1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



723 



our apiary; but we have sinco learned that the 

 first extractor was not properly tested. We 

 now find the machine to be a most magnificent 

 success, and it actually earns moi'e dolhtrs 

 than any thing else we have put in the apiary 

 for a long while. There was a time when fixed 

 frames, or, more correctly speaking, self-spac- 

 ing frames, were regarded as nuisances, and 

 impracticable, and all this because they were 

 nor candidly and carefully tested ; but now the 

 whole bee-keeping world is adopting them 

 right and left, in some form or other ; and the 

 evidence seems to show that they have come to 

 stay. Now, is there not any danger that a few 

 of us may decide against the self-hivers and 

 the Langdon non-swarmers before they have 

 been fairly tested. We are satisfied that the 

 Pratt hiver is a success. At first we were not 

 favorably impressed with any form of hiver; 

 and some preliminary tests that we have made, 

 as well as some reports that come in, led us to 

 believe they never would be practicable; but 

 more careful tests convinced us to the contrary. 

 In this issue we give the report of one who has 

 tested the Langdon non-swarmer, and found it 

 to be fairly successful. Let us not throw aside 

 something hastily, that may prove to be of 

 great value. There is no use in scoring the 

 editors of bee-journals because they give promi- 

 nenc^ to something that may prove to be a 

 failure. Let the watchword be, '• Prove all 

 things and hold fast that which is good." But 

 in order to do the proving we must give the 

 bee-keeping world a chance to " prove." 



THE AMERICAN COFFEE-BERRY. 



After publishing what we did on page 639, 

 we are told that the American coffee-berry is 

 advertised by Samuel Wilson, of Mechanicsburg, 

 Pa. It was also my pleasure a few days ago to 

 see it growing on the grounds of our experi- 

 ment station at Wooster. O. If you will turn 

 back to page 639 you will notice that the Rural 

 New-Yorker says: " The " American ' part of it 

 is the cheek of the ' introducer' who calls it a 

 new thing, and wants to charge ten times what 

 it is worth." In Wilson's catalogue it is called 

 '• Cole's Domestic coffee-berry." An exaggerat- 

 ed picture Is given, and a tremendous puff, 

 with several testimonials from those who have 

 used the coffee. Then follows the offer of 25 

 cts. a packet, or five packets for a dollar. It is 

 true, the plant is exceedingly prolific, for it is 

 one of the soy-bean family, and the seeds could 

 be sold for five cents a packet, and good-sized 

 packets at that. I have tested the coffee, but I 

 should say it could not be compared with even 

 the poorest grades of coffee. It might, how- 

 ever, prove more healthful and nutritious ; for, 

 while beans are a most nutritious food, they 

 are in no sense a stimulant. I do not know 

 that anybody would be very much harmed by 

 investing, only that it seems too bad. when 

 money is so hard to get hold of, to be asked to 

 pay 2.5 cts. for a small package of beans; and, 

 by the way. I do not think I ever saw any 

 thing in the whole range nf the bean family. 

 where there are so many pods on a single plant. 

 As the beans are small, however, we probably 

 shall not get so many bushels per acre, after 

 all. 



Just a word right iiere in regard to exaggerat- 

 ed pictures and exaggerati'd recommendations 

 in our seed catalogues. We should hardly 

 want to call the seedsman a humbug oi" swin- 

 dler; but if he persists in thus booming every 

 thing he catalogues, his customers will most 

 surely begin to calculate each spring, as the 

 seed catalogue comes out, that it will not be 

 safe to believe more than a small part of what 

 the pictures and description claim. A. I. R. 



PERFORATED ZINC; IS IT POSSIBLE TO MAIvE A 

 ZINC THAT WILL EXCLUDE ALL QUEENS, IN- 

 CLUDING VIRGINS, AND YET ALLOW THE 

 WORKERS TO PASS FREELY WHEN 

 LOADED ? 



Whex perforated zinc was first introduced 

 into this country, it had perforations very near- 

 ly -M) of an inch wide; but it was soon discov- 

 ered by us and others that queens would go 

 through it; and, not being able to buy zinc 

 with perforations ^^f^■^ wide, we constructed an 

 automatic machine for punching the metal in 

 large quantities; but ere long, when this zinc 

 was introduced among bee-ke(>pers. it was dis- 

 covered that queens would occasionally get 

 through this. About this time, Dr. G. L. Tin- 

 ker, of^ New Philadelphia, O., made perforated 

 zinc iV^ wiue. From numerous experiments he 

 had made, he concluded that this size was cor- 

 rect: that it did not hinder loaded workers in 

 passing through it, but always excluded queens. 

 This size was generally accepted as correct. We 

 then made an entirely new machine, and a new 

 set of dies that made zinc ^\y inch wide; but by 

 a slight miscalculation the dies were a trifle 

 larger than ^V„, and again queens were report- 

 ed as going through. Two years ago we made 

 zinc a trifle scant i^'^, thinking that this time 

 we should make a sure thing of it; but in the 

 course of time, reports would come in that vir- 

 gins and sometimes laying queens would go 

 through this very zinc; and Dr. Miller himself 

 wrote us that he had almost despaired of get- 

 ting a perforated metal that would absolutely 

 exclude the queens. We said nothing about it 

 in print, but concluded that our dies must have 

 worn since they were first made, because we 

 have turned out the metal during the past few 

 years by the ton. We were about to set our 

 machinist to making new dies, when it occurred 

 to us to make some careful measurements. One 

 of our men has a micrometer that will record 

 the one thousandth part of an inch. We first 

 measured Dr. Tinker's zinc, and found this to 

 show exactly i\,'4 as its width. The Chicago 

 zinc showed a measurement of iV^if,;. As we 

 heard good reports from Dr. Tinker's, we natu- 

 rally concluded that our zinc was something 

 over -ii,Vm, or, at least, larger than Dr. Tinker's. 

 To our great surprise, we found that the holes 

 measured only ii^il. Three of the holes showed 

 nearly Jij'o'},; but all of the rest of the holes in 

 that die of 64 holes showed a measurement of 

 t'nHi^ and under, though none recorded less than 

 iWiT- We concluded that Dr. Miller and others 

 who reported queens going through our zinc, 

 must, by some mistake, have gotten some of our 

 old zinc. We accordingly wrote to Dr. M.. ask- 

 ing him to send us some of the zinc from the 

 honey-board through which the queens went. 

 As Dr. Miller's hives are all numbered, and rec- 

 ords are kept in a note-book by number, he had 

 no difficulty in going to the identical hoiK^y- 

 board through which, he knew positively, his 

 queens had gone. He forwarded us the zinc, 

 and. by actual measurements, we found it to be 

 —what do you think"? Exactly -ji,,';/;, ! Now, by 

 some very careful and elaborate experiments 

 that W(; made in our apiary we have found that 

 zinc as small as the Chicago, having perfora- 

 tions only A'iAi- hinders greatly the workers, 

 when Uxtded, fiom going through. Indeed, 

 there were large numbers of the bers that could 

 not pass through at all. W(» then and there 

 concluch^d that such zinc would never do for the 

 passage of loaded bees. Well, now. zinc as small 

 as iVifi, is as small as we dare go; so we must 

 naturally conclude that there is, perhaps, one 

 queen in a hundred that may be able to get 

 tlirough zinc iW„ inch wide at the narrowest 

 way of th(i perforation. Obviously, it would be 

 folly to try to reduce the size any more than 



