of
bees it requires to rear choice cells and queens. Some claim it can
be done with but few bees; others want strong colonies to produce
choice cells. I know we could never rear queens that would suit us
unless we used so many bees in rearing our cells that it would make
a sad inroad on our surplus honey.

The most common and the worst mistake that can be made in
rearing queens is saving the natural cells and virgin queens from col-
onies that have cast natural swarms. I have heard this method reo
ommended by men who were considered quite good authority, and it
seemed as if I could not keep still and listen to them. We spend
valuable time at our conventions in discussing various ways for pre
venting natural swarming, and we frequently see long articles in our
journals from noted writers recommending certain methods to prevent
it. Almost daily during the summer season we see bad results in our
apiaries from excessive swarming, and then so many will do the very
thing of all things that will perpetuate the desire to swarm, by saving
cells and virgins from the colonies that are the first to swarm; and
invariably when this objectionable method has been practiced a few
years a strain of bees will be developed that is ready to swarm both
in season and out of season. Nor is this all; for a great step back-
ward is taken, and the bees from the first will begin to degenerate, and
part of their yellow color will be lost; and the bees themselves being
crosser and more irritable, they fail to gather as much surplus, and
they become more nervous in winter. In a few years the apiary will
have degenerated until it is of but little value. It must then be built
up again with good stock.

In view of these facts do not take such a step backward as will
pring only loss, trouble, and disappointment. When a colony has many
valuable traits, send its queen to your queen-breeder, and write him,
describing all those good points, and request him to rear the queens
from her unless he may have a still better breeding-queen. In this
way the choicest of queens may be reared from the best stock, and
improvement can be made along the lines most desired.

As I look back I find that the seasons when we received our largest
surplus have been, without a single exception, the ones following the
year when we reared our queens from some special queen whose colony
had given us an unusual amount of surplus the previous summer. It
requires only four or five years of careful selection to make a great
change in bees in their honey-gathering qualities, and in their dispo-
sition, until they seem like a different race of bees. The color is one
of the quickest of all points to show improvement, and the tendency
to swarm can be reduced to a surprising extent; but special care must
be taken to select the best standard. Nor is this all. The drone
mothers must be just as choice as the queen-mothers. You must rear

68 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

all drones from as choice queens as you rear your queens from. In
other words, drones must be developed the same as the queens. This
may seem like an unnecesssary amount of trouble; but there is little
of value in this world that does not cost labor to acquire.

There are many bee-keepers who might make great improvements
in their bees if they would only start in the right way. They seem to
think that, if they buy a breeding-queen once in a year or two, it is
about all that is necessary; and if her colony swarms they willl try
to save some of the queen-cells, and then think they are improving
their bees. Such a line of management is no improvement; and if that
is the best that can be done, then it would be better to buy all the
queens from some one who is doing better. The whole subject turns
on this point: The best queens, bought or home-reared, are none too
good, and the aim should be to make them still better with each suc-
ceeding generation.

February, 1908.

NUCLEI FOR REARING QUEENS.

Our nuclei have three combs each, size 5x9 inches, and about a pint
of bees; they filled their combs so full that it was necessary to extract
them frequently in order to give the young queens a chance to lay
after they have become fertilized, and this was done some time before
our August harvest.

Now, when little nuclei of less than one pint of bees can fill up
their combs with honey in this way when there is no special harvest on,
and that in an apiary of 750 strong colonies, it does seem to me that
this fear of overstocking was only imaginary. A few years ago when
we thought our bees went only a mile or so from home to gather
nectar, we had some excuse for believing it was easy to overstock a
location; but as it is now, when we have an abundance of good proof
that our bees will work to a good advantage on flowers five or six
miles from home, and sometimes still further, it changes the whole
subject. Just think of the millions of honey-producing flowers, when
the weather is favorable, within a circle of ten or twelve miles in
diameter. This is the turning-point of the whole subject—‘“When the
weather is faovrable.” And when the weather is unfavorable for the
secretion of nectar, it makes no difference how much bloom there is
or how few colonies there are in the apiary.

In regard to these nuclei I spoke of above, we find them very
useful. My son fixed up fifteen about the 1st of July, and by Sept. 10
we had taken out 63 choice laying queens from them to use in large
colonies, besides some extracted honey, and the actual cost of these
queens was not ten cents apiece.

We have tried many different sizes of combs for nuclei; but, all
things considered, we prefer small combs, of which three will fill one
of our standard frames; then when we put them in our nucleus-boxes

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 69

we slide on a piece of folded tin so it makes a shoulder for the little
frame to hang on. When we wish we can put a frame of these little
frames in any standard hive, and have them filled with brood or
honey; then the little frames can be put into weak nuclei if we wish,
and at the close of the season these small combs with their bees,
brood, and honey, can all be utilized in uniting with other colonies.
I am sure that, if you will try this way of rearing surplus queens
another season, you will be surprised to see how easy it is to have
choice young queens on hand at a small expense, ever ready to use
where occasion may require. If you expect to make a success of bee
keeping you must be on the watch to take advantage of all these little
things.
December, 1906.

SUPERSEDING OUR OLD QUEENS.

DO NOT LET THE BEES DECIDE AS TO THE TIME FOR DOING THIS.

To supersede our queens when two years old, or to leave it for the
bees to attend to, is a question of far more importance than many
realize, and one upon which I very decidedly differ with some of our -
best bee-keepers. Last fall we had 107 queens in our apiary that were
2% years old. Therefore for many years we have superseded all our
queens at 2 years of age; but as a part of these queens were some we had
bought, and were of an extra good strain, their hives being well filled
with honey, and as some writers on the subject had claimed that the
bees knew better than we when to supersede their queens, I thought
I would test this matter thoroughly on a large scale, even if it cost
me the 107 colonies to do so.

THE RESULT OF THE EXPERIMENT.

We put our bees in the cellar about the middle of November. These
colonies, with their queens 2% years old, were put in with the other
colonies here and there all through the lot, and had exactly the same
chance as those with younger queens. When we took them from the
cellar about the middle of April we found only eleven that had super-
seded their queens; and it had been done so late in the fall that six
were drone-layers, and the other five were about as weak in bees as
those with the old queen; and of the remaining 96, 3 were fairly good, 26
were very weak in bees, and the other 67 were dead.

In looking over our bees about Sept. 1 we noticed that these old
queens had all stopped laying, and had but little brood compared with
the young queens. This fact, undoubtedly, had much to do with the
weak condition of the few that survived the winter.

Of the other 603 colonies in the same cellar, that had queens 6
months old and 1% years old, only 7 were lost.

Now, my friends, can any of you say that it does not pay to keep
track of the age of your queens, and attend to superseding them your-

70 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

self? I am sure it has always paid me well, heretofore, to do so, and
I do hope that this costly experiment that I have just made will save
many of you from a like experience. As I have written before, it is
so easy to get the best of young queens now that have been reared
from extra good honey-gathering strains that we have no excuse what-
ever for keeping old inferior queens in our apiary; and I want to ask
those of you who advocate letting their bees do their own superseding
if it would not have been much better for me to supersede those 107
queens last summer, at an expense of about $65, than to lose at least
$400 worth of bees in leaving it for the bees themselves to attend to.
KEEPING TRACK OF THE AGE AND QUALITY OF THE QUEENS.

In the August issue of the Review, 1904, is published an article I
wrote on keeping track of the age and quality of our queens, which
is well worth more than a year’s subscription to some of you who
take that paper; and for the benefit of those who take GLEANINGS only
I will copy a part of said article:

TIN TAGS FOR SHOWING AGE AND QUALITY OF QUEENS.

“Something like 30 years ago I cut out a lot of pieces of tin—some
round, some half round, and some square, about one inch in diameter;
and whenever I find a young queen commencing to lay I put one of
these tags on the front of the hive on the left-hand corner, about two
inches from the bottom. It is put on with a carpet-tack through the
center, and is easily taken off with my knife; and it follows that queen
to every hive she is ever put into. If she proves to be a choice queen
the tag is put a few inches higher up on the corner of the hive; and
if very choice, still higher. If she is inferior in any way it is put
over toward the middle of the hive; if very poor it is put clear over
to the other side. I use only one shape of tag each summer, with
all the queens of that summer’s rearing. The next summer I use an-
other shape, perhaps round or square; then when I walk through the
apiary I can tell at a glance the age and quality of every queen in
the yard; and then when I have surplus queens on hand I can go right
to the hives that contain my poorest queens and supersede them at
once without having to open any hive unnecessarily. You see J can
tell at any time. I see by the fronts of the hives just how many
queens I have of a certain age, also their quality. If you will adopt
this way of keeping track of your queens you will soon weed out the
poor ones, and find it a great advantage to you to do so.”

There, friends, I almost beg of you to take my advice in this mat-
ter, and adopt some simple method whereby you can tell at a glance
the age and quality of every queen in your apiary. It is not only a
source of much satisfaction to know the real merit of all your queens
when working among them, but I assure you it is also, from a dollar
point of view, one of much importance.

In regard to the proper time to supersede, I must differ with those
who recommend superseding in the fall. My principal reason for doing

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 71

so is this: If the queen to be superseded (as is generally the case)
is old, and beginning to fail in keeping her hive well filled with brood,
then you stand a big chance of having a weak colony the following
spring unless you give them a young queen before August 1. In this
section even our young queens lay but little after Sept. 1, and certainly
we should have a good prolific queen in every hive at least one month
before the breeding season closes. But if you are superseding good
queens that have kept their hives well filled with brood to the end of
the season (simply to get a better strain of bees) then you can super-
sede your queens almost any time during the fall; otherwise I should
very decidedly prefer superseding all my queens early in the season.
Now, my friends, think this matter over well; and in doing so
remember that your next year’s surplus depends to a great extent on
the quality of the queens you have in your hives this coming fall. The
man who is careless in this matter will have many disappointments
that he might otherwise avoid with but little trouble and expense.
July, 1905.

THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING QUEENS REARED FROM THE
BEST OF STOCK.

IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF YOUR BEES; THAT TWO-HUNDRED-DOLLAR ROOT
QUEEN.

How many times during the last few years the different writers
for our bee journals have told us the necessity of keeping young pro-
lific queens in all our hives if we expect to get good returns! But how
seldom have they told us of the importance of having those queens
reared from the best honey-gathering strains of Italians that could pos-
sibly be found! This I consider one of the most essential things con-
nected with successful bee-keeping.

First I will say that, of all the thousands of Italian queens that
I have bought and reared since their first importation to this country,
I have never sold a queen in my life, and I never expect to. We buy
and rear only what: queens we want for our own use; so hereafter,
when I speak of the strain of bees we keep, or the strains of others,
don’t for one minute think that I am in any way interested in selling
queens.

We now have what might be called a combination strain of bees,
as they have been bred for nearly twenty years from the best honey-
gathering strains of Italian bees that money could buy; and during
this time I have thrown out every queen whose bees were poor honey-
gatherers; cross or vicious in handling, addicted to excessive swarming,
or were restless in winter quarters, wasting themselves away and com-
ing out weak in the spring. All such colonies have been marked, and
their queens superseded the following summer. In this way we have
acquired as fine a strain of bees as there is in the United States.

