41st YEAR. 



CHICAGO, ILL,, JANUARY 17, 1901, 



No, 3, 



I ^ Editorial. 



Yellow Wax and Slow Cooling is a 



subject which receives considerable attention 

 in the first number of the American Bee- 

 Keeper for the new century. Editor Hill 

 seems to understand that this journal teaches 

 that any sample of wax, no matter what its 

 color, and no matter what may have caused 

 thai color, may be changed into bright yellow 

 wax by simply cooling it slowly. This journal 

 has never pretended to claim for slow cooling 

 anything more than that it allowed the foreign 

 particles time to settle. The average begin- 

 ner will have a cake of wax that has been 

 rapidly cooled, and so of dark color because of 

 its impurities. If nothing has been done to 

 affect the color of the wax except the rapid 

 cooling, slow cooling will clarify it. (Of 

 course, it may be made still brighter Ijy acid.) 

 That's the whole thing in a nutshell. The 

 editor of the American Bee-Keeper has em- 

 phasized the necessity for slow cooling, and 

 nothing that he publishes in his last number 

 militates with the teachings intended to be 

 given here. It is a regrettable circumstance if 

 lack of control of the English language has 

 allowed any meaning to be given that was not 

 intended. 



The Liong-Tongue-Short-Tube prob- 

 lem is still on. J. Warren Arthur, in Glean- 

 ings in Bee-Culture, reports advance at the 

 red-clover end. The interesting details are as 

 follows: 



In 1898 1 noticed my bees going and coming 

 in one direction, namely, southwest. Think- 

 ing to find what they were working on, I fol- 

 lowed in that direction, and found very few 

 bees at work on or near the ground, and no 

 timber of any consequence on which they 

 could work. About a mile and a half from 

 linmi- I fnund a clover-field fairly swarming 

 Willi bcfs, while a clover-Held of 30 or more 

 acres one side of it, not 5U yards apart, and 

 not more than 40 feet from the remainder of 

 my lot of 30 hives, had very few bees on it. 

 Some two or three days after, I noticed the 

 bees stopping work about noon, and taking 

 my wheel I rode around and found my clover- 

 field laid low. When the second crop came in 

 bloom I again noticed the bees in particular, 

 and found them working on this same Held, 

 altho the field across the road from my home 

 contained many more bees than on the first 

 crop. This fact alone caused me to decide 

 that I wanted seed from that particular Held. 

 When the neighbor hulled his seed, by offer- 

 ing a few cents above the market price, I ob- 

 tained it, but had to take the entire crop to 

 get any. I managed to sell some of it to some 

 of my neighbors, and some more to my father, 

 who lives about ten miles southwest of me. 



The crop of seed sown near me in 18(111 was 

 almost a failure iu catching, and what did 



catch was winter-killed last winter, while 

 scmie fair fields were left over at my father's. 



.\!y jiroseets for honey last spring were any- 

 tliiiig liut bright for 30 colonies, so I decided 

 111 divide up territory. I took five of my 

 weaker colonies and one strong one to my 

 father's ; four were taken to a place where 

 there were a fair number of basswood trees, 

 altho badly cut by the canker-worm. Well, 

 this fall I had 34 colonies to feed, nearly all 

 being at starvation's door. 



My father said when he cut his hay he 

 never saw bees thicker on a buckwheat patch 

 than on his clover. I made a trip to see how 

 they were doing, and had the pleasure (?) of 

 helping him haul up his hay; but when that 

 clover-field bloomed for seed, those bees filled 

 up everything tight; and I was surprised, on 

 going down one day, to find them so. Now, I 

 feel that that clover had something to do with 

 it. But the weakest colony taken down there 

 built up the strongest, yet could not have 

 been fuller of honey than the other five. 



It has been suggested in Gleanings that 

 wherever there were bees with tongues long 

 enough to work on red clover there would be 

 seed matured on the Ursl crop. The possi- 

 bilities that lie in this suggestion are worth 

 considering. It is well known that seed from 

 red clover is secured only from the second 

 crop, altho the reason therefor is not so well 

 known. It is a very simple one. The fertili- 

 zation of red-clover blossoms is effected 

 mainly by bumble-bees. Unlike our hive- 

 bees, bumble-bees start in the spring, not with 

 several thousand bees iu a nest, but with a 

 single bee. So when the red clover first 

 blooms, bumble-bees are so few that not 

 enough blossoms are fertilized to make a crop 

 of seed worth harvesting. By the time the 

 second crop is on, the number of bumble-bees 

 has multiplied many times, and a full crop of 

 seed is secured. 



