8 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1. 



The abuse of a good thing is no argument 

 against its proper use. Like John Handel, p. 

 ••44, Fve coaxed bees up into the eighth story 

 and had all unfinished sections ; but, all the 

 same, when I'm pretty sure bees will fill a sec- 

 ond super, I put the second one under. If 

 doubtful about both being filled 1 put the emp- 

 ty one over. 



"For many years I have warned bee-keep- 

 ers to watch the sudden checks in honey-flows 

 when colonies had large quantities of larvit on 

 hand, and to feed, no matter how much old 

 sealed honey the bees might have at the time, 

 because brood is never as well fed as when 

 there is plenty of un_s,qalcd honey in the brood- 

 chambers."— Wm. EcEvoy, in C. B. J. 



Now WE KNOW the object of those long es- 

 says. It was to get the papers of St. Joe to 

 print them, as ihey would print them and 

 wouldn't print discussions. Bro. Abbott, St. 

 Joe papers can get points from our Marengo 

 papers. A horticultural convention was held 

 here lately, and a report of four columns eave 

 the discussions while not an essay was printed, 

 although some good ones were read. But then, 

 our editors have lots of judgment and enter- 

 prise. 



" Husband and wife should kiss each other, 

 but not on the street-corners, as a general 

 thing," quoth Hasty in Review. What busi- 

 ness has an old bachelor putting restrictions on 

 the kissing of man and wife? Besides, if he 

 were experienced in that sort of thing he'd 

 know it was a good deal nicer to kiss ihem on 

 the lips. [You'll have Dr. Peiro after you if 

 you don't look out. He objects to the "lip" 

 part of the job, and he's no bachelor either. 

 —Ed.] 



It turns out that Doolittle, the champion of 

 brace and burr combs, has been for years using 

 such top-bars and spaces as keep him almost 

 free of the nuisances. He says, in A. B. J., 

 " With such frames and bee-spaces it is a rare 

 thing that any honey is ever stored between 

 the sections and tops of frames, while not to ex- 

 ceed from .5 to U> brace or burr combs are found 

 jutting above the tops of the frames." If we 

 all get down to 5 or 1.5 bits of dry wax we'll do 

 not so badly. [So Doolittle is an anti-brace- 

 comb man after all, in practice. — Ed.1 



Thirty thou.sand. or, to be more exact, 30,- 

 007, is the number of members of the German 

 Central Association for Bee Culture and its 

 branches. I think no bee-keepers' society in 

 this country is .so large. [These figures look 

 tremendous when we in our country can not 

 get up a membership of over 100, and that, too, 

 for an association that is somewhat interna- 

 tional in character, in the best bee country in 

 the world. Of course, we have great geograph- 

 ical distances to contend with; but this can 

 not account for such a dilTerence. I should like 

 to know how the Germans manage to secure so 



large a membership; the conditions of mem- 

 bership, and the privileges.— Ed.] 



BEE -ESCAPE. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORKING OF THE 

 STAMPEDE ESCAPE. 



By C. IF. Dayton. 



Editor Oleanings :—lt is admitted (I refer to 

 page 870) that the Stampede escape resembles 

 the original "flood-gate" Ponder, and the 

 "going-toward-the light" Boardman, as closely 

 as if devised by a theorist who had never pos- 

 sessed a colony of bees. Still, by the method of 

 procedure the Stampede might possibly have 

 been produced had neither of these escapes been 

 in existence. 



I used escapes very much as toys or curiosities 

 until the season of 1892, when I engaged with 

 Mr. Charles Adams, of Colorado, where about 

 five dozen Porter escapes were to be utilized in 

 our regular work. The following winter there 

 came a discussion of escapes in the Review, and 

 it was claimed that an exit which admitted 

 only one bee at a time was as good as a larger 

 exit. It was suggested by the writer that some- 

 thing was lacking in the present forms of es- 

 capes, because, when they were in use there 

 was a clicking and crackling sound to be heard; 

 and after removing the cleared super the es- 

 cape-board was nearly always found strewn 

 with slivers, and the joints were rounded by the 

 gnawings of the conlined bees. Mr. Aikin's ex- 

 perience agreed with this, and he said that 

 what was needed was a large window to show 

 the bees the way. I waited confidently for some 

 one to provide the escape which should elimi- 

 nate these supposed troubles. 



In using escapes during 1893 the crackling 

 was still present, the joints of hives and supers 

 were being rounded, and as the supers were 

 raised the bees sprang into the open space as if 

 to get fresh air, but very few look wing. These 

 actions indicated that a way of departure was 

 desired, though they were not in haste to de- 

 part by it. Again, where hives had too small 

 entrances, this crackling sound had been notic- 

 ed to proceed from the neighborhood of crevices 

 between supers and covers. When the entrances 

 were enlarged, the crackling all ceased. En- 

 trances which were large enough for colonies 

 while weak, were too small after the colony be- 

 came stronger. Bees had been observed trying 

 to enlarge, not alone the usual entrance, but 

 also every visible crevice about their hive. Al- 

 though the enlargement of all the crevices is 

 not in accordance with reason, we find that the 

 nature of bees impels them to the removal of a 



