•andHoNEV- 

 •AND HOME, 



•lMTE.FlESnvS 



l!6HEDBY(^l-r(00r' 



$i^perYeai\^ \@) Medina OHIO 



Vol. XXI. 



OCT. 1, 1893. 



No. 19. 



Stray Straws 



FROM DR. C C. MILUER. 



Louisiana Hotel, Chicago, Oct. 11. 13, 13. 



September is broke the long drouth at Ma- 

 rengo. 



Prices of honey haven't come down yet, 

 and I don't believe they're going to me down 

 much. 



Now Rambler's mind will a be torn to 

 pieces till he finds out whether " Anonymous," 

 on p. 710, is a widow or — or — what. 



More bee-keepers will probably meet in 

 Chicago Oct. 11 than have ever met at one time 

 and place before — on this side of the big pond. 



A GRAND noNEY-ELOw and a big crop don't 

 always go together. In some places there was 

 a tine flow but not bees enough to take care of it. 



"We have NEVER seen so fine and so com- 

 plete a work on apiculture as Root's A B C," 

 says the editor of Le Rucher. There's a French- 

 man of good judgment. 



Quite a picture gallery is given in the 

 last Nebraska Bee-keeper, which, with sketches 

 of the western bee-keepers shown, makes an 

 interesting number. 



W. C. Frazier make some good points on 

 page 701. Now, how shall we focus on these 

 points the gaze of those to whom we must 

 look for proper appropriations? 



The California output of honey, at least 

 in the southern part of the State, according to 

 C. N. Wilson, in R((ral Californian, is not 

 more than two thirds of the average. 



In answer to your (luestion on p. 705, friend 

 Root, a late Bienenzeitaiig gave among other 

 items from an apparently careful observer, an 

 account of a queen fertilized the second time. 



At the wori-d's fair some of the finest- 

 looking sections are sliown lying on the side. 

 It helps to make a better show, for the wood of 

 the case covers up any imperfection at the 

 sides of the section. 



Beet sugar is still bitterly opposed in Eng- 

 land as food for bees. If there is any chance of 

 cane sugar being any better, I'm sure the cane 

 may as well be used. But how are you to tell 

 whether sugar has been made from cane or 

 beets ? 



Just when we think we have something 

 settled, along comes a batch of statistics from 

 that troublesome old bach. Hasty, and knocks 

 things endwise. Taking his table as a basis 



(p. 700.) it seems we might cut queen-cells 5^ 

 days after swarming, and again 6 days later. 

 But I wouldn't pin my faith to cell-cutting 

 anyhow. All the same, that's a valuable table. 



The St. Louis market, which I visited a few 

 days ago, hadn't a single section that I saw 

 that a bee-keeper would want to set on his own 

 table, even if there were no company present. 

 That market seems to be largely for extracted' 

 honey. 



Gravenhorst agrees with Dzierzon, that one 

 reason of the fatality in winter and spring in 

 America lies in single hives and another in 

 hives with movable covers. Remember their 

 covers are fast, and the frames handled from 

 the side or bottom. 



The women-folks from our house are going 

 to be represented at the Chicago convention. 

 Why not from everywhere? Let's have a fam- 

 ily gathering, and have a jolly time getting ac- 

 quainted. How many women are going from 

 Medina, Bro. Root ? 



Prevention of swarming is one of the live 

 topics; but too often an article on prevention 

 begins, " When a colony swarms," and then I 

 sadly pass it by without further reading. I 

 don't want to know what to do when a colony 

 swarms, but how to keep it from wanting to 

 swarm. 



Quite a discussion is going on in A. B. J. 

 as to the amount of honey on exhibition in the 

 World's Fair by the State of New York. But 

 there will hardly be an agreement so long as 

 one figures only the sections that can be seen 

 as on exhibition, and the other counts all that 

 are in the case. 



Starvation is sometimes mistaken for pa- 

 ralysis, according to H. F. Coleman, in A. B. J. 

 When no honey is coming in, he says the bees 

 do not feed each other: and young bees hatch- 

 ing out of the central combs starve to death, 

 although plenty of honey may be two or three 

 comb away— a new idea, whether correct or 

 not. 



Dr. Tinker reports, in A. B. J., an apiary of 

 11 colonies of the ugliest bees to handle he ever 

 saw. located close to the business center of a 

 city, and they have never stung any one out- 

 side of the fence that incloses them, altliough 

 several families live very close, and one not 

 over 40 feet from the bees. He doesn't say how 

 high the fence is. but I suspect it's pretty well 

 up. 



The L.\ngdon non-swarmer has been re- 

 ported as smothering swarms because there is 

 room for only one bee to get out at a time. I 

 have doubts about that. I suspect that the 

 passage was stopped entirely. Mine was by a 



