THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



51 



ililc, Imt not i>i-iic( icniilc way prolifaltlo, 

 tor tlio coninu'i-fi;!! (iiu'on-broeder, to 

 irar jjooil (luooiis with onl5' a toacup- 

 t'ul of IxH^s. He adds thai a iXvo-.M 

 mass of hoes is not I ho only roiiuiro- 

 moiit for soeurin.n' .u'ood quoons. He 

 o.\i)orinioiit(Hl last suinnior by rearhig 

 quooiis from ids most vigorous stock, 

 with half a bushol of boos In a colony. 

 Ho secured rousing great cells, and 

 the most utterly worthless queens that 

 he ever had. He had purposely om- 

 initted the sine qua non. After further 

 e.xperimenting. Mr. Miller expects to 

 tell us more about the latter. 



»«^"*^«».*^«'^ 



To stop robber bees from following 

 the apiarist from hive to hive, in doing 

 necessary work when no honey is com- 

 ing in. Mr. C W. Post, at the Ontario 

 convention, recommended setting out 

 some smeared combs for the bees to 

 clean up. They become busy at that, 

 as in a honey-flow, and do not bother 

 during the rest of that day. 



Mr. Holtermann objected on the score 

 of the danger of spreading foul bx'ood, 

 and described a permanent portico he 

 has on his hives. A wire screen can 

 be slipped into grooves in the front, 

 thus confining tlie bees of eacli hive 

 to their own "porch." These portico 

 screens are useful Avlien moving bees, 

 and, also, in a case of tliis kind, if 

 they are put on in tlie morning, no 

 robber bees can leave liome that day. 

 Early queen-clipping, or late extract- 

 ing, or other work necessary when no 

 lioney is coming in. can be done with- 

 out tlie annoyance or danger of rob- 

 bers. 



r««^<^^m^«*» 



BEES WILI. NOT EAT GLUCOSE. 



Glucose can not be fed to bees un- 

 less it is so largely mixed with honey 

 that such feeding would not afford 

 er.ough profit to make it worth wliile. 

 At the Chicago conventiou Mr. N. E. 



Fr;ince said that he once Inved a 

 swarm on dry condjs. conlined them 

 to the liive, and left them without 

 food for 21 hours. They were then 

 offered glucose, and allowed access to 

 it for 24 liours. It remained un- 

 touched. One-fourth honey was then 

 added. Still the mixture was untast- 

 ed. He then added another one-fourth 

 of lioney, making equal parts of honey 

 and glucose. The bees would now 

 take enough to sustain life, but no 

 more. Otliers liave tried feeding glu- 

 cose to bees and failed. This sliows 

 that the stories aliout glucose-fed 

 comb lioney are all canards. 



•^■■^••^•■'■"s' 



PEAR BLIGHT AND BEES, 



Some one has sent me a California 

 paper containing a notice by Charles 

 Downing, in Avhicli he warns bee-keep- 

 ers to Iceep their l)ees out of his or- 

 chard until sucli time as the fruit has 

 set, as he proposes to adopt as effec- 

 tive measures as possible to prevent 

 the destruction of the coming crop. 



In tlie same mail came a letter from 

 Mr. Daniel Lesser, of Johnstown, N. 

 Y., in which he states that he has a 

 Clapp's Favorite pear tree in his or- 

 chard that blighted before it ever 

 bloomed, and at a time when there 

 were no bees in that neighborhood. 

 The soil is a blue, slate clay, with a 

 coarse, gravel sub-soil. He washed the 

 tree v.-itli a strong, soft soap-water, 

 and hoed wood-ashes into the earth 

 around the tree, still the blight contin- 

 ued. The next year he took the earth 

 away, down to the roots, knocked 

 small pieces of the bark off the larg- 

 est roots, in several places, put half 

 a pound of sulphur around the roots, 

 put the earth back, and the tree has 

 not bliglited since. It bears crops of 

 pears, notwithstanding that the gar- 

 den has, for the last four years, been 

 used as a bee yard. 



