404 



GLEANINGS IN BEIE CULTURE. 



May 15. 



to the production of honey, our losses would 

 have been merely nominal. We know of noth- 

 ing that presages bad wintering any more than 

 queen-rearing and tilling nucleus orders from 

 every colony in the apiary, clear up until cold 

 weather sets in. This is pretty near what we 

 did last fall. By the way. some of the promi- 

 nent bee-keepers are singularly silent as to their 

 winter losses or successes. 



VV. G. TiTTSwoRTH. of Avoca, la., sends us 

 two pieces of wide-frame holders that have 

 been entirely riddled by common black ants. 

 The piece is quite a curiosity— in fact, it is a 

 mere shell. Mr. T. says he once had a colony 

 of bees destroyed by them, the ants having 

 made their way into the hive by eanng a hole 

 through the bottom of the same. He has also 

 had the same pests eat their way through the 

 wooden crates into the comb honey, ruining it for 

 market. We were not aware before that any 

 ants in the North could or would do such work 

 as this, although we have had many reports of 

 their cutting up similar didos in the South. 



Since writing our " getatable" editorial on 

 page 3<):3, it occurs to us that we can make our 

 idea more '"getatable" by saying that, if you 

 have an idea or invention, first describe briefly 

 in a nutshell the main principle, and then build 

 up around it. If you employ a carpenter to 

 build a house, he first wishes to look ai a tjener- 

 al plan before he is able to understand the de- 

 tail drawings of the various parts of the house. 

 It would be folly to give him the detail draw- 

 ings first and let him figure out the general plan 

 of the house later on, i/ he can. This latter is 

 what some of our correspondents have been do- 

 ing. If the subject is of that nature, give us a 

 small nucleus, comparing the implement or in- 

 vention with some common article, after which 

 give the general supplementary matter. Now, 

 dear readers, whenever we do not write in a 

 " getatable " shape (and we acknowledge we are 

 just as guilty as any of the rest of you), please 

 point our gun around toward us. 



Reports are coming in, showing that the 

 losses from wintering are going to be pretty se- 

 vere this year — probably greater than any year 

 since the unprecedented bee mortality of 1880- 

 81. Many bee-keepers are discouraged, and are 

 going out of the business. The prospects in 

 California seem to be unusually bright, and the 

 probabilities are that there will bean immense 

 honey crop there this year. The j-easun has 

 opened up again with us after a laps*? of ihree 

 or four weeks of bad weather. The prospects 

 seem to be unusually bright for the survival of 

 the fittest. Those who have wintered success- 

 fully will probably secure a good honey crop, 

 and get good round prices. There will be less 

 competition from slipshod bee-keepers, and per- 

 haps less from some who are not slipshod, who 

 are very unfortunate in losing their bees, or. at 

 least, a large portion of them. This, in brief, 

 is the situation after reading hundreds of re- 

 ports that have come in within the past few 

 days. 



So many questions have been coming in of 

 late, many of them already covered in the 

 standard text-books, it seems necessary for us 

 to revive an old department, with the heading, 

 " Answers to Questions from Beginners." Be- 

 ginners either do not read carefully the, text- 

 books, or else those same books are not suffi- 

 ciently explicit in certain details. As one an- 

 swer may be valuable to many, we have decid- 

 ed to answer many of the questions in this de- 

 partment that have heretofore received a pri- 

 vate answer, even at the risk of going over 



old ground already in our ABC and other text- 

 books. Indeed, it may help to make the subject 

 plainer to have it re>tated in different language. 

 We shall not attempt to answer every question, 

 as some of them would certainly be of no gen- 

 eral interest; but the great majority will be an- 

 swered here; and if the querist is not a sub- 

 scriber of Gleanings, he will go without the 

 answer. 



It is about time now when bee-keepers can 

 begin to tell definitely how their bees have been 

 wintering. As we wish to make up another 

 batch of statistics for our June 1st number, if 

 possible, showing the mortality during the past 

 winter, we shall be greatly obliged if every one 

 of our subscribers in the United States will 

 send us a postal card answering these two ques- 

 tions: 1. What per cent of your bees have win- 

 tered ? 2. What per cent of the bees in your lo- 

 calitv, as near as you canestimate, have winter- 

 ed '? Now, please do not fill up the card with a 

 lot of other matter, giving the cause of the 

 mortality, etc. Just answer the questions by 

 straight per cents, and nothing more. When 

 we have to average up hundreds of postals, we 

 can not afford to wade through a lot of prelimi- 

 nary matter before the questions are answered. 

 Now, unless you attend to this matter by the 

 next mail, we are afraid you will forget it; and 

 if you do not do it, the report will lose just that 

 much of its value in accuracy. 



SOME OLD BEE-BOOKS. 



We have just purchased from the library of 

 W. P. Henderson, of Murireesboro, Tenn., a 

 large collection of rare and valuable old bee- 

 books. Some of them date back over 230 years. 

 Although these works probably will not give 

 us any '"new kinks," they will be valuable 

 as reference, as proving what is old and what 

 is new. Our proof-reader and translator, Mr. 

 W. P. Root, seemed so greatly interested in the 

 great stack of venerable books as they were 

 unpacked, that we asked him to review each 

 one and give a brief digest of them, pointing 

 out such features as may be of interest to the 

 bee-keepers of lo-day. As Mr. R. is well versed 

 in the literary features of bee culture, having 

 read the proof of Gleanings for the past thir- 

 teen years, as well as the foreign journals most 

 of that time, we believe he will be able to give 

 us a rare feast indeed from these old books. 

 We will from time to time reproduce some of 

 the more quaint features of some of them. The 

 review will begin in the June 1st issue, and will, 

 perhaps, continue through four or five num- 

 bers. 



N. B.— We hope none of our friends will ask 

 us for the loan of these books, as many of them 

 are rare and valuable, and would hardly stand 

 the rough usage to which ordinary mail and 

 express matter is subject. 



GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY? 



May be I am making a mistake, but I think I 

 would follow the advice of friend Moore, on 

 page 385. If all the lawyers in the world, and 

 the rest of the people thrown in, should tell me 

 that it was best to plead guilty when I was en- 

 tirely innocent of the offense, I think I would 

 stand to the truth, no matter how much money 

 it cost, and no matter if they put me in jail. I 

 suppose people are put in jail who are entirely 

 innocent. I have met some cases of this kind — 

 that is. ihey were innocent of the offense with 

 which they were charged. They were unfortu- 

 nate, however (at least they put it that way), in 

 having neither friends nor reputation. Now, 

 the trouble comes in right here: Every real 

 good, straight, square man has, as a rule, plenty 