72 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

You all know that, a few years ago, The A. I. Root Co. told us
that they had found in one of their apiaries a queen whose bees gath-
ered far more honey than any other colony, and that they saw such a
decided difference in favor of this queen and her bees that they valued
her at $200 for breeding purposes. Now, as I was fortunate enough
to get 100 granddaughters of this $200 queen, and have had those 100
queens in our apiary for three seasons, I am sure I know something
of their real value. First, we have had very few natural swarms from
those queens—I don’t think over 20 from the 100 colonies during the
three summers; and when extracting we have always had very heavy
combs from those bees, usually of nice light honey, even when our
buckwheat was in full bloom. I am sure, therefore, that the blood
we now have in our apiary, from that $200 red-clover queen, has given
us several tons of additional surplus honey. I have also had some
fine honey-gathering strains from other parties.

I wish now to speak of some queens I bought 16 years ago. I got
12 $1.00 queens from one of the principal queen-breeders at that time,
which I introduced into good colonies about June 1. Although it was
a good season I not only got no surplus from any of them, but had
to give five of the twelve hives some heavy combs of honey from other
colonies in order to carry them through the following winter. Twice
since then I have bought Italian queens that were but very little better.
Now, suppose our apiary had been stocked with such queens as those
last spring. If so, instead of our having over 35 tons of honey for sale
this fall, we should have had to buy several tons of sugar for feed.

How natural it would have been, if we had those miserable bees,
to lay all the blame on the poor season or on the poor location; or, if
some one had brought a few colonies of bees within five or six miles
of the apiary, how some would have growled about the infringement
on their territory, and the overstocked locality! Yes, my friends, too
many of you have allowed your bees to degenerate into a miserable
lot of hybrid mongrels that are not worth the room they occupy in
the bee-yard.

Young Italian queens reared from the very best honey-gathering
strains are now so cheap that I am very sure none of you can afford
to take your chances on going through another season with poor stock.
I will admit it takes some money and some work to requeen an apiary;
but if rightly done it will pay you well, even the first summer. Then
see what a fine yard you will have afterward.

In answering some of those other questions I will say, first, the
season is of more importance than any other one thing; then the strain
of bees; the management; and, after these, the location and some other

less important matters.
My friends, there is no luck and chance in bee-keeping. If your

bees don’t give you any surplus, pry into every thing connected with
them until you know the reason why. I can not understand how some
men can be so indifferent to the most vital parts of their business.

,

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 73

Above all things, don’t be discouraged when the losses come, as
come they will; let them find you more determined than ever to push
on until success and all its pleasures crown your years of labor.

February, 1905.

YELLOW VS. LEATHER COLORED ITALIANS.

A FEW WORDS IN FAVOR OF YELLOW ITALIANS; KEEPING THE BROOD-NEST CLEAR
OF HONEY TO MAKE ROOM FOR BROOD.

For some time many honey-producers have shown a preference for
the darker or leather-colored Italians. This would be all right if it
were not that they have a tendency to degenerate back to hybrids and
blacks when continued a few years. It is the same with bees as with
all our domestic stock. We must have a standard to work for, and the
color line seems to be very essential in our horses, cattle, swine, and
poultry. Now, if we fail to keep up to well-marked Italian bees as a
standard, then unprincipled queen-breeders can send us their hybrid
mismated queens; and we, not having any fixed standard as to color,
will have no chance to complain, as they can say they sent us queens
of their dark Italian strain.

I for one have my doubts if any of the dark strains of Italians
are superior to our three and four banded bees—that is, taking them
as a whole in large apiaries there are occasionally some exceptions in
each class; but one thing we must all admit; and that is, Italian bees are
far ahead of our blacks or hybrids in gathering honey; but in order
to acquire the best possible results we must give them in some respects
especial attention. Their never satisfied desire to gather honey causes
them to fill the brood-nest early in the season; but if this honey is
frequently removed so as to give the queen a chance to fill and keep
filled all the combs below the supers with maturing brood, then you
will soon have a large working force, and you are then quite sure to
get a nice surplus; but if you neglect to keep this honey out of the
brood-nest, then you will have a weak colony and little or no surplus,
which will cause you to become prejudiced against all yellow bees.

Next season make it your especial business to see every comb in
all your colonies before you put on your supers. See that each one
is full of brood from top to bottom and end to end; remember that
each square inch of capped honey in those breeding combs costs you
about 30 worker bees every 21 days.

The convenience and time saved in looking up twenty or more
queens a day, as we frequently do during the summer season, is quite
an item in favor of yellow bees. Some think these bees do not winter
as well as the darker ones. I find that, where this is the case, it is
caused by the Italian bees crowding the brood-nest with honsy in
August so as to stop all chance for breeding after Sept. 1; consequently
they go into winter quarters rather weak in bees; and those they do
have are mostly old and nearly used up. If you will remove two of
the heaviest combs about Sept. 1, and put in the center of the hive

74 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

two good empty breeding-combs the queen will fill them with brood,
and your colony will be much stronger and better in the spring.

Still another thing in favor of our yellow bees which is of more
importance than all other things combined is the fact that they are
almost immune to that destructive disease known as American foul
brood. Those of us living in this part of New York, who lost chou-
sands of colonies a few years ago from the effects of that disease, now
well how much we owe to those yellow Italian bees; for without -hem
the production of honey in this part of the state would be a thing of
the past. Sometimes I think the great loss we sustained was a hless-
ing in disguise, for now we have better bee-keepers, better bees, and
are securing far more surplus annually from our Italian bees than we
ever procured from the black and hybrid colonies we used to keep.

When dividing or forming nuclei it is frequently quite difficult to
keep the darker strains from returning to the old stand; but nut so
with the golden Italians. I find that, if they have some brood, or a
queen of any kind, they will stay wherever we put them. This is a
good point, and often saves much trouble; then they will defend their
hives from robber bees the best of any I have ever had.

Give these bees the special care they require and you will be sur-
prised at the good surplus you will receive during poor seasons. Almost
any bees will give us some surplus during a good season, but it is the
well-bred bees that give a surplus every year. They will find nectar
though they may have to go several miles for it.

Now don’t think we have either bees or queens for sale, as we have
not. I write the above only according to our experience in keeping
bees of all shades of color from the genuine black to the yellowest
Italian.

I might cite many more valuable traits that are well developed in
those yellow bees, such as having but little desire to swarm, and breed-
ing up fast in the spring. This is very much in their favor, as they
keep their brood so compact that comparatively few bees are required
to feed and keep it warm. Then it is easily proven that they cover a
much larger field in search of nectar than the darker strains. I have
often found them a mile or more further from home than the other
bees.

With our well-bred Italian bees we now have good stock to work
from; so let us unite in trying to improve them along the lines most
necessary in developing a superior all-purpose strain of bees. This can
be accomplished to a great extent in a short time; then bee-keeping
will become more reliable, more profitable, and a much pleasanter oc-
cupation. It has been a long hard task to free it from the rut of igno-
rance and superstition of past ages; but we have at last placed it well
forward among the intellectual pursuits of rural life; and now det us
be careful and take no step backward that will check its forward prog-
ress along with other successful agricultural pursuits.

March, 1908.

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 175

REARING QUEENS FOR HARLY INCREASE.

HOW TO UTILIZE UPPER STORIES AND PERFORATED ZINC FOR GETTING SEVERAL
QUEENS FERTILIZED FROM ONE COLONY; A SCHEME FOR GETTING
A LARGE AMOUNT OF BROOD.

First, by way of explanation, I will say that in order to do this, we
stimulate our bees by early feeding to early breeding, so we have many
strong colonies quite early in the season; and in recommending this
I am well aware that some very good bee-keepers prefer to have their
colonies only of medium strength until about the commencement of their
harvest for surplus. But as we handle our bees quite differently in
many ways from some, we try hard to have all the strong full colonies
we can as early as possible, and we seldom keep a queen after she is
two years old. We supersede them some time during their third sum-
mer. This necessitates killing about one-third every year.

Now, after taking them from their winter quarters we walk along
in front of our hives and count how many we have that are two years
old. This is very easily done, for the little tin tag on the front of each
hive tells us at a glance the age of the queen in the hive. These col-
onies we now give especial attention to, we feed them regularly, and
rather more at a time than we do the colonies that have younger queens.
We also frequently give them frames of hatching brood from other col-
onies, and at all times try to keep them as warm as we can. In this
way we have no trouble in building them up strong and full of brood
early in May; and while we are doing this we insert frames of comb
that have some drone comb in near the middle of the two or three
hives we wish to rear drones from to mate with our early queens.
This should be done about ten days before we start the rearing of
queen-cells. Then about May 15 we borrow the bees from several of
our strongest colonies for one day to start our queen-cells, as is now
practiced by Mr. Pratt, of Swarthmore, Pa., which I consider the finest
way to start the rearing of choice queens of any thing I have ever
tried, as we have to use these bees only one day, then we can give
them their queen and brood, which leaves them in about as good con-
dition as they were in before they were disturbed. When we counted
up our old queens we found we had about 200 to be superseded. Now,
this will require 400 young queens if we divide each one; then we
have about 100 colonies that have younger queens that we wish to divide.
They will require 100 more, so we find that we shall need some 500
young queens to make our increase and supersede our old queens.
Then we should allow about 50 for those that are lost, so we will start
the rearing of about 600 cells. We would much rather have more cells and
queens than we can use than to be short only a few. As soon as this
is done we go to half the colonies that have two-year-old queens and
kill their queens, also destroy any eggs or larve they may have in
any queen-cells. Then we go to the boxes that have our newly started
cells in, and take out five or six cells for each colony that has been

76 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

made queenless. These we insert near the center of their brood, and
they will soon build them out into as nice cells as we ever saw. Then
about two days before these cells are ready to hatch we kill the re
maining old queens; then we tier up with two hives of combs all the
queenless colonies we have. But be sure you divide the combs of brood
and honey that are in the hive below about equal so each one of the
three will have some brood and honey. Then insert one of these nearly
ripe queen cells into each one of the hives as they stand on top of each
other, and put a queen-excluder between each two hives; also have a
separate entrance for each hive that the queen may use when she
goes out to mate. You see, aside from the queen the colony has access
to each one of the three hives through the excluders. In this way
you will soon have three nice young laying queens in nearly every
colony that contained your old queens. Then to use up our surplus
queen-cells we form nuclei by taking one or two frames of honey or
brood and about a quart of bees, and put them into an empty hive,
and set them near the hive we take the brood and bees from so as to
give them back to the old colony as soon as the young queen is mated.
In this way we have no trouble in rearing and in having fertilized
all the young queens we care for to make our increase and supersede
all our old queens at the same time.

After you have practiced this method of rearing queens you will
have no trouble in having all you want ready for use for early increase
some time before there is any harvest of surplus honey in our Northern

States.
With us this method of rearing early queens is so easy that we

frequently have more than we can use. Sometimes we have 30 or
more full colonies in our apiary that contain two or three laying queens
each, nearly all summer, until we can find or make a place to use
them. They make a fine colony to draw brood from. When there are
two or three good queens in a three-story hive the bees all work from
one entrance as one colony; for as soon as the young queens commence to
lay we close up the entrance that was made for them to fly from, and
they all work together.

