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I<?5perYeai\^ \©) Medina Ohio 



Vol. XXI. 



MAR. 1, 1893. 



No. 5. 



Stray Straws 



FROM DR. C. C. MILLER. 



Oi.D COMBS, if you have any to melt up. 

 should be broken up fine while it is cold enough 

 for them to be brittle. 



Will foul brooo originate from rotten 

 brood ■? is asked in A. B. J. Of the 34 answerers, 

 only three seem to have any fear of it. 



The severe winter has the hopeful side 

 that the ground is continuously covered with 

 snow, and clover ought to be well protected. 



When children are cross, we call it "c7-oss." 

 When you or I are cross, we call it tired or 

 nervous. I suppose children wonder at the 

 mystery of language. 



Grimshaw. a noted English bee-keeper, 

 should have had the credit of starting the the- 

 ory that heredity conies through the workers 

 rather than the queen. 



If over 30 pages of solid reading are to be in 

 next Glp:an]ngs. please send mine in two in- 

 stallments. It always makes me feel bad next 

 day when I sit up so late. 



In toasting bread, you can save lots of 

 time by putting the slices in the oven to heat 

 before toasting. Indeed, you can complete the 

 •toasting in the oven if all is right.,' 



Brother Root, while you are about it de- 

 veloping so many kinds of onions, suppose you 

 develop an odorless onion. Then we can eat a 

 dinner of onions without hiding in the woods 

 the rest of the day. 



I don't know very many things for certain, 

 but on one point I felt comfortably confident — 

 that "the longest pole knocks the persimmons." 

 But Golden's picture on page 127 sets me back 

 in dark ignorance, for it seems the persimmons 

 are not " knocked," but " dumb and picked." 



The prize show of honey intended for the 

 World's Fair is reported by the Britisli Bee- 

 fcee7>e7- as remarkably fine, "a unique event in 

 the annals of bee-keeping — the like of which 

 will probably never occur again." Liquid and 

 granulated extracted honey are mentioned, but 

 no comb. 



Red clover. H. S. Babcock (Agriculturist) 

 thinks may yield honey at first crop, if nectar 

 rises high enough in the tubes. But he thinks 

 "the persistence of bee-keepers in the belief 

 that red clover does afford nectar to the hive- 

 bee is not proof of the fact." But, bless your 

 heart, Mr. B., when they see thousands of bees 

 working on the blossoms, isn't " the persist- 

 ence " of the bees pretty strong proof ? 



The word "stock '■ is given in Phin's dic- 

 tionary as meaning the hive and every thing in 

 it, thus making it differ from "colony" which 

 means only the bees. Others, especially in 

 England, use "stock'" as synonymous with 

 " colony." Wonder which is right. It would at 

 least be more convenient to take Phin"s view. 



The heredity question was 'submitted by 

 M. Bertrand, editor Revue Internationale, to 

 the great naturalist, M. Alph. de Candolle. He 

 thinks size and strength may be affected by 

 food, but not qualities of the nervous system. 

 But M. Bertrand propounds some conundrums 

 that seem hard to answer, on the other side. 



Don't boil syrup for winter feeding, or for 

 spring either, is the advice of W. B. Webster in 

 B. B. J. He says the sugar has been already 

 cooked, and. if merely allowed to stay on the 

 fire till dissolved, it will need no acid to prevent 

 granulation. If you prove any thing on either 

 side of this question by trial, please report. 



(Jan YOU clinch a wire nail? You drive it 

 through, then try to clinch it, only to find that 

 you have driven it partly back, and the point 

 refuses to stay down. Try it this way: After 

 driving through, bend just a little paj-t at the 

 point with the claw of the hammer, then make 

 side strokes in clinching and see how it will 

 hug. 



Bee-sting cures have always included sal- 

 eratus, on the ground that an alkali neutralizes 

 the formic acid. Now come two writers in 

 B. B.J.. enthusiastic over an acid as a remedy — 

 vinegar. One says it stops pain, but not swell- 

 ing. The other has seen it used on several 

 people, in each case entirely preventing swell- 

 ing. 



Why' DO GOOD solid writers go to romancing 

 when they write for the agricultural papers? 

 One of them lately gave, as an average profit in 

 an average year, of a single colony of bees in 

 the hands of a beginner, besides paying $3.25 for 

 a smoker and book, a clean profit of $8.7.5. I 

 don't see any good to come from such state- 

 ments. 



Alfalfa seems to do well in Western New 

 York, at least in some parrs. The State Exper- 

 iment Station reports: For seven successive 

 years at the station, three and four cuttings per 

 year have been taken from the plats, and on 

 the sixth year of the succession the plats yield- 

 ed more than fifteen tons per acre of green for- 

 age, equal to .5.() tons of alfalfa hay. 



Bee-poison has a new function ascribed to 

 it by a German bee-keeper. He thinks it is a 

 disinfectant, disinfecting the air that comes 

 into the hive, even to killing the germs of foul 

 brood that float in the air, and advises against 

 upward ventilation, which allows the escape of 



