03 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



.Iax. 15. 



neck for a charm, or nailing a horsesVioe over 

 the door, or having little heathen gods stuck 

 all over the house, as the Chinese do to ward off 

 calamity and disease. With the general intel- 

 ligence and science before us at the present 

 time, people of intelligence ought to be asham- 

 ed of themselves for accepting such logic. 1 

 suppose you know that people afflicted with 

 paralysis and many other diseases, when they 

 are thoroughly aroused. oftentimes breakaway, 

 as it w(^re. from the disease. They have some- 

 times thrown away their crutches under the 

 influence of a bottle of some kind of medicine: 

 and yet had the bottle contained water, and 

 they did not know it, the result would have 

 been just the same. Many thanks for your 

 concluding word-:. — A. I. R. 



In the issue of ElcctrlcUy for .Ian. 9 we find a 

 further considerable expose of Electropoise. 

 We have room for only the concluding sen- 

 tence: 



Eveiy religious paper in America miglit well kepp 

 standing in a coiispiciious place in its columns the 

 words of Di' Holmes: " Quackery liohhles along- on 

 two crutches: the one is the superstition of women; 

 the other, the indoisements of clergymen." 



but on a large one, failure is the result. There 

 is much in the man and the location. 



Eight extra pages this issue. 



We have quite a number of good articles 

 awaiting their turn for Insertion. 



Under "Seasonable Questions" is a valua- 

 ble article on bee-cellars — that is, how to knoic 

 when the bees are doing well. This is a trou- 

 blesome question for beginners, and even some 

 older in the business. 



Heavy rains are rejoicing the hearts of Cal- 

 ifornia bee-keepers. Given a certain number 

 of inches of rainfall, and the honey crop is as- 

 sured for that State; this year the conditions, if 

 I am correct, are met. Last year little or no 

 rain fell, and the consequence was little or no 

 honey. 



The new Americdix Bee Journal, as it came 

 to our oftice shortly after Jan. 1, was a pleas- 

 ant surprise. Is has been changed from a 3;.'- 

 page small to a 16-page large size. The print- 

 ing and binding, of course, as tisual. are excel- 

 lent, and the selection of matter is also of the 

 highest order. If it can maintain the pace 

 that it has set for itself (and York will make it), 

 the "old reliable" will boom. 



(i. M. DooiJTTi^K. in \,Y\Q American £?ee Jour- 

 7ia?. has an interesting article on large versus 

 small apiaries. He says, and very truly, that 

 the results from large yards are not as great in 

 proportion as from small ones. He sees large 

 reports from apiaries of not over 50 colonies, 

 but not from four times that number. It is like 

 every thing else I suppose — some lines of busi- 

 ness will pay good returns on a small scale; 



Yor will remember that I said we had great 

 hopes of the granulated sugar and honey giv- 

 ing better results than the ordinary Good can- 

 ey made of confectioners' or powdered sugar 

 and honey. We are just receiving responses 

 of queens sent to Australia some time last fall; 

 and while the results are not all that we could 

 ask, they are very much better tban from any 

 former attempts of late. The only difficulty 

 seems to be now that the granulated sugar Is 

 too coarse, and rattles about in the cage, and 

 interferes with the bees. We are just corres- 

 ponding with the view of getting a small paint- 

 mill, to grind the sugar and honey into a per- 

 fectly soft paste. I have an idea that such a 

 mill would cause a more perfect union of the 

 honey and sugar. 



THAT great freeze IN FLORIDA. AND ITS 

 EFFECT ON BEE-KEEPERS. 



We have just enjoyed a very pleasant visit 

 from Wm. A. Selser, of Wyncote, Pa. He had 

 just come from an extensive business tour of 

 some .3000 miles throughout Florida. He had 

 been all over the State just previous to the 

 great freeze, and all over it again just after it. 

 He reports that all the beauty of that remark- 

 able State is gone. Every thing seems to have 

 been killed from one end of the State to the 

 other; and the mangrove — one of the maia 

 stays for honey — has been so thoroughly killed 

 that it will take it three or four years to recov- 

 er Although the bee-keepers will get honey 

 as before from palmetto, their large crops will 

 be cut down very materially until the man- 

 grove can begin to yield. There is desolation 

 in the orange- groves, and they are character- 

 ized as "slop-tubs" by reason of the carloads 

 of decaying fruit. As to what the Weather 

 Bureau might have done to prevent this, see 

 High-Pressure Gardening elsewhere. 



DOOLITTLE AND THE FIVE-BANDED BEES. 



In the Progressive Bee-keeper Mr Doolittle 

 has a very fair and interesting article replying 

 to the statement of the editor (which I copied 

 on page 877), that the five-banders can not be 

 produced from Italian stock. He holds that 

 the Italian is not a pure race; and as it is liable 

 to sport, especially in the number of yellow 

 bands, it is perfectly feasible to produce the ex- 

 cess of yellow without the aid of Cyprian stock; 

 that he raised bees with more than three bands 

 before Eastern bees were ever brought to this 

 country. In relating how he and Mr. L. Hearn 

 developed the original so-called five-banded 

 stock, he adds that they are not only beautiful, 

 but good workers, and gentle, though he admits 

 that they are less hardy for winter when com- 

 pared with the darker stock. 



I have personally seen in his own apiary some 