Some of you may want to know what I would do if my queens
were all young and I had none I cared to kill. In that case I would
do the same with the colonies as in the case with the old queens, only
I would save these younger queens in nuclei until I could use them in
making increase.

We manipulate our bees so much through May and June that it
is no uncommon thing for us to make 100 or more new colonies, mostly
nuclei, to-day, for some special purpose, and then in a few days unite
the most of them again with other colonies. We can do this very
easily, as we use our common hives and combs for all this work.

I have made some assertions as to what might be made from 100
colonies in a year providing we gave them the best of care. I have
received some letters that show the writers think I am in a tight place,

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 77

and can not rear the necessary queens in time to make as early increase
as I advise. To those doubting Thomases I wish to say that we can
rear twice aS many queens as is necessary to double our colonies before
June 10; and I assure you if you handled your bees as we sometimes
handle ours, all that I have ever claimed can be done. Many bee-keepers
seem to think that, if they set their bees out of the cellar about April
1, that is all there is to do until they hive some swarms and put on
their clamps of empty sections. We find about as much to do from
the time they are set out up to Aug. 1, when we commence to extract,
as we do when we are extracting; and there is no slack time. The
bees are kept busy every day, either to rear queens, make increase,
form nuclei, draw out foundation, or something that is necessary to be
done by them in order to be in proper condition for our August harvest.
We usually spend the last week in July uniting all weak colonies and
nuclei with stronger swarms so as to have the yard well cleaned up
of those that are not in condition to give us a good surplus. Then we can
give all our attention to extracting and caring for our surplus honey.

In conclusion let me assure you that there is not much danger of
having your colonies too strong in bees at any time if you will use
them as you should, for they are the principal factor in making your
business a success. We like them in the spring to rear those nice
early queens from. We like them to make our increase from. We
like them to get our surplus from. Yes, my friends, and there is a
pleasure in putting away good strong full colonies in their winter
quarters, as you would put money away in the bank to draw an income
from in the future.

May, 1906.

DO WEAK COLONIES HAVE GOOD QUEENS? WHEN TO REQUEEN; ATTITUDE OF
FARMERS TOWARD BEES.

I have been asked to answer the following question: “After weak
colonies are built up in the spring, according to your plan, do they
usually do as well as other colonies, or should their queens be super-
seded?”

In answer I will say that I have never had occasion to supersede
them oftener than other queens. With us all queens, when two years
old, are superseded unless it should be a very choice one. We usually
supersede queens for one of two reasons—either on account of their
arriving at the age limit, or when we buy bees, as we sometimes do,
they have queens of all ages and colors; then we supersede them as
soon as possible, and in their place introduce good well-bred Italian
queens.

I am often asked if it is not as well or better to buy our queens
in the fall, at a reduced price, than to buy them in early summer.
That depends wholly on the condition our colonies are in. If the old

78 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

queen is failing to keep her hive well filled with brood without any
apparent cause, then we supersede her in early summer; for if she
is kept until fall the colony will have but little brood, will be weak
in bees, and the young queen we give them will start so little brood
that the chances are the colony will be dead in the spring, or so weak
in bees that it will be almost worthless. But if the queens we wish
to supersede are in full strong colonies, with their hives well filled
with brood, then to buy queens in the fall for these colonies is all
right; and if the new queen does not start much brood she will still
have a good colony to winter in.

These are very important points that should never be overlooked in
superseding our queens. I want a queen to occupy the hive she is to
winter in at least 40 days before the breeding season closes. This
gives her time to become acquainted with the colony and fill the brood-
nest once or twice with brood. If we all look to this part of our
business as we should we shall have fewer weak colonies in the spring,
and in the end we shall have more surplus, and secure it with much
less labor.

Another question I am frequently asked is, “What is the opinion
of the farmers in your locality in regard to the effect of your bees
working on their buckwheat-fields?”

Some 25 years ago, when we came to Delanson, it was almost the
universal opinion that our bees would injure their buckwheat so as to
make the crop almost worthless, but the farmers soon changed their
ideas on the subject. The buckwheat here is all thrashed by men who
have thrashing-machines, and go from farm to farm thrashing the
grain for a stated price per bushel. These men soon noticed that, when
they came within three or three and a half miles of our apiaries the
yield of grain was much better than outside that circle; in fact, it
yielded sometimes nearly twice the amount per acre. This was a sur-
prise to some farmers. Their orchards also gave them much more
fruit. The change of opinion among them has been so complete that
they are now anxious to have our bees do well.

I sometimes wonder if there is any other business that has had
to go through the mire of ignorance and superstition equal to bee
keeping.

Still another question I am often asked is, ‘Will the greater part
of the honey in the future be produced by the specialist, or by men
who have other lines of business to follow in connection with bee-
keeping?”

In order to give this question any thing like a correct answer
we must not only go back and review the bee-keeping of the past, but
we must look upon it in the future as being subject to the same natural
laws and conditions as all other lines of business. For some time
we have seen a continual concentration of capital in every line of busi-
ness. The men who have a thorough knowledge of their business, and

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 79

an unlimited amount of capital, are fast driving the less fortunate out
of business, and I can not see how bee-keeping can be an exception.

When I was a boy a large part of our farmers kept a few colonies;
but now we seldom see any bees through the country except in large
apiaries. And the same change will continue to go on until there will
be comparatively few men engaged in the business, and these few will
be located in the exceptionally good locations, keeping their thousands
of colonies, and having the best of every thing connected with bee-
keeping that money can buy; and they will sell their surplus at whole
sale to reliable parties, giving them three or four months’ time if they
wish, which often makes quite a difference in the price favoring the
producer. There are many young men now starting in the business
who will in time drop out; but some will continue, and they are the
ones who will be the honey-producers of the future. They will first
work for men having had a long experience until they have a practical
knowledge of bee-keeping. Here, among other things, they will learn
the value and necessity of a good location. To these they will naturally
go, where, with their practical knowledge of the business, they can
produce honey at half the cost that the inexperienced man can in an
ordinary location.

May, 1908.

THE AGE OF DRONES; THE TWO-QUEEN SYSTEM.

In reference to the age of the drones, I will say that, in natural
swarming, we usually find the drone comb of a hive well filled with
brood capped, or about ready to cap, when the eggs are laid in the
queen-cells. This would show that in nature the greater number of
drones would hatch about the same time as the young queens or a few
days sooner. For our early queens, then, we use eggs from our breed-
ing-queen as soon as we find drone brood capped.

As to the number of our natural swarms, that depends much on the
season, also on the length of time from one extracting to another. ‘In
our apiary about six per cent of the colonies cast natural swarms.

In regard to keeping two or more laying queens in a colony at
the same time, and its effect on their swarming, according to our ex-
perience so far, it has wholly prevented it, as we have never yet had
a colony attempt to swarm that contained two or more laying queens
where each had free access to all parts of the hive.

We are now wintering a colony with seven two-year-old queens in it,
all loose in the cluster of bees. We saw and counted the queens a few
days before putting our bees in the cellar; and up to date, Jan. 30, we
have not found any dead queens under the cluster of that colony.

HOW LARGE NUMBERS OF QUEENS ARE INTRODUCED.

Another question I wish to answer, which many are inquiring
about, is how we introduce the 300 or 400 queens every year which our

80 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

system of management requires. This is one of the knottiest of ques-
tions, and one that has cost bee-kéepers thousands of valuable queens.
It has cost us so many that we now seldom try to introduce a queen
into a full colony. We would much rather have our young queens
hatch in what would be considered a small colony, and then as soon as
she commences to lay build it up in two or three days into a good
strong colony by giving them combs of hatching brood. In this way
we never lose a queen, whereas by the introducing method many times
the strange queen will be allowed to live only until she has laid eggs
four or five days, and the bees begin to have plenty of larve to rear
one from; then they will kill their queen and rear a young one in her
place. We have lost hundreds of valuable queens in just this way,
so for several years we have not introduced many queens into full
colonies except when we have a surplus that we hardly know what to
do with.

I think the day is not far distant when a large per cent of the
queens that are bought from queen-breeders will be bought in a nucleus,
and then built up into strong colonies by the purchaser. This is a fine
way to make increase, and at the same time procure choice queens
and avoid all loss and trouble in introducing. I think 100 good three
comb nuclei purchased in May, and properly cared for, will furnish
enough extracted honey during the season to pay their first cost.

If not convenient to get your queens in a nucleus, then introduce
them into small colonies that have no uncapped brood, especially if
the queen is a valuable one.

I think queen-breeders are often wrongfully accused of sending out
hybrid queens when the queen they sent was all right; but shortly after
she commenced to lay she was superseded by a young one reared from
her brood, which was mismated, and the purchaser never knew that
the queen he bought was killed shortly after she commenced to lay.

June, 1906.

PLURALITY OF QUEENS IN ONE HIVE.

IS IT PRACTICAL TO HAVE TWO OR MORE IN ONE COLONY DURING THE SUMMER
SEASON?

Yes, I think it is. With the ever pressing desire to increase our
surplus we are anxiously looking for new methods whereby we can
secure strong full colonies early in the season in order to take ad-
vantage of any flow of nectar that may come. This has caused us
to do some experimenting along the line of keeping two or more laying
queens in one colony. For several years we have known that laying
queens will never sting each other if they can possibly get away from
one another. This fact caused us to try some experiments along this
line, with the following results:

First, a great increase in the amount of brood was noticed in these
hives; in fact, they were so full of brood that but few cells were left

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 81

for honey or pollen; and when extracting-combs were put on top a
very large surplus was easily obtained. This fact alone was enough to
encourage us in testing this method still further. Then another result
from our experiments, so far as we have gone, is that we have never
had a colony with two or more laying queens show any desire to
swarm.

This is something we can not understand, as we expected these
strong full colonies to be the first to swarm. In order to see if we
could force one full colony last summer to swarm, we put 14 good laying
queens into it at one time, and in about two weeks we examined it
and found the 14 queens we had put in two weeks before, and their
own queen all in harmony together, with nearly every cell in their
combs containing brood; then during the rest of the season we used
this colony as a queen-nursery. Sometimes we would take three or
four queens from it to use in other colonies, and occasionally we put in
five or six at a time, and none were ever balled or stung. In fact,
there was no queen injured in any way in that hive during the season.
I have seen three or four on the same side of a comb crawling among
the bees, and whenever they would touch each other they would start
quick in an opposite direction.

VIRGINS RECALCITRANT.

Now, don’t think that you can handle virgin queens in this way,
for you can not. They will sting each other or a laying queen as soon
as they come together. There is not much you can do with virgin
queens until they are fertilized and commence laying; then their de-
sire to sting other queens is all gone. I have often kept two or three
laying queens under a common drinking-glass on the work-bench for a
number of days without their trying to sting each other.

The worst feature to overcome in giving our colonies two or more
laying queens is in knowing how to introduce them safely.

Last summer my son Frank discovered the most practical method
of introducing queens that I have ever heard of—a method whereby
over 90 per cent are safely introduced and laying within 18 hours from
the time the parent queen was removed. He wants to test this method
still further another season before giving it to the readers of GLEAN-
ines; then if it still works as well as it has with us in the past there
will be no trouble in giving our colonies as many laying queens as we
may desire. If so, it will be another advance made in modern bee-
keeping.

