1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



407 



to the value of non-swarming hives or non- 

 swarming strains of queens, and devices that 

 depend upon the bees doing every thing just as 

 set down in the books. Indeed, there seem to 

 be as many exceptions to their general rule of 

 conduct or instinct as there are to the rules of 

 English grammar. J. E. Ckane. 



Middlebury, Vt., Apr. 11. 



Extra pages and an e.xtra edition as usual. 



Rambler writes that Southern California 

 has started out for a big honey-flow, and that 

 rains have been copious and timely. Extract- 

 ing has been already commenced, and comb 

 honey is being capped over. 



A PAMPHLET, entitled "A New System of 

 Management in Bee-keeping," by James Hed- 

 don, Dowagiac, Mich., has been received. Those 

 who are interested in his system of bee-keeping 

 can get the information by addressing the au- 

 thor as above. 



I HAVE wondered whether it would be a bad 

 idea to put in every issue a label on the "best 

 article "in the judgment of the editor, as a 

 sort of stimulus to the other correspondents. 

 But then, there would be differences of opinion, 

 and some would feel hurt, 1 fear. 



We have just received a note from C. P. 

 Dadant, announcing the death of his mother, 

 the estimable wife of Charles Dadant. She 

 died on the morning of May 3, of a tumor of the 

 liver. She was born in France, March 23, 1823, 

 and was married to her surviving husband 

 May 31, 1847, and came to this country in 18(53. 

 We feel sure that bee-keepers at large will 

 unite with us in extending their sympathy to 

 the bereaved husband and other members of 

 the broken family circle. 



The editor of the Progressive Bee-keeper, 

 while recognizing that good arguments are pro- 

 duced in favor of both the eight and ten frame 

 hive, says that he himself prefers the ten-frame 

 hive with a follower. '"With such a hive," he 

 says, "lean contract to six or enlarge to ten 

 frames, to suit circumstances, by simply sliding 

 the follower-board and putting in or taking out 

 the frames. I use more hives with only eight 

 frames in them than I do with more; yet if I 

 were going to establish an apiary now, I would 

 not buy eight-frame hives." 



Hutchinson. A common mistake of old writers 

 on bees, when trying to instruct the general 

 public, is to assume that that public knows 

 more about bees than it really does. But friend 

 Hutchinson has carefully covered the whole 

 ground, and put it in such popular style that 

 the reader is fascinated and interested at once. 

 The photos from which the engravings are 

 made are some of those prepared by Mr. Hutch- 

 inson some time ago, and which I have already 

 referred to as being so accurate and clear. 

 Copies of the Cosmopolitan containing this 

 article can be obtained at the Review office at 

 30 cts., postpaid. The article is to be continued 

 in the June number. 



The claim is sometimes made that a certain 

 kind of hive will produce twice as much honey 

 as another. Of course, this is not true. One 

 locality may produce twice — yes, ten times as 

 much honey as another. One bee-keeper in the 

 same locality may, by the right management of 

 his bee force at the right seasons of the year, 

 produce twice as much honey as his neighbor 

 who lets things take care of themselves. A 

 certain peculiar construction of a hive may 

 perhaps enable the intelligent bee-keeper him- 

 self to save half the labor. Construction may 

 enable him, also, to secure a little more market- 

 able honey, and perhaps a little more in the 

 aggregate. The old statement, that bees will 

 store as much honey in an old nail-keg as in the 

 most improved hive, still stands practically 

 uncontroverted. Improvement in the construc- 

 tion of hives looks, then, not to more honey, 

 but to less labor in the getting of that honey. 



A beautifully illustrated and well-written 

 article on bees appears in the May Cosmopoli- 

 tan, by our old friend and co-worker W. Z. 



ARE those who LOSE IN WINTERING ALWAYS 

 SLIPSHOD AND CARELESS ? 



In our last issue, in summing up the statistic- 

 al reports on wintering, after referring to the 

 good showing, I said: "As was to be expected, 

 inexperienced and slipshod bee keepers did not 

 winter as well as those who read bee- journals." 

 A subscriber, who has taken the journal for a 

 number of years, and has read bee- books, and is 

 supposed to be up with the times, takes this as 

 a personal insult, because, he says, he has lost 

 heavily. I am surprised that he should con- 

 strue the sentence quoted as implying that 

 every bee-keeper, himself included, who lost 

 heavily, was therefore necessarily slipshod and 

 behind the times. A careful reading of the 

 sentence would hardly bear out this construc- 

 tion. I did not say that everybody who lost 

 was slipshod, but I did say that "inexperienced 

 and slipshod bee-keepers did not winter as 

 well," etc. In other words, the slipshod lost 

 heavily because of their carelessness, unlike 

 our correspondent, who lost in s^siicof his care. 

 His mistake was like that of the man who con- 

 cluded that, as all eagles are birds, therefore 

 all birds are eagles; hence a lark, being a bird, 

 is an eagle. I did not mean to take this much 



