THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



223 



Heating the uncapping knife in hot 

 water, to make it slip inider the cappings 

 more easily, is considered entirely useless 

 by ;Mr. Dooiittle. He says in the Pro- 

 gressive that he has tried the hot water 

 plan only to lay it aside with disgust. A 

 thin knife will not hold the heat nmch 

 longer than when it touches the honey, 

 while a heavy knife is too bungling. 

 After he got hold of the Bingham un- 

 capping knife he was perfectly happy, as 

 it did its work without the use of any hot 

 watei so long as it was kept sharp. My 

 experience to a T. 



PRKVENTING THE BITING OF CAPPINGS 

 WHEN REMOVING SURPI^US. 



Mr. Hairston of Indian Territory, writes 

 me that he finds the bees more loth to 

 leave the supers after the harvest is over 

 than during the honey-flow. It is at this 

 time, that is, after the harvest, that they 

 are inclined to bite the cappings when 

 disturbed. He says that he noticed that 

 they did not bite cappings so long as there 

 was unsealed honey for them to fill up 

 on; taking a hint from this, he pours a 

 little extracted honey on the escape- 

 board, near the escape, when putting the 

 board in place, and in this way he en- 

 tirely prevents the biting of cappings. 

 Another thing: for some reason the bees 

 leave the super more readily when the 

 honey is used. 



PHOTOGRAPHS WANTED. 



Inquires still come in asking if my 

 offer of I5.00 for a photograph to use as a 

 frontispiece is still open. Yes, it will be 

 held open until further notice. For any 

 photograph that I think well enough of 

 to use as a frontispiece I will pay 55-oo 

 cash; and for any other that I think well 

 enough of to use in the body of the 

 Review I will send the Review one year 

 and a queen of the Superior Stock. Let 

 the photographs be as large as possible, 

 sharp and clear (lack of this is the great- 

 est fault] and, when possible, have them 



printed on some kind of glossy paper. 

 The mat surface papers, like the Aristo- 

 Plalino, are beautiful to use in making 

 photographs that are simply to be looked 

 at, but for the purposes of reproduction, 

 the glossy surface gives much better 

 detail. 



■ •it»ir»jr^rfHir» 



Hunting for a queen is peculiar 

 work. Rambler in Gleanings brings out 

 one of those little points that I presume 

 many of us have thought of, but never 

 put into words. In looking for a queen, 

 look for kera.nd for nothiiig else. Every- 

 thing but the queen shoujd be a blank. 

 Mentally, hold her picture in the mind's 

 eye. If we look at the workers and the 

 drones, and " wonder if that is foul 

 brood," we are not very likely to see the 

 queen A woman in Pennsylvania sajs 

 that it is always the "long hind legs" of 

 a virgin queen that she sees first when 

 looking for queens of that class. Come 

 ^to think of it, I believe that is usually the 

 case. 



*»^t»»;»>i^U»U» 



introducing queens. 



The best possible plan for an expert 

 may be a very poor one for a novice. To 

 illustrate: I have for the past two years 

 guaranteed the safe introduction of the 

 queens that I have sold. Last year I ad- 

 vised the caging of the queen against the 

 side of a comb of hatching brood. There 

 were some failures; mostly, I believe, 

 through lack of thoroughness in details — 

 the management was such that the bees 

 burrowed under the cage and released the 

 queen too soon. This year I am advising 

 purchasers to let the bees release the 

 queen by eating out the candy from the 

 end of the shi])ping cage; taking the 

 extra precaution to have all of the brood 

 removed from the colony until the queen 

 begins laying. The failures are very few, 

 indeed. I think, however, that the only 

 really infallible method is to release the 

 queen upon combs of hatching brood, 

 with no bees present except the young 

 bees that hatch from the combs, 



