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UBlliHED BY(^TrpO T ' 



Vol. XXI. 



SEPT. 1, 1893. 



No. 17. 



^T"/?/?/ Straws 



from dr. c. c. miller. 



October 11, 12, 13. 



A WEITER in Biencn-Yater quotes from 

 Gleanings the account of bees changing work- 

 er eggs to drone eggs, and then slyly pokes fun 

 at the idea. 



Propolis of a new kind appears in some of 

 my hives this year. It sparkles to a slight ex- 

 tent like what the ladies call diamond dust. I 

 wonder what it comes from. 



The raking motion of bees at the hive- 

 front can hardly be a sign of swarming, as sug- 

 gested by some one, for I saw it this year after 

 all swarming was over, and didn't notice it 

 before. 



In a number of cases I have found young 

 queens wrong end to in their cells, but never a 

 worker. Does this position always prove fatal 

 to a queen, or has she the power to turn around 

 in the cell? 



Contrary to my expectations, and contrary, 

 too, 1 think, to the reports of others, when my 

 bees were kept a full week with the Langdon 

 non-swarmer on, none of the worker brood suf- 

 fered, so far as I could see. 



"A RECORD OF 75 pounds of comb honey per 

 colony, spring count, for eight consecutive 

 years,"' is attributed to Hon. Geo. E. Hilton, in 

 a biographical sketch in A. B. J. That makes 

 some of us green with envy. 



More and more it begins to seem that, while 

 the season was a grand one in some parts, in 

 others it was one of the very worst. As yet I 

 think no good reports come from west of the 

 Mississippi; some reports that do come, say, 

 " Not a section finished." 



Henry Alley says that young bees up to 

 three days old will not molest a strange queen. 

 If so, then inswad of giving a valuable queen 

 to hatching brood without any bees, it would 

 be just as well to inclose this queenless brood 

 three day.s before giving the queen. 



D. C. Leach reports an experiment in ^. B. 

 J. His bees were working on linden two miles 

 away. At night he shut in one colony, opening 

 them next morning when other colonies were 

 fairly at work. In just 1.5 minutes the first bee 

 returned, others being as long as 18 minutes. 



Did you ever notice how suddenly bees 

 lose interest in a robber the instant it is killed ? 

 One or more will be holding on to it for dear 

 life; but the minute you kill it with the end of 

 a chisel they lose all interest in it, and act as 



if they didn't see it. But a strange queen will 

 hold their attention long after it is dead. 



"Somnambulist" talks delightfully in his 

 sleep, as reported in the really progressive Pro- 

 gressive; and that usually shrewd guesser, 

 Hasty, paid me the compliment of laying Som- 

 nambulist's work at my door; but you're away 

 off this time, brother Hasty. Look closer at 

 the ear-marks. 



'• Don't start out to invent the best hive on 

 earth," says J. W. Rouse, in P. B. K., '* until 

 you have become a judge of what is best, by 

 practical experience." Oh, dear! if that advice 

 is followed, it will strangle at tne birth ninety- 

 nine out of every hundred of all the new " best 

 hives " that are invented. 



Pasturage around the home apiary, so far 

 as I can judge from outside appearances, is as 

 good as or better than at the Wilson apiary. 

 But for years the Wilson has taken the lead, 

 the bees storing there when they have stopped 

 at home. It shows that I don't know how to 

 select a location as well as the bees. 



The enlarged scope of the Bee-keepers' 

 Union makes it seem desirable that it should 

 have a yearly meeting. If some plan were de- 

 vised by which every member of the North 

 American Society could be made a member of 

 the Union, the way for a yearly meeting of the 

 Union would seem easier. 



"The eight-frame hive has been a detri- 

 ment rather than a help toward getting large 

 crops," says R. C. Aikin, in P. B. K. He argues 

 that the extra frames in the large hives have 

 only to be filled with honey once, making things 

 ever after in better shape. I'm afraid there's a 

 good deal in what he says, and it's been trou- 

 bling me for years. 



Sweet clover can hardly make the black 

 honey credited to it by some. This year my 

 bees have had more sweet clover than ever 

 before — enough, I should think, to make a per- 

 ceptible impression, and my honey was never 

 finer. I had some of that sooty honey one year, 

 and have no idea from what it came, but I've 

 had none of it this year. 



'■ I DO not believe a swarm works with any 

 great degree of vigor above that of the same 

 colony when it does not swarm, even though 

 prevented from swarming. There is an appar- 

 ent gn^iitev L-mn-gy, for two reasons. First, the 

 swarm has no brood — nothing to do but build 

 comb. The second reason is, they get a lot of 

 honey in a short time."—!?. C. Aikin, in P. B. 

 K. 



The Aptculturist wisely reprints an exceed- 

 ingly interesting article from father Langstroth, 

 in which he shows by experiment, that, under 

 favorable circumstances, a queen may hatch in 



