334 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



May 23, 1901. 



BEE-KEEPERS' SUPPLIES A:a: 



THE FINEST IN THE WORLD. 



OuF New 1901 Fifty-Two Page Catalog Ready. 



Send for a copy. It is free. 



G. B. LEWIS COMPANY, Watertown, Wis., U.S.A. 



Branch, G. B. Lewis Co., 19 S. Alabama St., Indianapolis, Ind. 



Excellent shipping- facilities and very low Ireig-ht rates for Southern and 



Eastern territories. 



The Business End of the 

 NEW RUMELY SEPARATOR'** 



Like alUhe"Rumely Goods" this IS simply perfection. When 

 coupled to our New Kumely Rear Geared Traction Engine 



they constitute a threshing outfit that not only makes big 



money for the thresher, but saves grain and money for -" 



the farmer. Tliey are durable beyond com- < 



parison and when you buy them you are 



done buyins for years to come. Take a little 



time to think about hnw it would pay you to 



own such an outfit, then write us for free catalog. 



M. RUMELY CO., La Porte, Ind. 



Please mention Bee Journal -wheti -writing. 



paid 



28 cents Cash 

 for Beeswax. 





This is a good titne 

 to send in your Bees- 

 wax. We are paying 

 28 cents a pound — 

 CASH— for best yel- 

 low, upon its receipt, or 30 cents in trade. Impure wax not taken at any price. 

 Address as follows, very plainly, 

 GEORGE W. YORK & CO., 144 & 146 Erie St., CHICAGO. 



Marshlield M annfactnr ipg Company. 



Our Specialty is making SECTIONS, and they are the best in the market. 

 Wisconsin BASSWOOD is the right kind for them. We have a full line of BEE- 

 SUPPLIES. Write for free illustrated catalog and price-list. 



8A26t Marshfield Manufacturing Co., Marshfield, Wis. 



Red Clover Queens 



LONG-TONGUED BEEsIrEDEMANDED NOW. 



ONE Untested Italian Queen FREE as a Pre- 

 mium for sending us TWO new subscribers 

 to the American Bee Journal for one year 

 (with $2); or, one Tested Queen free as a premium for sending 

 us FOUR new subscribers with $4.00). 



We have arranged with one of the oldest and best queen-breed- 

 ers (having many years' experience) to rear queens for us the coming 

 season. His bees average quite a good deal the longest tongues of 

 any yet measured. The Breeder he will use is direct from Italy, 

 having imported her himself. Her worker-bees are large, somewhat 

 leather-colored, very gentle, and scarcely requiring veil or smoke. 

 They stored red clover honey last season. 



Orders for these fine, " long-reach " queens will be filled in rota- 

 tion — "first come, first served" — beginning about June 10th. It is 

 expected that orders can be filled quite promptly, as a large number 

 of nuclei will be run. All queens will be guaranteed to arrive in 

 good condition, and all will be dipt, unless otherwise ordered. 



CASH PRICES of these fine queens will be as follows : Untested, 

 $1.00 each ; Tested, $2.00 each. Send all orders to 



GEORGE W. YORK & CO. 



144 & 146 Erie St., CHICAGO, ILL, 



Please Mention the Bee Jonrnal ^fr«" y"ting 



Advertisers ««. 



when it becomes cool the bees will shrink 

 away from the space between the top-bars, 

 and cluster on the combs almve and below. 

 Suppose you have a colony fully occupying 

 two stories. Now put between these two 

 stories another story filled with dummies an 

 inch thick. Do you suppose it will take 50 

 percent more bees to " man " the combs than 

 it did before ? I suspect 5 percent would be 

 plenty. 



Even if the loss were all he supposes — 1,600 

 to -J. 1)1111 cells, or 1-33 of the brood-chamber — I 

 sliiiuld still want the lop-bar % deep. At one 

 tiiiic I used, entirely, wide frames holding 

 eifjht sections; and when I put on a super I 

 put in the middle of it a brood-comb from be- 

 low. The bees very promptly occupied that 

 super, but it did not answer to leave the 

 l)rood-comb there very long. It I left it long 

 enough for the bees to begin sealing the sec- 

 tions, they would carry across some of the old 

 comb, and the sections would be aliout as 

 dark as the eoml« opposite. With ^h top-bars, 

 which I used exclusively for many years, the 

 same thing would happen to a certain extent 

 if no slat honey-board was used, especially if 

 the sections were left on some time after 

 being sealed. 



So if the prevention of burr-combs by deep 

 top-ba]"s be all a delusion — which I do not be- 

 lieve — and if there is a loss of 1,600 to 2,000 

 cells to a colony — which I am very far from 

 believing — I still want J4 top-bars for the sake 

 of having the sections so far from the brood- 

 combs that the bees will not find it convenient 

 to carry up a lot of black wax to spoil the snow- 

 white sections. 



The Poison of the Bee. 



The inflammation and other unpleasant 

 symptoms which usually appear after a bee- 

 sting are often attriljuted to that sharp acid so 

 widely distributed in the animal Isingdom, and 

 known under the name of formic acid. This 

 fluid, however, has nothing to do with the 

 swellings, its utility to the bees is of quite 

 another character. Prof. Joseph Langer, ot 

 Prague, a little while ago, examined the con- 

 tents ot the poison-glands of 2.5,000 bees. This 

 he found to be a clear fluid, soluble in water, 

 tastes bitter, and has a pleasant aromatic 

 smell, which, however, soon passes away ; 

 this scent can not, therefore, be the poison. 

 The formic acid which gives its peculiar acid 

 reaction to the contents of the gland is also 

 very evanescent. The contents of the gland 

 itself retain their poisonous properties, how- 

 ever, even when dried and subjected to heat. 

 The poison is, we therefore suppose, a veget- 

 able base, an alkaloid, as the most active poi- 

 sons in the vegetable kingdom are known to 

 be. 



Prof. Langer proved that the poison has no 

 effect whatever on a healthy skin ; if, how- 

 ever injected under the skin, all the symp- 

 toms of bee-stings set in. Should it reach the 

 larger veins or arteries it causes a general dis- 

 order of the system, which reminds one ot 

 snake-poisoning. The weight of the poison 

 injected into the wound made bv a bee's 

 sting is between 2-10,O00th and 3-10,OOOth 

 part of a gram. The largest part of this is for- 

 mic acid, which is such an important factor for 

 the well-being of the bees. This works as a 

 means of preserving the honey, owing to its 

 acid reaction. The bee allows a little formic 

 acid to fall into each cell filled with honey be- 

 fore it is closed or sealed, and this small 

 quantity is enough to prevent fermentation. 

 Honey extracted from unsealed combs never 

 keeps long unless 0.1 percent formic acid be 

 added, which is all that is required. — Trans- 

 lated from the German by R. Hamlyn-Harris, 

 in the British Bee Journal. 



Weight of Bees and Their Loads. 



The following Stray Straw ajipears in 

 Gleanings in Bee-Culture : 



Alex. Astor reports in Revue Int. that he 

 made 140 weighings of bees, weighing 2,300 

 bees in all, and he gives in milligrams the 

 weights of difliercnt kinds of bees. From this 



