1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



611 



what Mr. Pringle did say commanded atten- 

 tion. The diction of his articles was beautiful- 

 ly smooth, and there was something in them 

 too that reminded the reader that their author 

 was a scholar of no mean order. A number of 

 years ago, when bee-keepers everywhere were 

 harrassed by the reports that were going the 

 rounds of the daily papers, to the effect that 

 comb honey was manufactured, and filled with 

 glucose, nothing seemed able to stem the tide 

 of it. Editorials in the bee-journals, protesting 

 and denouncing it as unntrue, had little or no 

 effect. The " Wiley lie," that gave the start to 

 these reports, appeared originally in the Popu- 

 lar Science Monthly ; and Mr. Pringle, appreci- 

 ating the fact that we were fighting through 

 the wrong channels, conceived the idea of re- 

 futing the canard right where it started. The 

 result was, he sent an article to that monthly, 

 denying the comb- honey yarn, and explaining 

 how impossible it was to make it. This was 

 given the same prominence as the original 

 Wiley lie, and was subsequently copied widely 

 by the general press. How much effect it had 

 in stopping the course of this famous comb- 

 honey canard it would be impossible to estimate 

 at the present time. 



TAKING OFF HONEY AT THK BASSWOOD YARD; 

 THE GKEAT CONVENIENCE AND ADVAN- 

 TAGE OF BEE-ESCAPES. 



As I have before explained, I usually have the 

 care of this yard myself, going down on my 

 wheel once or twice a week, as circumstances 

 may require. Early or later in the season my 

 visits do not, perhaps, aggregate more than 

 once a month. But as the yard is only about 

 two miles from our factory, by the road, it takes 

 but a few minutes, comparatively, to go to it on 

 the bicycle. 



In taking off honey it has usually been my 

 plan to go down a day in advance and put in 

 bee-escapes. At our next visit our teamster 

 starts with a wagon ten or fifteen minutes in 

 advance of me, when I mount the wheel and 

 usually arrive about the time he does. All we 

 have to do is to pull off the supers that are on 

 top of the bee-escapes and set them in the wag- 

 on, without any shaking or smoking. 



•This yearcircumstauces caused us to vary the 

 program a little. Being a little crowded with 

 work I sent one of the boys down with the wag- 

 on to take off the honey; but as the bees were 

 so " awful cross " that day he could do nothing 

 with them. But he managed to slip bee-es- 

 capes under a few of the supers. On his return 

 he reported that thieves had already been in the 

 apiary; but. fortunately, they had not appro- 

 priated more than one section out of a super. I 

 concluded, however, it was not wise to wait any 

 longer, and accordingly our teamster and I 

 made arrangements to meet at the yard. Ar- 

 riving there I proceeded to take off the supers 

 that were on top of the bee-escapes. So far all 



was smooth sailing, with the exception that one 

 Porter escape was clogged with a couple of dead 

 bees, and, as a consequence, the super was near- 

 ly full of bees that could not get out; but in 

 every other case the Porters did nice clean 

 work. But, unfortunately, the majority of su- 

 pers had no bee-escape under them; and as I 

 did not like to have the wagon leave without 

 taking them I decided to go at it in the " good 

 old-fashioned way " — smoke, brush, and shake 

 the bees out. The Cornell smoker was fired up; 

 and as I pulled the cover off from the first one 

 I proceeded to smoke the bees down as much as 

 possible into the brood -nest. This done, the su- 

 per was pried off, and then I gave that super 

 such a shaking as it never received before; but, 

 of course, it was impossible to get all the bees 

 out. Each super containing honey, and which 

 I desired to remove, was treated in a like man- 

 ner until all were off. In the mean time they 

 had been placed, as fast as they had been taken 

 off, into the wagon, and covered with bee-es- 

 capes. A few bees crawled, but still there were 

 a good many left, and I finally decided we would 

 take the supers home as they were, setting 

 them in the home yard with bee-escapes on 

 top, and letting the few straggling bees fly home 

 as best they might among strangers. 



Well, when I got through shaking the last 

 super I was about as tired as I ever was before 

 in all my life after two hours' work. I knew 

 my hands hurt me while I was shaking, but 

 that made no difference. As I looked inside of 

 the palms I found nine blisters as the result of 

 my vigorous shaking; and sweat? why, it just 

 streamed from every pore. I made up my mind 

 that t?i.at would be the last time I would ever 

 attempt to get bees out of supers in the " good 

 old-fashioned way ; " that hereafter, thieves or 

 no thieves, the bee-escape would be used. 



The saving in time, the saving of blisters, and 

 the saving of strength, to say nothing of the 

 cruelty of using such a large quantity of smoke 

 for driving the bees down, and the uncapping 

 of the cells, makes the bee-escape method of re- 

 moving honey .so far ahead of the "good old 

 way " that it seems to me any bee-keeper who 

 thinks he can not afford to, or won't, use it is— 

 well, I was going to say a fool; but I can hard- 

 ly say that, because I know there are some very 

 good bee- keepers who don't use an escape, and 

 they are no fools either; but if they won't even 

 try an escape, they are missing one of the great- 

 est conveniences that modern bee-keeping af- 

 fords. 



INDEXES. 



A couRESPONDENT suggests that there is 

 room for improvement in the indexing of the 

 American Bee Journal. I have consulted the 

 files of that periodical not a little, and rarely 

 have trouble in finding what I want. If I could 

 feel that our index was always as good I should 

 feel satisfied. 



