American Vee Journal 



roadside, get the honey habit, and keep 



your products away from the big 



smoke, where they don't eat it, but 



try to sell it in just such out-back 



places as you live in. The prosperous 



people of our land can better afford to 



eat honey at decent prices than the 



poorer paid artisans, etc., of Britain 



and the ' Continong ' can, and those 



same decent prices, plus extra packing, 



extra carrying and extra commissions." 



Yours ever, G. R. Harrison. 



"Glen Havard," Ourimbah, N. S. W. 



— Australia?! Bee Bulletin. 



Portrait Photographed Through the 

 Eye of a Bee. — Our readers know, as 

 everybody does, that if you look into 

 the eye of any one you will see your 

 picture there. The IBritish Bee Journal, 

 in its Nov. 7 issue, gives an enlarged 

 reproduction of a small portion of the 

 eye of a bee, some 240 facets, with, in 

 each of them greatly magnified, the face 

 of Mr. James Bancroft, as photographed 

 by Mr. Watson. 



"To obtain a portrait of Mr. Bancroft was 

 simple enougii, as was also the procuring of 

 a few of Mr. Bancroft's bees and dissecting 

 some of their eyes; but setting up an eye so 

 that the portrait could be seen through it 

 and photographed was a somewhat different 

 matter. First, a dissected eye had to be 



mounted so that it could be placed upon the 

 stage of a microscope for observation. Next, 

 a transparent positive, on a reduced scale 

 of the portrait, had to be made to be seen 

 through the eye. Then an apparatus was 

 necessary for enabling a strong light to be 

 thrown through the portrait and the eye. on 

 to a sensitive photographic plate." 



It must not be supposed that an in- 

 sect sees separate images of objects, as 

 repeated in each facet. Only one im- 

 pression reaches the brain, as is the 

 case with human beings, even though, 

 in the case of the bee, several thousand 

 impressions are made on the numerous 

 facets of their compound eyes. 



This article, in the British Bee Jour- 

 nal, is well worth, by its interest, the 

 price of a year's subscription. 



Shaking Bees Out of Box-Hives 



When bees are transferred from box- 

 hives to movable-frame hives, the usual 

 way has been to drum them out, mak- 

 ing the bees run up into an empty hive 

 placed over the full one. Now they 

 are reversing the performance in Ger- 

 many, where box-hives are still the 

 common thing. An empty hive is 

 placed upside down upon the ground, 

 and the full hive over this. The two 

 are strapped together, and then both 

 are lifted and jarred upon the ground 



until the bees are shaken out. Of 

 course, care must be taken not to jar 

 hard enough to break the combs loose. 

 It is said that this takes only a third as 

 much time as drumming. 



A New Honey-Strainer. — Most ex- 

 tracted honey, if strained at all, is 

 probably strained through a single 

 thickness of cloth. The difficult thing 

 is to know just how fine a mesh the 

 cloth should have. If it is coarse, par- 

 ticles of wax, etc., will pass through it. 

 If it be fine, all the impurities, large 

 and small, accumulate upon it, and in a 

 little while it becomes clogged so that 

 the honey passes through too slowly. 

 Those of us who had opportunity to 

 try the first extractors ever made still 

 remember that the sieves provided at 

 the bottom of these machines by the 

 first manufacturers had to be removed 

 because they clogged at once. 



The illustration, given in Bienen- 

 wirtschaftliches Bienenzeitung, page 

 237, shows a strainer, invented in Ger- 

 many, intended to overcome the diffi- 

 culty. 



It has three strainers. The upper 

 one is quite coarse, taking out only the 

 larger particles of foreign matter. The 

 middle one is a little finer, and the 



A large straw-hive imitation, with a modern hive and an old-time straw-skep. in front of the apiary building at the Minne- 

 sota State Fair. September. 1012. The small straw skep was furnished by N. E. France, judge of the Apiary Exhibit. Our 

 readers are aware of the fact that Minnesota leads all other States in the amount of premiums paid tor honey and apiary exhib- 

 its. At the left of the picture is Superintendent Scott Lamont, whose portrait we gave in the August number, page 233. The 

 gentleman by his side is the State Apiary Inspector. J. Alf Holmberg. The lady on the right hand. Miss Johnson, was employed 

 to do the apiary manipulations, which she did very creditably. 



