1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



447 



cure for inebriety, fi'om all accounts, is work- 

 ing many remarkable cures. 



But such is the magnitude of the evil that all 

 unaided human efforts must fall very far short 

 of meeting all the requirements of the case. 

 The only potent and effectual cure for this and 

 all the other evils that afflict the race is the 

 complete and final triumph of the gospel of 

 Jesus Christ. This may seem slow to those re- 

 formers who look for immediate results; but it 

 is the divine plan. "There is joy in heaven 

 over one sinner that repentcth." 



Allegan, Mich. Julius Tomlinson. 



At thy right hand there are pleasures for eTermore.— Ps. 16:11. 



Do not fail to read Woodchopper's article in 

 this issue. 



The first number of the Bee-keepers'' Enter- 

 prise, published at New Haven, Ct., is out on 

 time, and fully justifies our previous expecta- 

 tion. It is well printed, and shows good taste 

 in its make-up. 



How natural it is, when one is giving the 

 exact requisites of a good bee-hive, that those 

 requisites, when set In order, describe exactly 

 the hive used, recommended, and sold by the 

 describer! No crime in this. It is just a fea- 

 ture of human nature. Don't be offended. We 

 are not hitting at any one in this issue. 



So far we have had a rather peculiar spring. 

 First it would be rather hot. then cold and 

 rainy for quite a long period of time. Fruit- 

 bloom, so far, has not proven to be any thing 

 extra — indred, while it was out the weather 

 was cool and rainy. There has been an un- 

 usual amount of dandelions, especially upon 

 our lawns. We like to see a large profusion of 

 them in pasture lots; but somehow or other we 

 do not like the looks of them on an otherwise 

 nice lawn. / 



Mr. Ed. Bektrand, of Nyon. Switzerland, 

 has mailed us a copy of his bee-bonk, "' Conduite 

 du Rucher" ("Management of the Apiary"), 

 translated into the Flemish language under the 

 title of ■■ Bestier der Bieenhalle." It has been 

 printed in French and German, and will soon 

 appear in Italian and Russian. We have had a 

 call from Cuba for a bee book in Spanish; but 

 as we do not know of any we can not simd one. 

 We would suggest to Mr. Bertrand the wisdom 

 of putting his work into Spanish also. 



Neigiibok Rice, of Seville, has just brought 

 us another load of bees. He wintered in the 

 cellar, and in large two-story chaff hives. As 

 he has always wintered very successfully with 

 the absorbing cushions, both for cellar and for 

 outdoors, he saw no reason for changing. His 

 bees during the past severe winter came out as 

 well as usual; and the n'sult is. quite a num- 

 ber of nice bright strong colonies of Italians. 

 The colonies that were put into the cellar have 

 their usual summer entrances, but have a large 

 chaff cushion on top, thi' whole held down by 

 a sort of wire-screen cap. This wire cloth pre- 

 vents bees from getting out at the top, and al- 

 lowsl the " sweat." as he expresses it, to rise and 

 pass off. 



Since our editorial on page 363. more testimo- 

 ny has come in on the question of sealed covers. 

 The preponderance of evidence now, taking a 

 birdseye view of the whole, is quite decidedly 

 in favor of absorbing cushions as against seal- 

 ed covers. We desire to thank our friends for 

 so kindly and so piomptly responding; and. so 

 far as we are concpined, the matter is settled in 

 about this way: Scaled covers in outdoor win- 

 tering, protected by packing material, will do 

 very well in the majority of winters: but dur- 

 ing severe ones, th(» absorbing cushion (hives 

 packed otherwise the same) seems to give the 

 better result. We shall continue to give ab- 

 sorbents the preference, just as we have always 

 done In our A B C of Bee Culture, and else- 

 where where we have given advice to begin- 

 ners. 



Perhaps some of our readers may think we 

 are giving Aikin Bros. & Knight, in Trade 

 Notes, a rather "big free ad." Well, if it is 

 such it is entirely unsolicited on their part; and 

 while we do not subscribe to every thing claim- 

 ed in favor of their hive and system, we sin- 

 cerely believe there are some good points in 

 them, especially the non-swarming feature. 

 And speaking of non-swarming, it may be well 

 to say that we should not place our hopes too 

 high, as so many times we have been on the eve 

 of discovering a plan that would absolutely pre- 

 vent swarms, and convert the swarming mania 

 into a mania for honey-gathering, but over and 

 over again we have been disappointed. In the 

 present instances, we sincerely think the non- 

 swarming methods proposed by Langdon, and 

 Aikin Bros. & Knight, promise to accomplish 

 more than any thing else we have before ex- 

 amined. 



Yes, there does seem to be a gleam of hope for 

 the prevention of swarming. It appears to us 

 that H. P. Langdon and Mr. Knight have been 

 working upon the same principle, each without 

 the knowledge of the other. Although both 

 use a different appliance for accomplishing the 

 result, both find the principle to be a success; 

 namely, the alternate turning of the working 

 force of two separate and contiguous colonies 

 from one hive to another, in such a way that it 

 impoverishes the one and strengthens the other, 

 and at the same time keeps the working force 

 of both in one super or set of supers. If we are 

 mistaken as to the same principle existing in 

 both methods, we should be too glad to he cor- 

 rected. How often it happens that valuable in- 

 ventions are evolved almost simultaneously by 

 several persons! Take, as an example of this, 

 the cold-blast smoker and tlie automatic hiv- 

 ing devices that seemed a year ago to be so nu- 

 merous and so simultaneous in their appear- 

 ance that it was hard to tell who really enjoyed 

 priority. 



THE CRANE AND CORNEIL SMOKERS. 



Since our last issue we sent and got a Corneil 

 smoker. We find that it is quite a little larger 

 in size, both as to the bellows and fire-cup, than 

 our regular Crane smoker. The Corneil works 

 very nicely, and has indeed a very strong blast; 

 and after trying it we were for the time being 

 ready to confess that it was ahead of the Crane; 

 but on comparing it with the Crane of smaller 

 size, using the same effort on each bellows, 

 we found that each sent a blast of smoke about 

 the same distance; and that, when both were 

 crammed tight with fuel, the Crane was con- 

 siderably ahead. If the latter had been of the 

 same size as the Corneil, the result would have 

 been much more marked in favor of the Crane. 

 Now, in saying all this we have endeavored to 

 be just as fair as possible, putting aside any 



