S40 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1.5. 



In Germany the Koehler plan has been prac- 

 ticed with some success in controlling fertiliza- 

 tion. Put the queen with the selected drones 

 in a nucleus, keeping them in the cellar all day, 

 and let them fly after .') o'clock. Repeat daily 

 till successful. 



Crimson clover, says a writer in B. B. J., is 

 only now getting in America the reputation it 

 has long had in England as a honey-plant; but 

 he says they've also found out its honey is by 

 no means first-rate. [I suspect it will do better 

 in England because the climate is milder than 

 here.— Ed. J 



S. Jordan relates in B. B. J., that, after 

 transplanting pyrethrum-plants, he attempted 

 to handle his bees, but they came at him in 

 such shape that he " hastened " from the field. 

 He washed his hands and returned to the bees, 

 and the viragoes of three minutes before were 

 now gentle as sucking doves. 



Thinking over friend Hatch's answer, p. 

 810, I'm inclined to think the K-inch space be- 

 tween the two stories may have had something 

 to do with his queens not going up and down. 

 My bees went up and down all right this year, 

 with about the same conditions, only mine had 

 only 14-inch space to cross. [Yes, there is the 

 difference.— Ed.] 



Looks a little as though A. I. Root was to 

 have a rival in B. Taylor as a high-pressure 

 gardener. Bro. Taylor says in Review that his 

 honey crop is a failure, but he has a bountiful 

 crop of almost every thing on a half-acre of 

 land. Some fair crops on my land this year, 

 too, but I didn't raise them. Nor a crop of 

 honey either. 



Foundation-fasteners, says C. W. Dayton 

 in Review, instead of having the melted wax 

 run to the rear end of the plate and drop off, 

 should have it run to the front edge and drop off 

 on the section. The extra melted wax would 

 fasten the starter more firmly, but in some 

 cases it might cool too slowly. The present 

 fasteners make pretty solid work though. 



B. Taylor reports in Review that he made 

 250 sheets of foundation without side walls — 

 sheets thin, and rolled so as just to shape the 

 cell-bottom— and put in wired frames; they 

 made model combs of straightmss and beauty. 

 [Don't doubt it; but it was a waste of wax. 

 Foundation with good side walls and a thin 

 base is much cheaper per square foot, and is 

 Just as good.— Ed.] 



I'm not much of a novel-reader; but when 

 I got hold of the new book, " How to Get 

 Well and Keep Well," I acted like one, for I 

 just let all my work go and read it right 

 through without stopping. If you want to 

 know all about the Salisbury treatment, by all 

 means get the book. Whether you care for the 

 treatment or not, you'll get some excellent 

 ideas from the book. 



Mrs. Edith Miller, editor of the Kansas 

 Bee Journal, is a clipper. At any rate she 

 makes good work clipping paragraphs from the 

 bee-journals and massing them under the title, 

 " What Others r>ay." [Yes, indeed. Mrs. Miller 

 is a success a>* a clipper of good things. There 

 are other good things in her paper besides, al- 

 though it is only a youngster.— Ed.] 



The editor of the American Bee-keeper, 

 after attending the Toronto convention, says, 

 "Anyone can find fully as much to interest 

 him in almost any single copy of any of the 

 bee-papers as was heard during the entire con- 

 vention." Pretty poor convention that, measur- 

 ed by some of the bee-papers. [The editor of 

 the ^. B. 7i. has not been at bee conventions 

 enough, or kept bees enough to form a proper 

 opinion, I suspect.— Ed. J 



York and Hutchinson are favoring a trial 

 of having the North American meet at the 

 same time and place as the G. A. R. That 

 would makeolow rates sure, and we can stand 

 almost any inconvenience if we can only have 

 railroad rates low enough. [I am with York 

 and Hutchinson. In order to get any kind of 

 attendance we must have it held where low 

 rates will be secured independent of the bee 

 convention. This !>« fare business, as Hutch- 

 inson says, amounts to nothing. — Ed.] 



Germans are sometimes prodigal of words, 

 but in one case at least they are more econom- 

 ical than we. Instead of saying a plant " yields 

 honey," they just say the plant "honeys." I 

 wish we had such a verb. [Bee-keepers, or, 

 rather, editors of bee-papers, might do much 

 at simplifying our nomenclature, without of- 

 fending good taste or obscuring the meaning. 

 For instance, Langstroth recommends the 

 words "'queen" and "unqueen"as verbs; and 

 S. T. Pettit would use '"floor" instead of bot- 

 tom-board, and "bar" instead of perforated 

 metal. Gleanings will be glad to assist. — Ed.] 



The subscribers of Gleanings are fewer 

 than 1 supposed, if each one can have a pound 

 of potatoes out of that five barrels— see p. 819. 

 [Look here, doctor, I did not say that every 

 subscriber to Gleanings could have a pound 

 of potatoes out of that five- barrel lot. Didn't I 

 say in plain English, "If you do not want to 

 take the trouble to get a subscriber to Glean- 

 ings, make some of your friends, who you 

 think would be interested in it, a present of it 

 for one year, and we will send you the pound of 

 potatoes"'? My offer was made in order that 

 we might get Gleanings introduced into fam- 

 ilies or neighborhoods where it has never been 

 before. Of course, the one who sends us a new 

 name must be a subscriber to Gleanings him- 

 self. Then I added, if it was too much trouble 

 to hunt up a new name, make somebody a pres- 

 ent of it. Very likely I did not make it as 

 plain as I might have done, but I think you 