’ I can already see several advantages in keeping two or more queens
in one colony. First, in requeening we would have to remove only the
oldest queen. Next, our hives would be kept very full of brood, which
would give us strong colonies, and there would be no more complaint
about our bees storing too much honey in the brood-nest. Then, for
some unaccountable reason, it does seem to prevent the desire to swarm;
and with colonies that contain nearly twice the usual working force

82. ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

we certainly would secure a much larger surplus. Our experiments
so far along this line have been so encouraging that I expect to test
it thoroughly another summer. I really enjoy testing and working
out new methods, and I am thankful I have sons who can fill my place
when I am gone. The young honey-producers of the future can not
afford to remain long in the ruts we older men have made, but with
renewed perseverance they must push forward until they have made
great improvements over many methods now in use.

In the above I have given our experience so far as we have gone
on this subject. Had my health last summer been so I could have
tested this more thoroughly as to its bearing on natural swarming I
should have done so; but as it was, I could do but little. To me it does
not look reasonable that, to increase the number of queens in a hive,
would in any way prevent the colony from a desire to swarm; but still
it is barely possible that it may.

A particular friend of mine has been anxious for me to give our
experience on this subject to the public, so that others could test it also
this coming summer; otherwise I would not have written this article
before another fall, for I have always made it a rule to write nothing
but what I was perfectly sure was fact, and for that reason I desired to
test this whole subject another summer before making it public. I ex-
pect this new method, in common with some others I have given, will
be tried in a bungling way by a few bee-keepers so that there will be
no possibility of its being a success in their hands. Then these parties
will be the first to send in their reports condemning the whole thing.
But, fortunately, this class is but small, and is daily growing less. This
is encouraging; and when we all do the best we can we hope to leave

the world the better for our having lived.
April, 1907.

PART VI
Wintering

LATE FALL FEEDING.

ITS ADVANTAGES; HOW 200 COLONIES WERE FED A SUFFICIENT AMOUNT OF
WARM SYRUP TO LAST THEM THROUGH THE WINTER; WHY
SUGAR SYRUP SHOULD BE SUBSTITUTED
FOR HONEY.

It is only a few years since the necessity of feeding bees in the fall
was looked upon as the result of inexcusable negligence in the manage-
ment. But time and experience are changing many methods, and we are
fast learning that bee-keeping to-day is a very different business from
that of years ago.

While visiting one of the most extensive honey-producers of New
York, he told me that he and his father had for several years fed every
one of the 1500 or 2000 colonies they had, just before putting them
away for winter. They gave each one about 20 lbs. of sugar syrup with-
out regard to the amount of honey the hives contained. This syrup
was made from granulated sugar in the proportion of 2 lbs. of sugar to
1 of water. This was boiled until well dissolved, when about % lb. of
tartaric acid was added to every 100 lbs. of sugar. From their exten-
sive experience in feeding tons of sugar to thousands of colonies they
told me it was a much safer and a better winter food than any honey
their bees had ever gathered.

The principal fault with all honey that I am acquainted with, except
basswood, is that it contains some pollen that is carried into the honey-
cups of the flowers by the wind or by insects, and then it is taken out
with the nectar and becomes mixed with the honey, where it has a very
injurious effect on the bees during the winter. This pollen is very no-
ticeable in our large honey-tanks when they are nearly full of extracted
honey, as it rises to the top, forming a scum sometimes two inches thick.
This, when mixed with the winter stores, is quite likely to cause dysen-
tery before the bees are taken from their winter quarters in the spring.

Now, with sugar syrup, since there is no foreign substance it is
practically all digested, and the bees come from their winter quarters
dry and clean, leaving no marks on the snow or their hives after their
long confinement. This one advantage derived from sugar syrup, of it-
self alone, would far more than pay for the trouble of late fall feeding.

But there is another advantage gained by substituting sugar syrup
in the place of honey. If it requires about 20 lbs. of honey to winter a
colony, this additional surplus would be worth at wholesale about $1.50.
Now, in its place, if we used 14 Ibs. of sugar to make 21 lbs. of very thick

84 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

syrup, costing about 75 cents, or half the amount the honey will bring,
there is a saving of over $400 in an apiary of 600 colonies. Besides the
bees are given a much safer au etter winter food.

We have been so well pleased with our experience along this line,
and the experience of these noted bee-keepers, that we are now winter-
ing some 200 colonies almost wholly on sugar syrup.

The first important part is a convenient feeder, one that will hold
at one time all the feed necessary for one colony. This we made by
taking 50 of our outside telescope caps, having a rim 2 inches deep all
around. The inside of these we gave a good coating of hot parafine
wax, which prevents the syrup from penetrating into the wood, and
also stops leaking. These caps are % inch larger each way inside than
the hive is outside.

We put a suitable float to prevent the bees from drowning in the
warm syrup, and also put two cleats across inside the feeder for the
hive to rest on; then about sundown we took these 50 cap feeders and
set one properly leveled up near each hive we wanted to feed. With the
syrup as hot as the bees could stand we poured into the feeder the
amount we thought the colony required, then, carefully lifting the hive
from its bottom-board, we set it inside the feeder directly over the warm
syrup, and tue job was done. The bees at once went down into the
feeder and removed all the syrup long before morning; so the next
day all we had to do was to set the hives back on their bottom-boards
and place the 50 feeders ready to feed 50 more colonies the following
night. After we had the syrup ready it required only about half an
hour for my son and myself to feed 50 colonies. In four evenings, be-
tween sundown and dark, we had the 200 colonies all fed, and not a
spoonful of syrup was wasted nor a handful of bees lost.

This feeding was done on quite cold frosty nights about Oct. 25.

Now, if we were feeding in early fall for the purpose of brood-
rearing it would be necessary to feed much thinner syrup, and only two
or three pounds a day, about the same as we would feed in the spring
in order to stimulate brood-rearing.

Every year’s experience convinces me more and more of the im-
portance of feeding our bees at certain times of the year. We as honey-
producers have sadly neglected this important part of our business.

There are many of us who neglect to do certain things both useful
and necessary for the welfare of ourselves and bees, simply because we
have no convenient and quick way to do the work. In feeding these 200
colonies I have just mentioned, if we had been obliged to feed them in
our small spring feeders holding only about 2 lbs. each, we should have
had an elephant on our hands; and the feeding, if done at all, would
have required two weeks or more, as the bees would hardly have entered

a small feeder so late in the season.
The principal advantage in late fall feeding is to have the bees

store the syrup in and around the cluster where they have removed the
honey during the last of their breeding in the fall; then this is first con-

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 85

sumed by the bees during the winter; and by the time they commence
to use their honey they are out of the cellar, and can frequently fly; so
if their honey contains pollen, or is otherwise of poor quality, it can do
them no harm.

I think the time is near at hand when the successful honey-producer
will substitute sugar syrup for honey as a winter food wherever bees
require a cellar for winter protection. In order to compete success-
fully with many that are now well established in the production of
honey, it is necessary for us to be ever ready to take advantage of any
thing that will add to our income, even though it may require the in-
vesting of some money at first.

We must certainly sow before we can expect to reap. This applies
as truly to bee-keeping as to any other line of business.

January, 1908.

°

CELLAR WINTERING.

IS MOISTURE A DETRIMENT OR A BENEFIT? A CASE WHERE MANY COLONIES DIED
BECAUSE OF A LACK OF MOISTURE; DISTURBANCE DETRIMENTAL,
MID-WINTER FLIGHTS NOT ADVISED.

During the past few years there has been quite a change in che
opinion of many bee-keepers on this particular point in wintering their
bees. There is one thing, however, that we can all agree on; and that
is, a wet cellar, with poor ventilation and a low temperature, is the
worst place that bees can possibly be put in to winter; and some of us
have found out, from long and costly experience, that a wet cellar, if
properly ventilated, and kept at a temperature varying only from 44
to 48 degrees, is the best place that can possibly be made for perfect
wintering.

With these dearly learned facts fresh in our minds, a year ago
we built a model bee-cellar, 24x40 feet in size, which will give ample
room for 1000 colonies, and at the same time give us a walk through
the center from one end to the other. This is very handy in putting
them in, in the fall, or taking them out in the spring; but its principal
value is allowing a circulation of fresh air through the center of the cellar.
We remove the bottom-boards from our hives, and set them directly
over each other, with four one-inch blocks between the hives. They
rest on racks 8 inches high from the floor, which is covered with about
3 inches of chaff or planer-shavings. This makes a nice covering to
the floor, and enables us to walk among the hives without making any
noise or jarring them in the least. It also prevents smashing any
bees on the floor, which makes it much easier to clean up after they
are taken out in the spring. The under course of hives rests on the
cleats of a bottom-board turned wrong side up. This gives ten inches
of space from the under part of the lower hive to the floor, which
allows a fine chance for fresh air to circulate over the bottom of the

86 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

whole cellar. You will also notice that, where we have left the under
cover on, we raise it from the hive and put a piece of section under
it, forming a little crack for the foul air in the hive to pass off. But
we prefer a piece of light canvas over the top without the under cover
on. In order to test this thoroughly, last winter we left some hives
with both canvas and under cover on, as you will notice in the photo.

This cellar was built late last fall, and the walls were laid up
with stone and Portland cement. It is 6% feet between floors, and has
about a foot of space under the floor, which is of matched lumber.
Under this are two drains which convey water out all winter. The
walls were very wet during the whole winter, as we had no time for
them to dry, putting the bees in only one week after they were finished.
Then in addition to these wet walls we put a building over it of green
lumber, with a roof of galvanized iron. The floor over the cellar was
of matched lumber, and double, with building paper between. This
kept the cellar very warm with so many colonies in it; but with the
perfect ventilation we gave it the bees came through the winter in
as fine condition as I ever saw bees wintered, and only 2 hives out of
725 showed a spot of dysentery, although the bees were in the cellar
from the 11th to the 14th of November until April 18th.

Last winter we had very changeable weather here. The tempera-
ture outdoors varied from 20 degrees below zero to 72 above—a varia-
tion of 92 degrees—while in the cellar it changed only from 44 degrees
to 52, or a variation of 8 degrees. This 44-degree temperature inside
lasted only about 24 hours, and was caused by a temperature of 20
below zero outside for two days, and the wind blowing a perfect gale.
We kept a thermometer in the cellar, and could seldom find the tem-
perature change more than one degree either way from 46.

In speaking of moisture in our cellar I often think of a bit of ex-
perience I had many years ago. I put 250 colonies in the driest cellar
I ever saw. It was under a dwelling-house where two fires were kept
burning nearly all the time. A short time after we put the bees in
they became very uneasy, many leaving their hives and flying about
the room. I had made a large tight room inside the cellar, of matched
lumber, and put a plank floor in it. I kept the temperature about 45
degrees, but still the bees became more and more restless, and, when
taken out in the spring, I shoveled up 14% bushels of dead bees. That
was the worst wintering I ever had, and it was a sight to see those
that lived through the winter go to wet places after water as soon as
they had a chance to fly. It seemed as if every bee went for water
before it returned to its hive. Their honey was so dry and gummy
that the bees could hardly eat it until it had been moistened with the
water they got outside. The dead bees on the floor were so dry that,
if you gave a handful a squeeze, they would crumble up almost as fine
as corn meal.

