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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15. 



depositing eggs in it; and when honey comes 

 in, the bees will All it with honey, thus keeping 

 the queen from depositing eggs in it. 



SUI-PHUKING HONEY. 



Question.— J see by Gleanings for April 15th 

 that some have trouble in sulphuring hon<^y on 

 account of turning the combs and wood of the 

 sections a yellowish green. How do you pre- 

 vent this? 



Answer. — This is one of the nice points, and 

 one on which I did a good deal of experiment- 

 ing in the past, after nearly ruining the first 

 lot of comb honey I tried to sulphur; for at 

 that time no one had given any caution regard- 

 ing this matter. Honey should be stored in a 

 small room where the temperature can be kept 

 high, so that it can ripen out after the sections 

 are taken from the hive. The sections should 

 be stored on scantling, placed in such a way 

 that the fumes from burning sulphur can pass 

 between the sections all through the whole 

 pile, if signs of the larvae of the wax-moth 

 aj-e found. The right quantity to burn to kill 

 tLe larvae I found to be. after many trials, 

 three- fourths of a pound to every 200 cubic feet 

 contained in the room. Put some ashes in an 

 iron kettle, and on the ashes a few live coals; 

 pour the sulphur on, shove under the pile of 

 honey, and close the door. Now leave for 

 about fifteen minutes, when the door should be 

 opened and the smoke let out. If too much is 

 used, or the room left closed too long, we'a.re 

 sure to have the sections and combs discolored. 

 Really the best plan is to have a window in 

 this honey-room, so that, when the door is shut, 

 you can go to this window and watch the flies, 

 which will collect on it as soon as the fumes 

 from the burning sulphur begin to fill the room. 

 One by one they will begin to be stupefied, and 

 in from eight to twelve minutes the last one 

 will have ceased to move. I used to wait two 

 minutes after the last fly was lifeless, then open 

 the door and window, so as to cause a draft and 

 let the smoke out quick, and after thus work- 

 ing I never failed to kill the wax-moth larva, 

 nor did I ever have any combs or sections col- 

 ored. That you may not take in the fumes of 

 sulphur yourself, the window should be made so 

 it can be opened from the outside as well as the 

 door. Some seem to think that a red-hot iron 

 dropped in the sulphur gives better results 

 than pouring the sulphur on the coals, as given 

 above; but with me the coals do good work, 

 and are always handy from the cook-stove, as 

 we burn wood in the summer season. 



'"WHAT SHALL WE DO?" 



Question— Did you read what A. I. R. said 

 under the above heading on page 328 of April 

 15th Gleanings? If so, is such doctrine 

 sound ? 



Answer.— J do not know that the Gleanings 

 friends will allow an answer to this question in 

 this department; but as I believe that Bro. A. 

 I. Root will sanction the "greatest good to the 



greatest number." I will venture a few words. 

 The " good Book " says, "If any will not work, 

 neither should he eat," which coincides with 

 Bro. Root's '• God surely helps those who help 

 themselves." Then Bro. R. is quite right in 

 saying that " the world owes no man any thing 

 until he has earned it;" but when he comes to 

 advise us not to have any thing to do with 

 bankers, manufacturers, etc., who show them- 

 selves greedy and dishonest, I fear he did not 

 stop to fully take in our present situation. His 

 father succeeded in doing what he tells us of 

 "without any help from millionaires," because 

 there were no millionaires in this country at 

 that time; for, prior to 1860, there was scarcely 

 a millionaire in this country, and the legisla- 

 tion of this country at that time gave that 

 father the privilege of keeping fully 95 cents 

 out of every dollar of wealth which he produc- 

 ed from the land covered with woods which he 

 occupied, to use for himself and his loved ones, 

 while the wealth- producers of to-day in this 

 country have to part with .52 cents out of every 

 dollar's worth of wealth they produce, to add to 

 the millions of the few who force up prices by 

 combines, trusts, corners, etc., of the necessa- 

 ries of life, that they may amass fortunes that 

 no man can comprehend, out of the toil, sweat, 

 and deprivations of the masses. Fifty-six of 

 the actual necessities of life are controlled and 

 cornered by trusts and monopolies; and yet 

 Bro. Root says, "have nothing to do with 

 them." Abstain from beef, and punish the 

 dressed-beef combine; abstain from bread, and 

 punish the millers' trust; from light, and pun- 

 ish the oil combine; from coal, and punish the 

 coal combine. Is it possible to have nothing to 

 do with these? According to the Chicago 

 Tribune, the Standard Oil Co. cleared fully 

 ?75 000.000 in ten days by the recent forcing-up 

 of prices on oil, with not a farthing greater 

 cost of production than before. The coal 

 barons have lately met, and decided that the 

 output of coal should be lessened, and the price 

 advanced 50 cents per ton. The dressed-beef 

 trust have doubled the prices of beef to the con- 

 sumers in our eastern cities, while the producer 

 of said beef, and the 'retailer, have to be con- 

 tent with nearly the same pay for the wealth 

 produced by them as before. I can not think 

 Bro. Root fully realized the import of what he 

 wrote when he penned those sentences. "Turn 

 the light a little lower, John, so we shall not 

 burn so much oil, for oil has gone up in price, 

 you know, and all we have to sell brings less. 

 Use as little coal in building the morning fire 

 as possible, John, for now it takes .50 lbs. of 

 honey to buy a ton of coal, while in 1874 it took 

 only 14. Let us economize all we can, for at 

 best I almost fear we shall not be able to meet 

 the rent this year." Such was the conversation 

 heard at a bee-keeper's house one evening not 

 long ago; and it only represents the condition 

 of multitudes of hard-working people strug- 



