1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



273 



'EMI', 

 52 PEBYEARj 



Can a man take fire in his bosuiii, and liis clothes not be 

 burned i Can one tro upon hot coals, and his feet not be burn- 

 ed ?— PR(iv. 6:27,28. 



Reports are coming in, showing that cellar- 

 wintered colonies are doing nicely. We notice 

 that Dr. Miller reports that 94 percent of his are 

 alive. He wants to know wliy we did not put 

 the bees and vegetables together in one cellar. 

 Bad advice for a doctor; and, besides, Mrs. Root 

 would not have the two together 



We notice that the Progressive Bee-lieeper 

 has passed into the hands of the Leahy Manu- 

 facturing Co.. of Higginsville, Mo. There is no 

 doubt that the journal will be as successfully 

 conducted as before; and in the meantime we 

 indulge the hope that Bro. Quigley will still re- 

 main, to a greater or less extent, at the editorial 

 helm. 



Dh. Miller says, in Stray Straws, in another 

 column, that our top-bars are not " pi'actically 

 % thick," as we explained recently in an edito- 

 rial. Beg pardon, doctor, but you have not 

 seen our very latest; and the difference between 

 the latest form and the top-bar Js thick is very 

 slight, and we are sure the bees will not take 

 any particular account of it. 



Our subscribers will oblige us if they will 

 overwhelm us with reports showing compara- 

 tive tests this winter between colonies under 

 scaled covers and colonies packed with an ab- 

 sorbing cushion. This winter will give us good 

 data for comparison; and it is only by compar- 

 ing scon s of reports that we can get at the 

 truth. We have not a particle of bias either 

 way. If th(! sealed cover "'must go,'" letitdoso. 



There are very few writers who can criticise, 

 and yet do it so nicely as not to give offense. 

 There are many who make an attempt at it, but 

 their ci'iticisms are bungled up with so many 

 apologies, and " hems and haws," that the real 

 force of the criticism is lost. Our friend R. L. 

 Taylor has the happy faculty of giving straight 

 clean criticism, without the ai)ologies and with- 

 out offense to the criticised. We need several 

 such v/i'iters in our ranks; and we hope that ^Ir. 

 Taylor will keep his pencil a pushing. If it 

 pushes us over we will try to get up if we can. 



A VERY interesting biographical sketch of a 

 comparatively new writer on bec-l()r(>. Miss Em- 

 ma Wilson, appears in the American Bee Jour- 

 nal. It will be remembered that Miss Wilson 

 has wiitten considerably for the Ladies' Con- 

 versazione of Gleanings; and her pithy, brief 

 articles, have, as a general thing, contained a 

 good deal of value, not only to the bee-keepers 

 of hei' own sex. but to those of the sterner sort. 

 We have been thinking for some little time 

 back that our readers would like to see a picture 

 of her, but Bi'o. York has got ahead of us. Well. 

 we are rather glad of it, because he has done it 

 so well. 



AMt»NG the Queei' things that find their way 

 into the coin-slot automatic phonographs that 

 are found in many of our depots throughout the 

 country is a copper medal, or sort of coin, bear- 

 ing the following inscription: " R. S. Torrey. in- 

 ventor of the Maine State bee-hive. 18<)4. Ban- 

 gor. Me." On the reverse side is a shield with a 

 motto across the front, with the word " Union." 

 It is about the size of an ordinary penny, and 



was slipped into the coin-slot of a phonograph 

 in Cleveland by some person who thought he 

 could cheat the machine and thus save the reg- 

 ulation nickel. The phonograph will not only 

 talk and sing, and dish up any kind of music, 

 but it is smart enough not to be "taken in," 

 even by a miin, although it " took in" his bogus 

 nickel. The phonograph people forwarded the 

 coin on to us because of its peculiar inscrii)tion. 

 Who knows any thing about that " Maine State 

 bee-hive '"? 



G. W. York is making the old reliable Anier- 

 icnn Bee Journal fairly boom. Every page 

 shows that he is putting a good deal of hard 

 work on it. and we hope that his subscription- 

 list may roll up strong: for we have always no- 

 ticed that, when any of our;rival publications 

 are booming well, it helps boost along (Clean- 

 ings; so you see we are interested from a 

 selfish point of view. Why is it that editors of 

 publications in other lines fail to see this? They 

 look upon a successful rival as dangerous to 

 their own success, and then write more like an 

 idiot than a responsible being. But perhaps a 

 pointshould be made here: An editor who takes 

 no interest in his own publication but to get out 

 copies of his paper tilled with "stuffing " will al- 

 most surely suffer if there is an energetic rival 

 in the field. He who is jealous of a rival, con- 

 fesses the weakness of his own efforts in the 

 journalistic line, and he had better step down 

 and out. Such kind of editors are not wanted, 

 and sooner or later they are ohluied to step down 

 and out. 



MR. ALLEY AND THE PUNIC BEES, AGAIN. 



Regarding our editorial in the last issue, 

 page :.';.'8 on Punic bees, Mr. Alley desires us to 

 say that he did not mean that we were unfair. 

 We are very glad to be corrected, as we do not 

 wish to do Mr. Alley any injustice; but his lan- 

 guage by immediate connection conveyed that 

 impression quite strongly, and was so understood 

 by some of our correspondents. But it was not 

 Mr. Alley's intentional or unintentional state- 

 ment in regard to the attitude of Gleanings 

 toward Punic bees, to which we took exceptions, 

 but his disposition to make it appear that the 

 Punics were very<leslrnble, and that " nearly ev- 

 ery issue '■ of his paper contained favorable un- 

 solicited testimonials. We do not think for a 

 moment that Mr. Alley intentionally misrepre- 

 sented, but we felt very sure that he made the 

 statements offhand, without properly investi- 

 gating the truth, and we only desired to show he 

 was a long way from being correct, and that the 

 Punics were decidedly undesirable. We are glad 

 to feel that Mr. Alley is conscientious in the 

 matter, and that he has no desire to inflict any 

 undesirable race of bees on American bee-keep- 

 ers, simply for the " filthy lucre" that there may 

 be in it. if other queen-breeders have abandon- 

 ed them he can not afford to sell them. 



SHALI-OW BROOD-CHA.MRERS AND THE SHAKE- 

 OUT FUNCTION CENTURIES OLD. 



In another column will be found a very inter- 

 esting and valuable communication from our 

 friend Mr. Fiauk Benton, wherein he says that 

 the shallow brood -chambers about six inches 

 deep have been used in Carniola for r'e?itu)'le.s-. 

 Incidentally, fuitlier on, he tells how the 

 "shake-out function " is practiced by the native 

 bee-keepei's with these same brood-chambers. 

 All of this is exceedingly interesting— the more 

 so as Mr. Heddon has claimed, if we mistake 

 not. that these ideas were entirely new and orig- 

 inal with himself. We have seen references to 

 both of these things before, but were not aware 

 that tliey were ideas that we)e older than al- 

 most any thing else used in apiculture. The 