Since my experience that winter I have changed my mind very much
in regard to wintering bees in a dry cellar. The best success we have ever

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 87

had was in cellars where there was running water, and the temperature
kept at from 45 to 48 degrees. Many years ago, when father Quinby
used to meet with us at our conventions, this wintering question was
frequently brought up; and it was the opinion of us all at that time
that, if a hive were made with double walls, and well protected on the
top so the bees could keep the inside of their hive warm at all times,
then they would winter well in a cellar at a temperature just above
the freezing-point. But if we used single-walled hives with their bot-
tom-boards removed, and on top had only a piece of cloth over the
bees, then we must keep our cellars at from 45 to 48 degrees tempera-
ture, otherwise we might expect to have our bees somewhat affected
with dysentery long before spring; and I am still of the opinion that
the construction of the hives we use has much to do with the necessary
temperature of our bee-cellars. Two very important requirements are
perfect quiet and total darkness. These we can have much better in
a cellar built in a side hill, expressly for our bees, than we can possibly
have under our dwelling-houses. I think the amount of honey that is
saved where bees are kept perfectly quiet will go a long way in three
or four years toward paying the expense of building a special cellar.

Shortly after putting our bees away last fall I noticed a small bunch
had gathered on top of one of the upper hives directly over the cluster.
There was only a piece of canvas between the cluster in the hive and
this little bunch on top. The canvas was well coated with propolis on
the under side, and was tight all around, and had no holes in it so
one bee could feed another, but still they lived without any thing to
eat until the 10th of January, when I disturbed them so that they scat-
tered themselves over the hive, and some crawled down and in at the
bottom. I think there were about 30 bees in this little bunch, and
I am sure they had nothing to eat for nearly two months unless their
honey-sacs were full when they clustered on top. I speak of this inci-
dent to show that, if our bees can be kept at a proper temperature,
and perfectly quiet, and so dark that the whole winter seems like one
long night, it requires but little honey to take them through the time
that they are confined in the cellar.

Now in regard to giving them a mid-winter flight, I am not at all
in favor of it unless they are suffering with dysentery caused either by
improper food or too low a temperature and bad ventilation. Several
times I have set some out for a mid-winter flight on a nice day, but
usually lost about all that were so treated. The principal trouble is
that, after they are returned to the cellar, they never again quiet down
and form a compact cluster as they do if not disturbed.

Last winter, about Feb. 1, we thought it best to put mats on about
200 colonies that had been left with the under covers on; and, although
we had the floor covered with about three inches of chaff, as we always
do to prevent any jar or noise when going into the cellar, and we
handled them as carefully as possible with but little light, it disturbed
these colonies so that they were quite uneasy for the rest of the winter,

88 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

and wasted more than twice as much as the bees in the other hives
did that were not disturbed. Another thing I wish to speak of in con-
nection with wintering is this:

Many leave their bees out too late in the fall. Last fall we put
300 colonies in our new cellar, Nov. 11, and they had had no good
chance to fly for over two weeks. The 12th of November was a warm
bright day, and the 425 colonies left in the yard had a good flight all
day. These we put into the cellar on the 14th; and when taken out in
the spring they were in no way any better than those put in on the
11th, although they had had a fine flight some three weeks later than
the others; so don’t leave them out to waste away, as they always do
with these cold nights of early winter. If we would all realize the
importance of having our bees well prepared for winter early in the
season, and then be careful and not disturb them any more than can
possibly be prevented until they are carried out of their winter quarters
in the spring, our winter and spring losses will be much smaller than
they usually are.

When our bee-cellars can be ventilated in the proper way it is
one of the most essential things connected with successful wintering.
But when done as it frequently is, it is the ruination of thousands of
colonies, being one of the principal causes of spring dwindling in its
worst form.

January, 1907.

LOAF SUGAR FOR WINTER FEEDING.
QUEEN-CAGE CANDY NOT SUITABLE.

I once found 200 or 300 light colonies late in the season, with not
more than enough honey for 30 or 40, then I resorted to all kinds of
feeding imaginable. At one time I made a large amount of candy, from
honey and sugar, and had very bad results. It melted and daubed up
nearly 100 colonies so every one died.

Oh, dear! it makes me now feel bad to think of it; but I kept on
trying one way and another until at last I struck what I still think is
the easiest, quickest, and best way to feed light colonies, either late in
the fall or mid-winter, of any way I have ever tried or heard of. It is
this:

Make some rims two inches deep, and the size of your hive on top;
then take off whatever covering you have over the tops of the frames of
combs, and put on one of these rims. Then fill this rim with cut-loaf
sugar—the kind that is in cubes about one inch square. Mboisten this
sugar by sprinkling a very little warm water on it, then cover the sugar
with cloth mats so as to retain all the heat from the bees below, that
you can, and the bees will soon come up into this rim of sugar, every
one that can, and cluster in it and eat it as they require until spring. I
have fed a great many colonies in this way, and never lost one. They

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 89

usually come through the winter in fine condition, even though they
had only two or three pounds of honey in their hives in the fall.

One winter I fed two barrels of sugar in this way, with good re-
sults.

Those of you who have light colonies to feed in cold weather, please
try this method of feeding; and if you are as successful as we have
always been you will never again try to make any candy for winter
feeding.

We used to feed some sugar in this way after they were taken from
the cellar in the spring, but we now prefer feeding a thin liquid syrup
in our feeders for stimulating brood-rearing.

The colonies we have fed with loaf sugar as above described have
always been in the cellar. It might not work quite as well outdoors in
very cold weather. Still, if they were well covered up I think it would
be a safe way to feed.

Feeding in any way in cold weather is rather poor bee-keeping;
but it can be done as above stated, with but little trouble and seldom
any loss.

March, 1907.

THE EFFECT OF DISTURBANCE; HOW TO MANAGE SO THAT THERE WILL BE BUT
FEW DEAD BEES ON THE FLOOR.

It seems rather strange to me that any one should question the
importance of perfect quiet in bee-cellars during the long cold months
of the northern winters. I think our experiences must be taking di-
verging lines. For a long time I have thought that this subject of per-
fect quiet was one upon which we could all agree, but it seems there is
a difference of opinion even here.

Now, before entering into an argument I will admit that there are
certain times when the conditions are such that a disturbance among
the bees is not in the least harmful. For instance, the disturbing in-
fluence of the sun on a warm balmy day in early November, even though
it causes every bee in the colony to take a fly, can not be considered
detrimental; but if on a cool cloudy day we open the hive witu a snap
and a jar, using smoke to enable us to replace the light combs with
combs of honey, thus breaking up the winter cluster, causing the bees
to fill themselves with honey, then certainly we have sown the seed of
winter losses and spring dwindling. And, while it might not do our
bees much harm to enter their cellar and quietly remove the dead
bees from the floor, I do think it would be a great mistake to take off
the bottom-boards and tops with a sudden jar, and then carry the hive-
bodies to another part of the cellar, using smoke to keep the bees in,
causing them to gorge themselves with honey. Then carefully sliding
a dish holding a pound of warm honey under the cluster of a colony,
and withdrawing from the cellar as soon as possible, might disturb them
but little, as but comparatively few bees would be engaged in taking up

90 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

the honey. But if you remove some of the center combs, and pour
the honey into them, returning these wet combs to their hive, causing
all the bees to fill themselves with honey, and to scatter through the
hive, then again there would be cause for future restlessness and loss.

The injurious effects of disturbing bees in winter depends to a great
extent upon how often and to what an extent it is practiced. When
we wintered our bees in the cellar of our dwelling-house, with four
rollicking children playing over them, it was no uncommon thing for
many colonies to be badly affected with dysentery in February and
March. Then it was “Hobson’s choice” to leave them in the cellar and
see them waste away and die, or set them out for a fly and have the
most of them die after they were put back, for the bees never again
quieted down into a compact cluster, but continued restless and uneasy
until they were set out to stay.

In regard to the effect of a continued jarring noise over a cellar
of bees, as in the the case of The A. I. Root Co.’s bee-cellar under the
machine-shop, I would say that I have always believed this disturbance
was very closely related to the necessity of so many mid-winter flights.

As to giving bees a sleighride of fifty or sixty miles in mid-winter,
I am quite sure that there are not many that would care to have their
bees handled in that way for much less than their actual value. I have
brought home on a sleigh bees that I bought in the winter, and then
put them into a cellar; but without a single exception J had to set
them out early in the spring in order to save them. Bees handled in
that way never will stand five months or more of confinement. I have
never thought that it did any particular harm to enter a bee-cellar
occasionally for a few minutes, if as little noise is made as possible.

But when from any cause a disturbance is made in winter to the
extent that the cluster is broken up and the bees get frightened, filling
themselves with honey, then because of the unnatural condition, they
are injured very much and only a chance to fly will restore them to a
normal state.

We have to-day, March 28, 750 colonies in our cellar, and the bees
are so still with the thermometer at 45° that, when I entered this morn-
ing with a lamp, it was almost impossible to hear the least noise, and
there seems to be less than 4 quarts of dead bees in the cellar, and
not a spot of dysentery on any hive.

I have given many years of study to learn how to keep bees through
a fivemonths’ winter in that way, and I must say that, if there is any
one thing connected with cellar wintering that has more to do with
success than any other, aside from good food, it is perfect quiet. When
we take a hive from the cellar with only about a pint of live bees, and
see about four or five quarts of dead bees around it, we can hardly say
that that colony lived through the winter; but when they can be placed
on their summer stands after 160 days’ confinement, apparently as strong
as they were Nov. 1, then we can say we know something about win-
tering. This has been done, is being done, and can be done when they
are kept quiet. But it will be a long time before it can be accom-
plished where they are subjected to harsh disturbance during long north-
ern winters. September, 1907.

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 91
VENTILATING OUR BEE-CELLARS.

There are but few things connected with the wintering of our bees
that elicit such a difference of opinion as the ventilating of our bee
cellars. While it is true that bees have been and are frequently win-
tered in cellars that have little or no ventilation, it is also true that,
in these, we usually find the combs badly molded, honey thin and watery,
and the bees somewhat affected with dysentery, and far from a healthy
condition when taken out. Certainly it is contrary to natural law to
confine our bees under ground five months or more, compelling them to
breathe the same air over and over thousands of times, and then expect
them to remain in a healthy condition so as to stand the ever change-
able weather of our spring season.

In constructing our building we had several objects in view. First,
and one of the most important, was to give the cellar proper ventilation;
next, to give us a large room above to do our extracting in, and store
our surplus hives of extracting-combs and many other things connected
with the business. Then we wanted a tank-room where we could have
our honey-tanks so arranged that, in a moment, we could turn the honey
directly from the extractor into either tank; then we wanted a shop
where we could make hives and do all kinds of odd jobs, such as mak-
ing beeswax into comb foundation, grafting larve for queen-cells, which
should always be done in a warm room, and, lastly, plenty of room to
store a large crop of honey in until sold.