Now, if hive-bees are secured with tongues 

 long enough to work on red clover, it is easy 

 to believe that they may fertilize the first 

 crop. From this first crop it will be easier to 

 obtain seed of the short-tube kind. A little 

 explanation will make this clear. In the sec- 

 ond crop of red clover there will be tubes of 

 various lengths. Hive-bees may work on the 

 shortest of these, and bumble-bees on the rest. 

 So it will happen that the seed from this crop 

 will produce blossoms having tubes of differ- 

 ent lengths, with perhaps a constant tendency 

 to revert to the original and longer type. Only 

 by difficult and careful selection under such 

 circumstances could a flxt type of short-tube 

 clover be secured. 



Now, in.stead of waiting for the second crop, 

 let full attention be given to securing seed 

 from the first crop. The hive-bees will ferti- 

 lize the blossoms with shert tubes, and those 

 with long tubes will for the mo.st part be im- 

 fertilized. So whatever seed is secured from 

 that first crop will be of the short-tube kind. 

 The next year it will produce red clover with 



blossoms, all of which can be utilized by the 

 hive-bees, and by saving seed each year from 

 the first crop the long tubes will be auto- 

 matically weeded out. 



TIq Cans vs. Barrels for Honey. — 



We think most of our readers are aware that 

 we strongly favor tin cans for holding honey. 

 And we have not come to this conclusion 

 hastily, but after considerable experience with 

 handling honey in both kinds of packages. 

 We are free to say that we don't care to handle 

 any more honey in barrels, no matter what the 

 grade of honey is. 



Some of our good friends in Wisconsin — 

 which, by the way, is a great barrel State — 

 enjoy opposing our stand on the can, of 

 course doing so in a good-natured way. But 

 it is our tiun now to refer them to the follow- 

 ing, by Ellas Fox, of Wisconsin, which ap- 

 peared iu a recent issue of Gleanings in Bee- 

 Culture; 



I can truly indorse all'that was said in favor 

 of tin cans as against barrels for the shipment 

 of honey, at the Chicago convention. I have 

 had <iuite a little experience along this line 

 myself, and have decided never to use a 

 wooden package for extracted honey again. I 

 began putting it up in wooden packages with, 

 wooden hoops ; and I found by letting them 

 stand a short time the hoops would loosen up, 

 and, unless watcht very closely, and hoops 

 tightened, there would soon be a leak, no 

 matter how good the cooperage ; and, even in 

 shipping, the hoops would loosen. 



Then I had my cooper use iron hoops, and 

 my experience was the same, by letting the 

 packages stand for any length of time, not- 

 withstanding we selected the choicest and 

 most thoroly seasoned staves and the cooper- 

 age was perfect ; and the packages were mad* 

 up a year before using, and kept in a dry 

 place, and hoops retightened, and filled dry. 

 If there was a piece of heading a little cross- 

 grained the honey would ooze thru the pores, 

 and even thru the end of the staves, and 

 almost invisible knots, no larger than a pin- 

 head. Of course, so far as the loss was con- 

 cerned from leaking, it was nominal. But if 

 you count the amount of honey absorbed by 

 the wiiod, and the leakage together, it would 

 eciunl. if not overbalance, the difference in the 

 cost of the two packages. 



Then, again, think of the nasty, sticky 

 packages to handle, and hands and clothes 

 daubed with it; and when barrels are iu this 

 condition, and rolled along, as advocated, dust 

 and dirt will stick to the leaking spots, and 

 make an unsightly package, aside from smear- 

 ing dejiot platforms and car-floors, to attract 

 bees, tlies, etc. 



The barrel side of the debate say if a case is 

 droiil, the solder will loosen, and a leak would 

 result, aiul that the cans are too unwieldy ami 

 too heavy to handle. A man should not be 

 so awkward as to drop a package. But .sup- 

 pose be is. and the iiackage should be a barrel. 

 About llic time you had it up to the wagon- 

 box, mid the head should l>iirst out, which 

 would leak the worse ; .Vsto the cans being 

 a little too heavy, 1 would say they are; yet I 

 have moved, alone, 5.000 pounds in two-can 

 cases in a day; had ten rods to carry it to the 



