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Vol. XXI. 



DEC. 15, 1893. 



No. 24. 



STRAr Straws 



FROM DR. C. C. MILLER. 



Whew! What a winter at its frontendl 



All right, friend Root; bring on your re- 

 port of sections manufactured, and 1 promise to 

 keep mum. 



Michigan isn't so very near Marengo, and 

 yet I feel sort o' lonesome when I think Prof. 

 Cook is no longer in it. 



Women occupy one- fourth the space in the 

 list of names of members of the Chicago con- 

 vention. They were a nice lot too. 



That account on p. 8!»4 is another proof that 

 the whole tramp business should be summarily 

 stopped. Wouldn't it be a kindness to the 

 tramps? 



Will bottom-bars ?8 square allow building 

 down on top bars if the top-bars under them 

 are spaced J^ apart? See F. X. Arnold's com- 

 plaint, p. 890. 



A DRESSING for cuts, sores, scalds, etc. Boil 

 together one pound of resin and three ounces of 

 clarified beef suet; then add two ounces of 

 beeswax, boil one-half hour longer, and allow 

 to coo\ .—Medical Brief. 



There you go again, Bro. Root, butting 

 your head, on p. 896, against that time-honored 

 belief that night air is pernicious. No, no! 

 Never breathe night air. Always bottle up 

 some day air and take to bed with you. 



" Twenty years ago we used to hear things 

 preached from the pulpit that we do not hear 

 now — at least I do not hear them now.'" — A.I. 

 Root, p. 89'.'. Bro. Root, don't you think you 

 heard a little differently twenty yeai's ago? 



You're right, Ernest, on page 900. " Mr. 

 Boardman is a very careful bee-keeper," — one 

 of our best men; but for everyone that gives 

 his testimony in favor of swarming, are there 

 not three to say they would get more honey if 

 the bees never thought of swarming ? 



Friend Abbott, I'll never again write any 

 thing but Saint Joseph— if I don't forget. But 

 if calling your city St. Jo brought out such a 

 flaming advertisement on p. 891. what would it 

 liave done if I had called it St. J.? I'm looking 

 forward to a good convention at St. Joe — seph. 



A NEW KINK in hauling bees is given by Mrs. 

 Atchley, in A. B. J. It's a wire-cloth house on 

 a wagon. Putin the bees in box hives upside 

 down, without at all confining them in the 

 hives, and after driving 40 miles scarcely any 

 bees are found flying about in the bee-tight 

 house. 



" N0N-SWAR.MING . . . . means, in most cases, 

 little or no honey." That statement, in a foot- 



note on p. 889, needs a little qualifying, doesn't 

 it, friend Root? In most cases, doesn't the colo- 

 ny that never offers to swarm, store the most 

 honey? The right sort of prevention may yet 

 be found. 



Canada soil doesn't seem as favorable for 

 the production of new bee-journals as that 

 farther south. Now, however, a second candi- 

 date appears, bearing the strong name. Practi- 

 cal Bcc-kccpcr. It starts out in good shape, and 

 is the highest-priced paper published, 10 cents 

 per copy. 



Skunks are thus killed by Mrs. Atchley (A. 

 B. J.): Make a little hole in the small end of an 

 egg, put in some poison, and the skunk that 

 sucks that egg will never suck another. Don't 

 put the poison in the large end, for there is an 

 air-hole there, and the poison will not be mixed 

 in the egg. 



The Apiculturist advises to raise hives from 

 the cellar bottom so as to keep mice out. But 

 mice can climb, unless the hives are suspended 

 from above, and that would be difficult with a 

 hundred hives. Fasten the mice out with wire 

 cloth three meshes to the inch, and then poison 

 and trap besides. 



Young bees that have not yet marked their 

 location are more likely to be on the brood-combs 

 than in the super, friend Root. So the trouble 

 you anticipate in your foot-note, p. 883, is not 

 likely to occur. At any rate, I never find lost 

 bees hanging around piles of supers with any 

 kind of escapes on. 



A crusade against foot-ball as now conduct- 

 ed is opiMicd up by such respectable papers as 

 the M('(Ur<(l Xcjvfi, Harper's Weekly, ihe New 

 York Herald, and the New York Evening Post. 

 Twenty-six deaths so far this season in Eng- 

 land, directly attributable to foot-ball injuries, 

 and four or five in this country. 



James IIeddox puts himself on record in 

 Practical Bee-keeper as favoring a top-bar ^ or 

 % deep and % wide. He thinks % space be- 

 tween top-bars best, and thinks Jo space will 

 have less brace-combs than K- He says bees 

 will plug a 1^ space, a thing I've been afraid of; 

 but my bees didn't do it in the single season's 

 trial. 



"A laying (^ueen never leaves the hive ex- 

 cept at swarming time," is the rule. Three 

 different men report exceptions in Bienen Va- 

 ter. In one case the (lueen was absent 18 min- 

 utes, and eggs and brood in all stages were pres- 

 ent. One man thinks there is reason to believe 

 that these flights had occurred several times 

 before, and the editor thinks harm might be 

 done in such cases by having a trap on. 



EvEKY bicycler seems inclined to double 

 himself up like a capital C. The eminent Eng- 

 lish physician. Sir Benjamin Richardson, him- 

 self an enthusiastic rider, says: "The attitude 