First, I will describe the building, which is 24 feet wide and 56
feet long. The longest way is north and south. The cellar occupies
24x40 feet of the ground floor at the north end; then the tank-room
occupies 16x24 feet of the south end, and its floor is on the same level
with the cellar floor. This room has four doors in it—one wide door
opening into the south end of the cellar; also one wide outside door in
the south end of the building where we roll out the barrels of honey
into the wagon when we ship. Then we have a door on each side of
this room, which comes very handy to carry bees in and out of the
cellar from the lower part of the bee-yard by putting screens on these
two doors; and by leaving them open we get a fine current of air through
the tank-room, which has much to do with ripening and thickening the
honey. The cellar also has an outside door at the northeast corner,
where the greater number of colonies are carried in and out. The shop
part is on the upper floor, which is level with the floor of the extracting-
Toom, and is 16x24 feet.

This extracting-room or store-room is 24x40 feet; and directly over
the cellar in the floor of it we have four trap-doors about 10 feet apart,
in size 2x2% feet, directly over the bees. These we can easily open
to any size of hole from a little crack to the whole space, 2x2% feet,
which allows all impure air to pass off into the large room above. We
can also put a quilt in the place of the large door at the south end of
the cellar, which gives fine ventilation into the tank-room and up the
stairway into the shop, and up a garret. We have two pipe-holes in
the chimney, one of which is always open, and makes a strong current
of all foul air out of the building. This steady and gradual ventilation
of the cellar into these two large rooms, one at the end and the other
directly over the cellar, keeps the air as fresh and healthy where the
bees are as it is outdoors.

With this way of ventilating the cellar it is never necessary to
open any outside doors, letting in cool fresh air, which will arouse a
whole cellar of bees to the extent that they never again become quiet,
and form themselves into a nice compact cluster, as they should to go
through the latter part of the winter without loss.

92 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

We were surprised last spring to see how few bees wasted away
while they were confined in the cellar. The average loss was less than
% pint to the colony, and that with a confinement of over five months.
Every additional year’s experience in wintering a large number of col-
onies convinces me more and more of the vital importance of giving
them a pure healthy atmosphere during these long northern winters.

I often think that, if those who have gone to much expense
building bee-cellars, and putting in ventilating-pipes conveying the air
directly from outdoors in among their bees had only realized how much
better it would have been to have had this air first tempered, as it
were, by being a short time in an adjoining room, they would soon have
changed their ideas in regard to ventilation. But here is the rock that
shattered their faith in ventilation. When they saw this current of
ever changing temperature from outside kept their bees restless and
uneasy they went to the other extreme and closed up all ventilators in
disgust, and have ever since been prejudiced against ventilating their
bee-cellars.

This is one of the questions we bee-kKeepers have studied on for
many years; and it does seem strange that it took us so long to see
the great difference in results when our bees were ventilated by giving
them fresh air directly from the outside or from adjoining rooms. The
first has almost invariably done far more harm than good, while the
second has given us the very best results we could possibly ask for,
keeping our bees quiet and contented clear into the spring, so that it
is not necessary to disturb them until the flowers are again ready for
them to work on. I sometimes think how much easier it would be it
we could look ahead and shun these hard problems of life; but then it
is much better as it is, for it is through their study that our perse-
verance is developed, and in this way we are ever passing to a higher
and a more intellectual plane.

With the continually changing weather of last winter it would have
been almost impossible for us to prevent a very heavy loss of bees had
we depended on opening outside doors to ventilate or cool off our cellar;
for every time this is done it excites and disturbs every colony.

There are many things to take into consideration in order to winter
our bees successfully. Many neglect putting their bees in proper con-
dition as they should, early in the fall. I think this should be done
before Oct. 1. Every colony should have a good queen not over fifteen
months old; also a good sized colony of bees with at least 20 pounds
of honey. This amount is sufficient if they are wintered in a good cellar,
and you expect to do some feeding in the spring to stimulate early
breeding, which is very essential in order to secure a surplus of early
honey. But if you don’t expect to feed any in the spring, then 30 pounds
or more is better to carry them through to another season.

In the above I forgot to say that, during the winter, we close the
inside blinds of all the windows in the room above the cellar, and the
tank-room at the end. This makes these two rooms as dark as mid-
night, and with the trap-doors partially open, and the doorway into the
tank-room covered with a light quilt, there is an even temperature of
pure air at all times in the cellar, which keeps the bees as quiet as
death, and with them it is like one long unchanging night from the
day they are put away until they are carried out in the spring.

In conclusion, let me advise you by all means, when you build your
bee-cellar, not to stop until you have a good substantial building over
it—one that will extend either past the end or side of the cellar suffi-
cient to hold a few thousand cubic feet of fresh air; then ventilate the
cellar into these rooms, and you will have the whole wintering problem
solved. January, 1907.

PART VII

Bee Diseases

HOW TO RID YOUR APIARY OF BLACK OR EUROPEAN FOUL BROOD.

A CURE THAT IS EASILY AND CHEAPLY APPLIED WITHOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF
COMBS, BEES, HIVES, OR UTENSILS.

This has been one of the hardest problems for me to solve that I
have ever met in bee-keeping. For three years we tried every thing in
the line of disinfectants that we could hear of, also putting our bees
on foundation, which did but little good. Some of the things we tried
seemed to help at first to check its deadly work; but in a short time
it would show itself again as bad as before; and so the years went by
while we lost nearly our entire honey crop and over a thousand colonies
before we got the first sign of a cure, and even then it was so simple
it seemed like a drowning man catching at straws. But I kept at the
little proof I had until I developed it into a perfect cure. Then for
three years we tested it thoroughly on hundreds of colonies, so that we
could be sure it was a cure which could be depended on.

This cure is on the line of introducing new blood into the apiary,
which will necessitate getting a choice Italian breeding-queen, one of
the best honey-gathering strains that can be procured. For this special
purpose I prefer quite yellow Italians. Now for the cure.

Go to every diseased colony you have and build it up either by
giving frames of maturing brood or uniting two or more until you have
them fairly strong. After this, go over every one and remove the queen;
then in nine days go over them again, and be sure to destroy every
maturing queen-cell, or virgin if any have hatched. Then go to your
pbreeding-queen and take enough of her newly hatched larve to rear
enough queen-cells from to supply each one of your diseased queenless
colonies with a ripe queen-cell or virgin just hatched. These are to be
introduced to your diseased colonies on the twentieth day after you
have removed their old queen, and not one hour sooner, for upon this
very point your whole success depends; for your young queen must
not commence to lay until three or four days after the last of the old
brood is hatched, or 27 days from the time you remove the old queen.
If you are very careful about this matter of time between the last of
the old brood hatching and the young queen commencing to lay, you
will find the bees will clean out their breeding-combs for this young
queen, so that she will fill them with as fine healthy brood as a hive
ever contained. This I have seen in several hundred hives, and have
never seen a cell of the disease in a hive after being treated as above
described.

94 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

It is not necessary to remove any of the combs or honey from the
diseased colony; neither is it necessary to disinfect any thing about the
hive. Simply remove the old queen, and be sure the young queen does
not commence to lay until three or four days after the old brood is all
hatched. This treatment with young Italian queens is a perfect cure
for black or European foul brood.

In regard to those old queens that were formerly in your old hives,
I think it best to kill them when you first take them from their colo-
nies—not that the queen is responsible for the disease, for I am sure
she is not; but a young Italian queen that has been reared from a choice
honey-gathering strain is worth so much more to you that I can not
advise saving these old queens.

I have experimented along this line considerably, and found, after
the colony has been without a queen 27 days, as above directed, it
will usually be safe to give them one of these old queens, and the cure
will be the same. Still, there have been exceptions, so I advise killing
them at once.

Now a few words about your breeding-queen. Buy one of the very
best you can for this purpose; for upon her real merits rests the true
value of your apiary hereafter. I would buy a three-comb nucleus with
this valuable queen, so as to run no risk in introducing her to a fuil
colony.

Now, my friends, don’t let another season pass without cleansing
your apiary of this disease, and also at the same time requeen it with
young Italian queens so you will not only harvest a fair crop of honey
next summer, but will have an apiary that you will be proud of and
take pleasure in showing to your friends. I know many of you have
become discouraged in trying to rid your apiaries of this fatal disease;
but that does not help matters any. The only proper thing to do when
these troubles do come is to face them with a determination to over-
come any and every obstacle that comes in your way; then when suc-
cess rewards you for your perseverance, how pleasant it is to look back
over the past and realize that you have accomplished all you labored
for! I hope that you who have this disease in your apiaries will give
this treatment a thorough trial next season.

November, 1905.

EUROPEAN VS. AMERICAN FOUL BROOD.

THE CURE GIVEN NEVER INTENDED FOR AMERICAN FOUL BROOD; THE BEES NOT
ABLE TO REMOVE LARVAE, DISEASED WITH AMERICAN FOUL
BROOD, FROM THE CELLS; THE TWO DIS-
EASES COMPARED.

I do wish I could impress on the minds of all beekeepers that I
have never recommended any cure for American foul brood, and I wish
to have it nuderstood that I don’t think that, up to the present time,
there has ever been a comb that was affected by American foul brood

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 95

cured of that disease. You might as soon expect a colony of bees to
clean out their combs if filled with paint as to expect them to be able
to remove the rotten larve from American foul-brood combs. I will
admit that there are some things seemingly about the same in European
foul brood and American foul brood, but in other respects they are no
more alike than the mildest case of bowel trouble and the Asiatic
cholera.

Many bee-keepers are continually speaking and writing of these two
diseases as one and the same. Now, if it were not for the young and
inexperienced bee-keeper I would not notice this mixing up of a very
important matter. Then when my critics go still further and speak of
the cure I recommended for European foul brood as failing to cure
American foul brood, and in that way belittle that cure when I from
the first wrote that I did not think it of any use for American foul
brood, they do me injustice. You might as well expect to cure Ameri-
can foul brood by throwing a cup of cold water in the grass in front
of your hives as to expect to cure it by requeening as I recommended
for European foul brood.

The reason why American foul brood has never been cleaned out of
a comb is because a larva that dies from that disease is so much like
glue that the bees can not remove it in its soft state; and before it
dries down it penetrates with its spores into the cocoons of the cell
until it becomes a part of the comb itself, where it can not be reached
by any disinfectants, nor removed by the bees. Such infected cell be-
comes ever afterward worthless to rear brood in. But not so with Euro-
pean foul brood. Even in its very worst stages, after the larva dies
with this disease it soon dries up and cleaves from the cell, and is easily
removed by the bees; consequently the cell is soon ready for anothe~
egg which often matures into a healthy bee.

Another point of difference is, a larva affected with American foul
brood seldom dies until about old enough to be capped over, or after
it is capped by the bees, while a larva dying from the effect of European
foul brood seldom lives to be capped over, as it usually dies when from
two to four days old. There is only one course of treatment for Ameri-
can foul brood, that is of any use. This is now known as the McEvoy
treatment. That is, to remove the bees from their combs and put them
on comb-foundation starters, and in two or three days remove them
again to full frames of foundation. This treatment will save the bees,
but is no cure for the combs, which are worthless except for wax. Fif-
teen years fighting this disease forty years ago, when this part of New
York State was badly affected by it, gave me lots of experience. At
that time I lost several hundred colonies with American foul brood, as
we had no foundation then to use, and our only way was to cut out the
combs as fast as it appeared and melt them up, and let the bees build
new combs again. We cut the combs across just above the brood, leav-
ing the honey in the hive with a strip of comb as a starter to build
on. We did not then think the honey diseased, but I now know it was

96 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

with American foul brood; but with European foul brood I have my
doubts as to the honey being affected.

