294 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 15. 



one bushel of seed more to the acre than the 

 medium; and from reports at institutes the 

 past winter, the alsike will give nearly double 

 the yield of the red clover. 



Adulterated honey from America, accord- 

 ing to one writer in Centralblatt, floods the 

 German markets to the extent of 5,500,000 

 pounds. On another page of the same journal, 

 H. Guehler, the C. F. Muth of Berlin, asserts 

 that there is probably very little adulterated 

 American honey, what is adulterated being 

 generally done by Germans in Germany. 



Hasty says in Review that he believes the 

 leading thinkers no longer hold to the old the- 

 ory that the queen at impregnation receives in- 

 to her spermatheca a supply of spi-i matozoa 

 that lasts for life. Don't you be fooled by 

 noise. Hasty. That battle is being mostly 

 fought in Germany, and the bulk of the leading 

 thinkers hold to the old theory. 



Catching swarms. Here's how it's done in 

 Florida. A box 14x8x4 inches placed on the 

 end of a long pole, placing in it a queen with a 

 handful of bees and hanging it out every day 

 during the swarming season. Clipping the 

 queens' wings throughout the apiary, the bees 

 in coming out to swarm will cluster around 

 this box, sometimes? or 8 swarms together, and 

 are hived as one swarm. — A. B. J. 



Bee paralysis. Joshua Bull, in Review, 

 says he failed to cure a very bad case with salt 

 brine, then made a success in this way: "I 

 took a large spoonful of salt, and dissolved it in 

 a little water, just enough to get the salt all 

 dissolved, and mixed this with a gallon of hon- 

 ey and fed it to them just as fast as I could get 

 them to take it." That cured for good. Now 

 the question is, whether it will work the same 

 with a bad case down south. 



THE LANGSTROTH VS. THE CUBICAL HIVE. 



THE QUESTION CAREFULLY CONSIDERED BY AN 



ADVOCATE OF THE LATTER; A VALUABLE 



AND READABLE ARTICLE. 



By H. B. Bttardman. 



The lifting and carrying of hives in and 

 about the bee-yard in the hot and busy part of 

 the season, when the hives are stored with 

 honey, is certainly an important item of the 

 hardest, most trying work of the apiary. Then 

 the carrying in and out of winter quarters, 

 where bees are wintered indoors, all suggests, 

 in a forcible manner, the convenience of hives 

 for such manipulation. 



The square hive is most perfectly adapted to 

 this purpose. I could suggest no improvement 

 in that respect. When lifted by the cleats it 



makes a well-balanced load, and is easily car- 

 ried. In this respect the least that can be said 

 of the long hive is that its construction suggests 

 little thought of convenience. 



I have seen two men tugging away at a 

 Simplicity hive, to carry it into winter quarters, 

 when either of them would be able to pick up a 

 square hive of the same weight, and carry it 

 in quicker and easier. 



In these times of sharp competition and short 

 honey crops it is the sum total of these little 

 items that sometimes tips the balance toward 

 the side of success or failure in bee-keeping. 

 It is only along the lines of strictest economy 

 that we can now hope for success. 



The queen insists on a round, compact brood- 

 nest, when unrestricted. In carrying out this 

 natural instinct in the long shallow hive, the 

 brood nest is necessarily carried into the sur- 

 plus-chamber. In order to correct this fault (?) 

 perforated-zinc queen-excluders and other ex- 

 pensive devices are used to keep the queen out 

 of the surplus-chamber. The trade in perforat- 

 ed zinc for this purpose has become an impor- 

 tant item. That this is wholly a fault of the 

 hive, it is only necessary to say that, with the 

 square hive, this fault does not appear. The 

 queen never goes into the sections unless by 

 some mistake or awkwardness of management. 

 The brood-chamber furnishes just the natural 

 requirements for a brood-nest. 



A few years ago 1 was one day in the apiary 

 of; a friend who used the Simplicity hive. He 

 had Ibeen at work taking oti sections. " My 

 bees are very cross," said he. " I am having a 

 disagreeable muss. The frames in my hives, 

 in the upper and lower stories, are built solid 

 together; and when I lift off the section- 

 chamber it pulls up the brood-combs from the 

 lower hive. I am getting a little disgusted 

 with the way it works. How do you manage 

 this trouble?" 



" I never had any such experience," said I. 

 " Let me see your hives." 



We lifted the cover from a hive that had just 

 had the sections removed. I did not wonder 

 that my friend had become disgusted. There 

 was enough to disgust any ordor-loving bee- 

 keeper. The long top-bars had sagged until 

 the bee-space over some of them was at least an 

 inch, others were less, while some were nearly 

 straight. All of these spaces, of course, had 

 been filled with irregular masses of comb and 

 propolis, and were stored with honey. 



" I do not need to tell you that all this trouble 

 is the fault of your hive. Look at those thin 

 top-bars. Their strength is out of all propor- 

 tion to their length, and the weight they have 

 to support. I think the remedy for this trouble 

 is a properly constructed hive." 



" I guess you are nearly right," said he, 

 " and if this accumulation of old traps were all 

 off my hands I would improve upon your sug- 

 gestion as well as my own past experience, and 



