656 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1. 



working, and rearing brood; but when out of 

 work they got into mischief and set to work to 

 eat away and remove the wood. [This was 

 just our experience about that time too. — Ed.] 



Do BIG TREES and big honey crops go to- 

 gether? California has both, and the enor- 

 mous yields of honey in Australia come from a 

 land which invites California to a contest as to 

 big trees. The Sydney Evening News contains 

 accounts of trees having a circumference of 40, 

 50, and 60 feet, and one tree has a girth of 136 

 feet at 5 feet from the ground. 



Experimenter Tati.or says in Review that, 

 usually, the royal jelly deposited in a ceil 

 amounts to about half a common thimbleful. 

 Haven't the women in that region rather small 

 hands? [The women in your locality must 

 have big hands. (Beg pardon.) I should have 

 said Taylor's statement was about right for 

 here.— Ed.] 



Melilotus alba is considered only a weed 

 in the Northwest; but in the South it is prized 



as one of our most valuable forage crops 



Mowed before the plant becomes too large and 

 woofiy, the quality of the hay is first-class, and 

 in nutritive quality equal to any of the clover 

 family." — E. Montrjomery, in Agricultural 

 EpUomist. 



Quoth ye editor, on p. 620, "There is a 

 method, and it is practical, to control fertiliza- 

 tion. See article by James Wood." With 

 feverish haste I found the place, then a nerv- 

 ous shock, a collapse. Not a thing new in it. 

 Not a thing that ever was or ever will be of 

 value except to a very few isolated individuals. 

 [I knew it was not new; but I don't agree re- 

 garding its limited application.— Ed.] 



"U-SELES.S consumers" is a term commonly 

 applied to bees reared after the honey-harvest 

 commences. S. E. Miller, in Progressive, raises 

 a protest against the term being thus used. 

 I've been looking for that sort of protest be- 

 fore. [What better term can you suggest that 

 conveys the idea so well ? I don't think of any. 

 It Is true they may not always be "useless," 

 but if the rearing of them could be deferred a 

 little later it would be better. — Ed.] 



Some 430 colonies are kept in the home api- 

 ary of C. W. Post, says Cayiadlan Bee Journal. 

 I supposed such numbers couM be kept in one 

 apiary only in the far South. Now they're go- 

 ing to commence doing that sort of thing in 

 Canada, so as to make us poor mortals in the 

 middle feel we're nobody. [But wouldn't Post's 

 bees do far better if thoy were divided into two 

 yards — one yard two or three miles away? — Ed.] 



I WAS SURPRISED lately to see, within a f'^v 

 miles of home, a field thickly covered with hay- 

 cocks, show ing a heavy yield in this year when 

 the hay-crop is very light. Coming closer I 

 found it was alfalfa three years old. I didn't 

 suppose alfalfa would grow here; but there it 



was, and the second crop had been taken this 

 year. I saw no bees on it. [There is a fine 

 field of alfalfa not a great way from us. We 

 didn't suppose it would grow as well as it does. 

 —Ed.] 



R. F. HoLTERMANN says lindens planted in 

 the streets are rarely of benefit to bee-keepers, 

 but must be in the woods to be of much value. 

 I wish that might be numerously contradicted. 

 [That is not true around Medina, nor in any 

 other place I have been in the United States 

 during the bloom. I have a row of trees in 

 front of my house that are the equal of any 

 trees in the woods for the roar of bees at the 

 proper season of the year. Of course, bass- 

 woods do better in the woods; but that those 

 along the streets are rarely of benefit to bee- 

 keepers is not true with us. — Ed.] 



"A revelation" is what Somnambulist 

 calls the statement in Gleanings, that the 

 majority of bee-keepers put their sections on 

 the market without scraping. That may be a 

 good name for the statement, but a good name 

 for the thing itself is "abominable careless- 

 ness." [Many times a statement may appear 

 to be a revelation, but that does not signify 

 that it is untrue. Bee keepers who are in the 

 habit of always scraping their sections are apt 

 to think all others do. You remember the 

 Frenchman who thought because he always 

 "parlez-vous-ed fran^-ais" therefore all the 

 rest of the world did.— Ed.] 



A VISIT AT B. TAYLOR'S. 



THE MAN, HIS HIVES. FIXTURES, ETC. 



By Harry Lathrop. 



Ofi-yf^ars are good for some things; and one 

 is. that they allow a bee-keeper leisure time to 

 vi>it other apiaries, and broaden his knowledge 

 of men and methods. On the lOth of June I 

 started for the Northwest to visit the home and 

 apiary of B. Taylor, near Forestville, Minn. 

 Aft'T A pleasantt ride down the Wisconsin Val- 

 ley, crossing the Mississippi at North McGregor, 

 and on through Norihirn Iowa, I arrived at 

 WykofT Station, where I was met by Mr. Tay- 

 lor, according to previous arrangement, and 

 talson out to his beauti ful home. 8 miles distant. 

 Although Southern Minnesota is in the main a 

 prairie country, the Taylor apiary is located in 

 a wooded section, with narrow valleys between 

 high limestone bluifs. This part of Minnesota 

 produces about all the honey-plants common 

 to the Northwest, including an abundance of 

 bas^wood and white clover. To be concise, 

 there were three things in which I was espe- 