I have given many combs of honey from colonies badly diseased
‘with European foul brood to healthy colonies, and have never seen a
‘case where it had a bad effect. This fact, and that of the honey, combs,
cand pollen of a colony badly affected with European foul brood becom-
ing perfectly healthy when requeened with a young virgin, as I recom-
mended in my cure for European foul brood, is strong evidence that
the honey is not the means of spreading this disease. It is very easy
to cure an apiary of European foul brood; but the old American foul
brood is incurable. As I said before, you can save the bees by the
McEvoy treatment, but you can not save the combs.

I am well aware that on some points in the above I am crossing
swords with those who are considered good authority; but on this sub-
ject in question I write the same as on other subjects, simply from long
and extensive experience. I don’t take any thing as fact until I have
thoroughly tested it on at least 50 or 100 colonies for two or more years.
This jumping at conclusions because some one says so and so, I think
but very little of.

European foul brood will spread much faster through an apiary
than American foul brood, and kill the brood quicker than any other
disease that I ever dealt with. Coming as it does before the colonies
become very strong in the spring, it soon reduces them to a mere hand-
ful of discouraged bees unable to accomplish any thing, and it is hard
for their owner to realize that he will ever again have strong healthy
colonies in those hives.

But don’t be discouraged. I have been through it all, and what
we have done you can do. All that is necessary is to follow the plan
I recommended, and you will in a short time have as strong healthy col-
onies as you ever saw.

When we had this disease, black and hybrid bees were about the
only ones affected. I sometimes think that, if the apiaries of some bee-
keepers were attacked with this disease it would be a blessing in dis-
guise, for it would necessitate requeening their colonies at once with
some good honey-gathering strain of Italian bees; and if this were done
about the first of June these requeened colonies would be in a fine
healthy condition for an August harvest; and then with a good working
force of Italian bees their owner would secure a larger surplus than he
could possibly have had if it were not for requeening to cure the dis-
ease. I think these black and hybrid bees cost us nearly all we can
get from them, and what they lack in squaring accounts with honey
they make up in stinging and boiling over and under their hives when
one attempts to handle them.

February, 1907.

Addendum

PLURALITY OF QUEENS IN ONE HIVE NOT A SUCCESS.

Having had numerous inquiries from previous editions of this work
concerning the plan mentioned on page 80 of this edition, for having
more than one queen in a hive, we may say that, while Mr. Alexander,
expert bee-keeper that he was, actually worked the scheme, we have
since learned that not one bee-keeper in five hundred among the vet-
erans is able to keep more than one queen in a hive after the honey-
flow is over. It is quite a common occurrence to find mother and
daughter in one hive at the same time. In that case the old queen
is failing, and there seems to be a sort of “agreement” on the part
of all parties concerned, bees and queens alike, that the old queen
shall stay in the hive as long as she can do any egg-laying; but as
the fall comes on, the old mother becomes conspicuous by her absence.

A few have been successful in working a plurality of queens in
one colony at a time when conditions were just right. In the height
of a heavy honey-flow, for example, the bees will tolerate a plurality
of queens for a short time, or as long as honey is coming in freely;
but in nearly all cases, as soon as the honey-flow stops all the queens
will be missing but one. The fact that practically all of our best bee-
keepers in the United States and Europe who have tried to work the
plurality-queen system have failed, goes to show that the average
beginner at least better not waste any time on it.

We have also had a good many calls for Mr. Alexander’s son’s
method for introducing several queens to a colony. Mr. A., shortly
before his death, described in Gleanings, page 1136 for 1907, the method
as follows:

First, prepare a small bex, about five or six inches square, by boring
a half-inch hole in one end. This you will for the present close, then re-
move a part of its two sides and cover with wire cloth so as to ventilate it
well. This we call our introducing-box. Take this box and a common queen-
cage to the colony to which you wish to introduce your choice queen, or sev-
eral of them, in fact; remove its combs and put its queen, without any bees,
into the queen-cage you have. While doing this shake about a pint of bees
of the colony into the introducing-box. Close it and take all their combs
from the colony. These can be placed on top of almost any hive until next
day. The hive now made broodless, fill about half full of combs containing
some honey but no brood. Leave the colony alone until about sundown.
after which it will show distress over the loss of its queen and brood. Now
take the box of bees to the honey-house, and at the same time the queen,
but don’t set them near each other. The bees in the little box will soon miss
their queen and have lots of trouble.

After they have been confined about five hours prepare some warm

thin honey, placing it in a dish so that, by laying the box on one side, the
bees can easily reach the honey through the wire cloth, but can not daub

98 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE

themselves with it. Leave them this way until you are sure that every bee
in the box is as full of honey as it can be, then give them a little shake and
remove the cover from the hole in the end of the box (remember it is about
five hours since they were confined in the box), and let run in any number
of queens you wish, including their own mother. Now return them to their
dish of honey so they can help themselves to all they can eat until about
sundown; then take this introducing-box with its bees and queens to the
hive from which you took the bees and their queen in the morning; set
them to one side and feed the colony all you can induce it to eat. Remove
some of its combs and pour in some of the honey you have heen feeding to
the bees in the box. Shake some of this honey out of its combs on these
bees, so every one will soon be full. Now remove the cover of the introducing-
box and set the box in the hive alongside the combs. Close up the top of
the hive, and in the morning all the bees and queens will be clustered on
the combs, and some of the queens will have commenced to lay. You can
now give them the brood you took away from them the day before, or let
them fill their combs with eggs, which five queens will do in three or four
days. That is all there is of it.

Now why is this method a success? First, because the bees have been
a few hours without their queen and brood; next, a small part of their colony
was confined in a box and filled with honey for several hours before the
strange queens were given them; then those bees and these queens were shut
up long enough together to become all of the same odor before they were
given to the colony.

There are some things in this method that must not be overlooked.
You first confine enough bees in the introducing-box to give to the queens
you introduce the same scent as the colony is, to which you intend to put
them; then the whole colony has been queenless and broodless for a few
hours, and you have fed them in the box all they could hold before giving
them these queens, and you have also fed the colony all they could eat before
they received the queens and their bees. I find bees, like men, are better-
natured when their stomachs are full.

BOOKS ON BEE-KEEPING

The bee-keeper who would be down-to-date and progressive will find in
a recount of the experiences of others the very suggestions he needs for
saving time and money. Very few other occupations have been blest with
so many well written books covering the pursuit in its many different phases.
To bee-keepers are offered authoritative works at a minimum of expense
and the opportunity to gain knowledge in this satisfying way should not
be neglected.

For the benefit of those who wish to purchase other books on bee-
keeping—covering the subject in a general way or some phase of the work
in particular—we have compiled the following list. These books may be
had at the prices named from THE A. I. ROOT CO., Medina, Ohio, the
publishers of the volume in which this announcement appears, or from
dealers in bee-keepers’ supplies everywhere.

THE ABC AND XY Z OF BEE CULTURE

A. I. and E. R. Root. The latest edition of this work is
the most complete of any bee-book that has ever been
issued in the English language. While it is for the be-
ginner, it may be read with profit by the advanced bee-
keeper. Its sale is so large that neither time nor money
are spared to keep this book fully abreast with the times.
In the latest edition some scientific and technical matter
as well as the practical has been added to its pages. It
has been most carefully edited and revised. Its authors
and publissers feel that, more than ever, it is a safe and
reliable guide to bee-keeping. Nearly 130,000 copies in the
English language alone have been sold. It has been
translated into French and German.

In this edition there is a large number of half-tone
reproductions from what might be called moving-pictures,
showing various steps in the processes for handling bees.
While a detailed description goes with the separate views
showing each step, yet one can almost learn how to
handle bees by simply looking at the series of photographs. Under the
head of “Frames, to Manipulate,’ for example, there are a large number
of new engravings that show not only the method of handling frames but
handling hives and bees in such a way as to do the work with the greatest
economy of labor, with few or no stings, and with but little fatigue.

The new methods of queen-rearing have been carefully reviewed, and
the main points incorporated in the new edition, so that the practical bee-
keeper who possesses a copy will have the best ideas of the subject con-
stantly by his side for reference.

The new methods of wax-production are treated in an exhaustive fashion;
and as this subject is now of more importance than formerly, more space
has been devoted to it.

The new power-driven automatic extractors are amply illustrated and
described. The subject of diseases has received entirely new treatment to
keep pace with new discoveries of the last few years. The laws relating
to bees have for the first time received full treatment. No other bee-book
treats of this very important subject. The divisible-brood-chamber hive
and the subject of swarm control have received special attention. Honey,
sugar, nectar, and glucose, written up by a United States government chem-
ist, are carefully defined in accordance with the demands of our new pure-
food laws.

The authors have traveled thousands of miles in the United States,
with notebook and camera, and have endeavored to incorporate in the pages
of this volume all the latest and best practices known to the professional
and amateur bee-keepers. There is scarcely a practical method or device
known to the bee-keepers of the country that is not here described. Be-
sides the immense amount of valuable material gathered through extensive
travel, the work has been enriched with the choicest material that has ap-
peared in the columns of Gleanings in Bee Culture, an illustrated semi-
monthly by the same authors.

Besides the matter relating to methods and devices, the book contains
a complete dictionary of apicultural terms, and a picture-gallery comprising
a list of the choicest illustrations that have appeared in Gleanings in Bee
Culture for the last ten years.

Prices, cloth bound, $1.50; full leather, $2.50; half leather, $2.25. When
sent by freight or express, 25 cents less. The editions bound in full and
half leather include the bee-models, with key, bound in.

FOREIGN EDITIONS OF THE A B C.—Carefully translated editions of
this complete cyclopedia of bee-keeping may now be had in the German
and French languages. The German edition (A B C DER BIENENZUCHT)
sells for $2.00 in paper and $2.50 in cloth binding. In French (A B C de
L’APICULTURE) may be had in cloth for $2. By freight or express deduct
20 cents from the above prices.

OTHER PRACTICAL WORKS ON BEES.

The books mentioned on this page are all devoted to practical bee culture,
although a few of them, as will be noted by their descriptions, have more
or less scientific value. A somewhat careful reading of the descriptions
below will undoubtedly show any one just what book will suit him best.
If several books are to be selected covering a wide range of subjects, the
following list may be helpful in deciding what you want: A BC and X Y Z
of Bee Culture (see preceding page), Langstroth on the Honey-bee, Ad-
vanced Bee Culture. Or this list: How to Keep Bees, Forty Years among
the Bees, A Modern Bee Farm.

