File:American bee journal (1914) (17494904914).jpg

Title: American bee journal
Identifier: americanbeejourn541914hami (find matches)
Year: 1861 (1860s)
Authors:
Subjects: Bee culture; Bees
Publisher: (Hamilton, Ill. , etc. , Dadant & Sons)
Contributing Library: UMass Amherst Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: UMass Amherst Libraries

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December, 1914. 411 Amarlcan liQe Journal
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DAILY WEIGHING A COLONY AT NOON BY COUNT VISCONTI talked of America, her rapid growth, her succ-ss and her hopeful future. He said: " I love everything American, except the men who put their feet on the table or spit on the floors." Per- haps he had read Dickens' American Xotes. If Dickens were to come back to life and make the trip again, he would see a great improvement in America on this score. But we still have room for improvement. When we left our friends that eve- ning, with the expectation of taking the train for Venice the next morning, we agreed to meet them at Bologna on Sept. 8. In order that we might not miss each other. Dr. Triaca instructed us to call for them at the dining-room of the Bologna railroad station, where they would await us. Their train was to arrive a little earlier than ours. In that city was to be the finest of our bee visits. It will be the subject of the next letter. Contributed Articles^ Queen Etiquette—Some Com- ments on Introductions BY ARTHUR C. MILLER. THE American Bee Journal for Octo- ber has sev ral things to say about introducing queens, and Miss Wilson particularly emphasizes her failure with my method. (So far as I know now it is my own develop- ment, but some one may have preceded me though I have found no record of it.) Nothing is infallible, but a method which works most of the time is good for something. The new way is far ahead of the cage plan in percent of sufccess, and when the short time the colony is queenless is considered, and the simplicity of the operation is taken into account, the plan is far ahead of any other way I know. I have beeii at a loss to understand why some of the " experts " in bee cul- ture have failed while many of th novices, as well as others more in the veteran class, have no trouble. The method is so absurdly simple that it seems as if any one could un- derstand it, and yet I fear that it is its very simplicity which bothers the vet- erans. They have for so long gone through so many motions to accom- plish simple things that they cannot divest themselves of them. That they are influenced by past ideas and prac- tices I will show by'the following quo- tations. Mr. Byer says : " One colony was given a particularly hard smoking so as to be sitn- of results." He evi- dently thought he knew more about it than the originator who said, " Don't use much smoke." He got the " re- sults " and just what I could have told him—failure. Miss Wilson says: "It has been ex- plained that the secret of success of the plan is that under cover of the smoke the queen immediately rushes through the outer wall of the bees into the center of the cluster where she is safe." Where on earth that came from I do not know. It certainly was not from my pen. There is no " outer wall" nor does the queen do any " rushing." Mr. Hand says: "Two methods of odor transmission, the smoke method and the cage method, both of which were described in Doolittle's book on queen-rearing published more than a quarter of a century ago." The two methods referred to date back nearly 200 years by record, and how much be- fore that I do not know. The smoke method as there described was often given in the press years before Mr. D.'s book was written, much on the subject following the publication of Simmins' "Direct Introduction" in 1882, which was seven years before Mr. D.'s book was published. Mr. Hand, I fear, is not up on the history of the art. Coupled with the confusion caused bv mixing old ideas or others' ideas with my instructions is also the diffi- culty some people have of following instructions. In the bee world I be- lieve no small part of this is due to the carelessness of expression and use of terms found in the bee press, something which Dr. Miller has been combating for years, but to what purpose ? Read this from the editorial page of the October American Bee Journal: "A reasonable amount of lower ventilation and a heavy cushion of absoi-bcnls pr,'venting drafts but allowing the csia/ie of moisture as does a woolen blanket over a man's body, etc. (my italics). Is comment neces- sary ? Carelessness of expression be- gets a looseness of interpretation, and the habitual reader of such writing is prone to give his own views to the sub- ject in hand and fail to get the author's no matter how carefully expressed. If you are going to try a thing at all try it as the author gives it. and be sure you understand his method. .Ifter- ivards put on as many of your own frills as you choose, but don't reverse the order and blame the author for something he did not say. Mr. Byer failed because he used too much smoke. Had he taken into ac- count the effect of varying quantities and qualities of smoke on bees he

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