84 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Eeb. 



pres<mt one, but won't do at all such as last in this 

 section. An experience of 20 years has satisfied me 

 that a cellar is the only safe place to winter bees in 

 tlilg climate. A good swarm in a proper cellar, 

 packed with chafi" above the brood-chamber, and 

 raised from bottom-board on inch blocks, with tem- 

 perature 40°, will winter 99 times in 100. 



G. T. Wheeler. 

 Mexico, Oswego Co., N. Y., Jan. 11, 1883. 



Now, are you sure they would not winter 

 outside, friend W., with the largre amount of 

 ventilation you have mentioned in your con- 

 cluding clauseV Also, will they winter well 

 In the cellar during an open winter like this? 

 If not, I presume we had better put half in- 

 to the cellar, and the other half out, as has 

 been suggested. 



SKUNK CABBAGE, AGAIN. 



Friend Doolittle, in his remarks about skunk cab- 

 bage, on page 587, Gleanings, does not do it justice. 

 He says it has a tiny ball and produces only pollen. 

 This is a mistake, or his kind of skunk cabbage is 

 different from that in this country. The ball, or 

 bloom-bud, is from 3 to 7 inches in length, and from 

 1 to 3 inches in diameter; and as the sheath opens 

 wide, and is not in any way attached to the bud- 

 stock, a bee can not roll around in it. I have seen 

 as high as a dozen bees on one bloom at the same 

 time, gathering honey and pollen. I have examined 

 many bees from these blooms with well-filled sacks. 

 I have also seen the bees gathering honey off these 

 flowers without filling these baskets with pollen. 

 The leaves of this plant are from 3 to 4 ft. long; oft- 

 en 4 or 5 blooms come up from one plant; one bud 

 is in bloom about 3 weeks; when the bloom is shed 

 it leaves a beautiful cone resembling a pine-apple, 

 and retains its beauty about two months, Avhen it 

 ripens, and the seeds shell off, leaving a cob-like 

 stem. It is a honey-plant, beyond question, and a 

 good one. W. E. McWilli. 



Waldport, Benton Co., Oregon, Dec. 27, 1881. 



ADULTERATION OF WHITE SUGAR, ETC. 



I bought some white sugar from a respectable 

 firm in Springfield, at 10 cts. per lb., and on examin- 

 ation 1 found it to taste and compare exactly with 

 some A coffee and grape sugar, equal quantities, 

 mixed by myself. What will come next? Are not 

 some of those big yields of honey made in this way? 



Joseph Garst. 



Springfield, Clarke Co., O., Jan. 13, 1883. 



If you bought the sugar from a respectable 

 firm, friend C, by all means go back and in- 

 form them, that they may inform the parties 

 from whom they bought, and have the fraud 

 stopped at once. I do not believe any great 

 yields of honey are made from such sugar ; 

 but still, it might perhaps be, if we have 

 bee-men bad enough to undertake it. Buy 

 only granulated sugar, and you are safe. 

 AVhile Prof. Cook was here he suggested a 

 way of testing the sweetening powers of su- 

 gar. Those who drink coffee generally know 

 how large a spoonful it takes to bring the 

 •degree of sweetness they prefer ; well, let 

 them try pure granulated ; if they have not 

 been used to sugar as good as this, they will 

 probably get it too sweet. After they have 

 determined how much it needs, try the 

 cheaper sugars, and you can in this way tell 

 which sugar is the cheapest to use. Again : 



After having sweetened your coffee just 

 right, put some maple molasses on your 

 buckwheat cakes, and you will find your 

 coffee has apparently lost its sweetness. Try 

 samples of syrups of commerce, largely 

 adulterated with glucose, and your coffee 

 will not be injured at all, because glucose 

 has so little sweetening power compared 

 with cane sugar. If you try honey and ma- 

 ple molasses in the same way, you will find 

 honey has not nearly the sweetening power 

 of the molasses, and this shows why iioney 

 is not profitable for cooking purposes. 



THE "LONG IDEA" HIVE; ONE FRIEND WHO STICKS 

 TO IT STILL. 



I am one of your oldest subscribers, and have read 

 Gleanings from its infancy, and have tried to fol- 

 low you perhaps a little too closely. I came near de- 

 serting last spring, however, and denouncing Mr. 

 Townley for ever inventing chaff for bees, when we 

 found it was not suiRcient protection for such a cold 

 winter. Our bees are mostly in the cellar now, and 

 I wish they had been loft on the summer stand, for 

 we are having a very warm December (the mercury 

 indicated 53° in the shade to-day), and it is some 

 trouble to keep them quiet; so after all I believe 

 you were about right when, on page 273, vol. 4, you 

 gave us the first description of a chaff hive. But I 

 must say, I can not learn to like the Langstroth 

 frame, and I have tried hard. Bees winter just aa 

 well in them, I know from experience; but there is 

 no hive that suits me as well as the long Standard or 

 Adair hive you advocated a few years ago. We had 

 the best part of our buildings burned the 4th of last 

 May, and we were so pressed with work that someof 

 our swarms were allowed to fill t^iose long hives, and 

 then a half-story, or tier of sections, was placed on 

 top, and they filed them, and did not swarm. This 

 is on the same principle as D. A. Jones's hive, only 

 the entrance is in the side of his. If we do not want 

 so much extracted honey, we can use side-storing 

 sections, and then we will have the Doolittle system. 



Ila Michbner. 



Low Banks, Ont., Can , Dec. 23, 1881. 



MELTING WAX BY STEAM. 



Vv^ill you please describe to us how you have your 

 tank fixed for heating and keeping wax at the right 

 temperature? We want to heat by steam, and 

 would like your advice as to how to do so. How 

 large should the tank be, so we could dip all day? 

 Kenton, O., Jan. 13, 1883, Smith & Smith, 



We use now nothing but our ordinary ex- 

 tractor-cans for both the dipping and melt- 

 ing boilers— the 17-inch tall cans, such as 

 we use for Langstroth frames. The wax is 

 kept hot by a coil of gas-pipe in the bottom 

 of the tanks. This coil of pipe we made 

 cheaply by taking a piece of gas-pipe, I out- 

 side, and getting our blacksmith to coil it in 

 a fiat coil, by repeated heating. The coils 

 are about an inch apart ; and when placed 

 in the can, one end rises from the center, 

 and the other from the outside of the coil. 

 After the pippi passes through both of the 

 tin cans, or boilers, it goes outside the build- 

 ing, and blows the condensed steam out in- 

 to the air, A globe valve regulates the 

 amount of steam let on, so as to control the 

 heat of the wax, to the fraction of a degree. 

 The boiler in which the w^ax is melted has 