LANGSTROTH ON THE HONEY-BEE.
By C. P. Dadant. The bee-keeper who
does not like this book is hard to suit.
The present volume is termed the ‘“‘Twen-
tieth Century Edition,’ and contains a
vast fund of information on all subjects
relating to practical bee culture. It has
long been recognized as a standard work,
and should be found in the library of
every progressive bee-keeper. It is well
illustrated, and has 575 pages. Price by
mail, $1.25; by freight or express, 15 cts.
less.

FORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES.
By Dr. C. C. Miller. This is another
standard book of 300 pages and 100 illus-
trations, written by a specialist with_an
experience of more than forty years. The
author has read not only all of the liter-
ature on bees published in this country,
but much of that published in Europe,
and is a recognized authority. Price by
mail, $1.00; by freight or express, 10 cts.
less.

MANUAL OF THE APIARY. By Prof.
A. J. Cook. This _is a very complete
treatise on bees and bee-keeping, and is
particularly valuable where one is inter-
ested in the anatomy and physiology of

the bee, which has been very completely
covered in this work. It is also val-
uable for its chapter on honey-plants, or
bee botany; 540 pages with good illustra-
tions. Price by mail, $1.15; 15 cts. less
by freight or express.

DOOLITTLE'S QUEEN - REARING.
This is practically the only comprehensive
book on queen-rearing now in print. It is
looked upon by many as the foundation
of modern methods of raising queens
wholesale. Mr. Doolittle has an enter-
taining way of writing on bee subjects
which enables his readers to follow him
with pleasure, even if they never intend
to raise queens at all. Cloth bound, 124
pages, $1.00 postpaid; by freight or ex-
press, 6 cts. less.

QUINBY’S NEW BEE-KEEPING. By

C. Root. A modern edition of that
early volume on bees entitled ‘‘Quinby’s
Mysteries,’’ revised some years ago by a
well-known bee-keeper, a son-in-law of
the original writer. Mr. Quinby was a
practical bee-keeper, and greatly assisted
Mr. Langstroth in laying the foundation
of American apiculture. For this rea-
son it should be read by all bee-keepers
who want to know of the early work in

bee-keeping. Cloth bound, 270 pages, by
erg $1.00; by freight or express, 10 cts.
ess.

ADVANCED BEE CULTURE. By W.
Z. Hutchinson; Revised Edition. This is
@ very unusual work—we might say in-
dispensable to any one who is thinking
seriously of becoming a specialist in api-
culture. The author himself has been a
specialist and right down to the present
time he is in closest touch with these
methods; and nothing now in print could
be of more benefit to the practical bee-
keeper than this book. It is fully illus-
trated, well printed, and is sure to please.
Price by mail, $1.00; 10 cts. less by freight
or express.

HOW TO KEEP BEES. By Anna
Botsford Comstock. This is a charmingly
written manual for amateurs, describing
in the clearest language all necessary de-
tails. The authoress combines enthusi-
asm, literary ability, and a knowledge of
pee-keeping into a goodly volume. Hav-
ing herself made a start in the bee-busi-
ness, she fully appreciates the perplex-
ities of the situation and makes provision
accordingly. The book is well suited to
the wants of the suburbanite who wishes
a hobby which will give something by
way of return for labor and capital ex-
pended, or those who wish to keep only
a small apiary either for pleasure or
profit. If there is any better book than
this for the purpose indicated, we do not
know of it. Cloth bound, 228 pages, $1.00
HostDetas by freight or express, 10 cts.
ess.

BIGGLE BEE-BOOK. This is a very
neat cloth-bound book, well printed and
illustrated. It is 5% by 4 inches, by %
inch thick—just right to carry in the
pocket. It is just the thing for the busy
man who would like to get a birdseye
view of bee-keeping, and who has not
the time to read the more comprehensive
works. The book is boiled down, con-
taining only the best_ practices known.
Price by mail, 50 cts.; 5 cents less if sent
by freight or express.

A MODERN BEE-FARM. By Simmins,
is one of those books which will cause you
to sit up and take notice if you are a
real live bee-keeper with lots of formic
acid in your blood. The author is an
English bee-keeper of note, who not only
knows and understands bee culture in his
own home land, but is as well an earnest
student of American apicultural methods.
He is not very orthodox in his views,
but his book is all the better for that,
seeing he wants to take us out of the
ruts. You can read the book right
straight through as it runs along like a
narrative or a novel. Cloth bound, 430
pages, 1904; price $2.00 postpaid; by
freight or express, 15 cts. less.

BRITISH BEE-KEEPERS’ GUIDE
BOOK. By T. W. Cowan. This is the
leading English work on practical bee-
keeping in England, and as such has had
an immense sale. The work is condensed
into 179 pages, handsomely bound and
well illustrated. Price $1.00 by mail; by
freight or express, 5 cts. less.

THE IRISH BEE-GUIDE, by Digges,
is, as its name implies, a guide to the
pbee-keeping industry of Ireland. This is
a closely printed, well-bound book of 220
pages with excellent illustrations on fine
paper. It would be useful to any one who
wishes to become acquainted with the
status of bee-keeping in the old land.
Price $1.00 postpaid; by freight or ex-
press, 5 cts. less.

THE HONEY BEE. By T. W. Cowan.
A complete scientific treatise on the
honey bee, its natural history, anatomy
and physiology, by one of the foremost
writers on apiculture. More than 200
pages—nearly 150 illustrations. Bound
in substantial cloth, $1.00 postpaid.

WAX-CRAFT. By Thomas William
Cowan. No bee-keeper of any pretensions
can afford to be without one book on
beeswax. This is the only book on _ the
subject in English. Price by mail, $1.00;
by freight or express, 5 cts. less.

These books may be obtained from the
publishers of this volume or from dealers
in bee-keepers’ supplies everywhere.

POPULAR WORKS ON BEE CULTURE

The following books are for the most part by writers of well-known literary
ability, and are very interesting indeed, and are greatly valued by bee-keepers and
others for their literary merit, and the popular style in which bee-keeping is
depicted, and we are very glad to have the opportunity to offer them to bee-keep-

ers and others.

The description of each work will give a fair idea of the same,

but a pamphlet giving an extended view of these and the practical books on bee
culture listed in the preceding columns will be sent on application.

THE CHILDREN’S STORY OF THE
BEE. By S. L. Bensusan, London. This
volume was written for children, and the
author endeavors to tell the story of the
bee before a youthful audience as com-
pletely as possible under the circum-
stances. It traces the life of the drones,
queen and worker from the egg to the

final destiny of each, telling the story of
each in a semi-fanciful, entertaining way.
At the same time, the book gives a very
clear idea of its life, and will appeal
strongly to all who know but little about
these interesting insects. It has 250
pages. Price $2.00; 10 cts. less by freight
or express,

THE HONEY-MAKERS. By Miss
Margaret W. Morley. This is the story
of the life of the bee, told in very inter-
esting style—how it lives, gathers honey,
and all about it. While clothing the
general subject with an air of poetry, it
seems to be entirely within the limits of
known facts while attempting to deal
with them. We believe it will give all
thoughtful bee-keepers a greater liking
for their business to read it. Probably
it has more to do with the curious tra-
ditions connected with bees than any
other book of the kind. Price $1.50 post-
paid.

THE LIFE OF THE BEE. By Maeter-
linck. This is a masterpiece of fine writ-
ing by a modern Shakespeare. The words
fly from the pen of this writer like sparks
from a blacksmith’s anvil, the result be-
ing a_ glorification of the honey-bee.
Maeterlinck is considered by many to be
the finest writer now living, and any-
thing from him is sure to be worth read-
ing. He is, to a certain extent, familiar
with bee-keeping, but the truth about
bees does not interest him so much as the
romance of the queen and the drone and
the swarming instinct. The book itself
is well bound and beautifully printed.
Price $1.40 postpaid.

THE BEE PEOPLE. A book on bees,
especially for children, from the pen of
Margaret W. Morley. Including its ele-
gant illustrations, it is in some respects,
the prettiest bee-book in existence. It
has 177 pages, very coarse print, the read-
ing being ingeniously interwoven with
the illustrations showing the parts of the
bee. The story of bee-life is told in a
fascinating manner, and is well calculated
to get the casual reader, as well as chil-
dren, interested in this useful insect. The
euts go just enough into detail to explain
fully the lesson taught, without confus-
ing the mind with other things. We
think the book well worthy a place in
every bee-keeper’s home. Fittingly de-
signed cover. Price $1.50 postpaid.

THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE.
By Tickner Edwards. A fine work for
those who desire an_ interesting book
about bees. Does not deal with practical
details, but gives valuable information
about bees in general. Very readable and
entertaining. Price $2.00 postpaid.

THE GLEANINGS LIBRARY.

So called because of great popularity
of the following books when offered in
combination with Gleanings in Bee Cul-
ture.

ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRAC-
TICAL BEE CULTURE. By the late E.
W. Alexander, who conducted the largest
apiary in the United States. A wonder-
fully interesting discussion of bee-keep-
ing in its broadest phases. Any one can
understand it. 35 chapters, 95 pages.
Paper bound, 50 cts. postpaid.

A YEAR’S WORK_ IN AN _OUT-
APIARY. By G. M. Doolittle. Packed
full of most valuable information ever
given to bee-keepers. A practical and
interesting book by a _ very successful

apiarist. Sale has reached nearly 5,000
copies. 60 pages, paper bound, 50 cts.
postpaid.

THE TOWNSEND BEE BOOK. By E.
D. Townsend. Written by one of the
most progressive, successful and exten-
sive bee-keepers in the U. S. this new
book has been in great demand from the
day of its announcement. Tells how to
make a start with bees, and will greatly
benefit beginners and experienced bee-
keepers. 90 pages, paper bound, 50 cts.
postpaid.

In Combination With Gleanings in Bee
Culture for One Year either of the above
Books may be had for the price of
Gleanings alone, $1. Foreign postage 60
es extra. Canadian postage 30 cts. ex-
ra.

THE BEE-KEEPERS TEN-CENT
LIBRARY.

The following books are neatly bound
in paper, well illustrated. Just the thing
for beginners to help them with their
troubles. Price 10 cts. each postpaid.

No. 1. BEE-KEEPERS’ DICTIONARY.
It helps a beginner or one who is_ not
acquainted with the literature of bee-
keeping to understand the different terms
used by writers on the subject. A refer-
ence work giving clear definitions of cur-
rent terms.

No. 5. TRANSFERRING BEES. Prac-
tical methods of transferring from boxes
to modern hives.

No. 11. WINTERING BEES. The prob-
lems of wintering bees in different locali-
ties and suggestions for their solution.

No. 16. MODERN QUEEN-REARING.
Detailing the latest methods, by leading
breeders, embracing the best of several
systems.

No. 17. HABITS OF THE HONEY-
BEE. A condensed account of the life
and habits of the bee in simple language.

No. 21. FACTS ABOUT BEES. Just
what its name indicates. A very popular book-
let of 60 pages containing a complete description
of the Danzenbaker hive, and instructions for
its management.

No. 29. MOVING AND SHIPPING
BEES. Full of helpful suggestions on a
subject in which many bee-keepers are
interested.

No. 30. THE BEE-KEEPER AND
THE FRUIT-GROWER. Why and how
their interests are mutual.

These books may be obtained from the
publishers of this volume or from dealers
in bee-keepers’ supplies everywhere.