8i8 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



pours syrup in through curved, flat-ended fun- 

 nel, feeling f)00 pounds in two hours, giving 

 each colony 5 lo 15 pounis each evening. [I 

 should hardly like to feed Z}4 tons of sugar and 

 one ton of honey on the boitom-boards of the 

 hives of an ordinary apiary. Too many of 

 them, I fear, would leak, and make this method 

 of feeding rather expen!«ivo. — Ed.J 



I don't know whether there was any design 

 in putting so elo-'e together those two items on 

 page 833. but I coul In'c help thinking if some 

 of those who sigh for the ''good old times" were 

 to spend just one week in hot weather without 

 fly-screens, as in the '* good old times," they'd 

 be glad to get back to the present. Our arms 

 don't get tired now keeping a fly-brush going 

 all the meal time to keep the flies off the table. 



Pekii VPS it might not be safe to put I."} ounces 

 as the approximate weight of 1% sections (page 

 811). Ni'xt year the weight may be nearer 13, 

 and I think some have report! d 13 as the average 

 Wfight. [fjet us see, doc'or: 1 believe you said 

 you preferred l}| sections because they aver- 

 aged a pouni; Uiat is, a crate of 24 such sec- 

 tions would have a net weight of 24 lbs. If this 

 is tru^', the iK-inch would average very near 

 15 ounces; but i< it true that there is so great a 

 diffirence in difl'erent years? Let's have an 

 expression from our readers. — Ed.J 



Wii.\T A I5USI.VESS— yes, what a science — ad- 

 vertising has become. I went with friend York 

 to a banquet given by an adverti-ing iigency, 

 the Frank B. White Co., lo advertist-rs and 

 publishers for mutual con><ultalion. I was glad 

 to see a grand siippe" could be given without 

 wine; but A. I. Root wouldn't have liked so 

 much cigar smoke. [Yes, indeed, advertising, 

 in this country at least, has come to be a real 

 scienc. The advertiser who knows how an 1 

 when to cast his l)rea(l upon the waters is pretty 

 sure to gel it back again many fold. The pur- 

 pose of these conventions is to learn both the 

 how and ivhen. I presume we as a bee-keeping 

 firm spend thousands of dollars more in adver- 

 tising than any olhi-r concern engaged in the 

 manufacture of bee-keepers' supplies; and our 

 position as manufacturers is due largely to our 

 faith in advertising; advertising fiist, last, and 

 all the lime. " Iveeping everlastingly at it " is 

 one of the accepted mottoes among advertisers 

 who get their mon -y back. — Ed.] 



Say, Mr. Edipoij, don't let's get into a quar- 

 rel through a misunderstanding. On p. 813 you 

 reply that you've seen queen-cells right over 

 eggs, and you think the Cxlony had been queen- 

 less some time before the eggs were given. 

 That doesn't conflict in the least with my state- 

 ment, " Uuqueen a colony and the bees will 

 start a queen from a larva, never from an egg." 

 Did you ever know a queen to be started from an 

 egg on the removal of a queen, assuming that the 

 removed queen left larvoB and eggs'? [No, I 



never knew a queen to be started from an egg 

 on the removal of the queen, provided there 

 were hirvce as well as eggs in the comb. But 

 your statement, it seemed to me (and does so 

 yet) is a little strong when you say that the 

 bees will never start a queen from an egg. The 

 sentence in question contains no proviso to the 

 effect that there may be larvse or eggs. Some 

 years ago, when I was rearing queens, those 

 that sold for a dollar, it sometimes became 

 necessary, under pressure of orders, to remove 

 a queen after she had laid a few eggs. Well, 

 under such circumstances, if I am not mistaken, 

 I have seen the bees, in their eager haste, start 

 cells right over the eggs. They just could 7iot 

 wait for them to hatch into larvge.— Ed ] 



POISONOUS HONEY. 



DR. STELL'S C0NCI>US10NS DISSECTED. 



By E. S. Arwlne. 



Anent the poison-honey question referred to 

 in the Oct. 1.5ih issue, page 7.57, where you re- 

 produce Dr. Stell's article in So uUthmd Queen, 

 which gives the usual symptoms of laurel poi- 

 soning, out which has no bearing on the theory 

 of the secretion of poisonous honey by the lau- 

 rel flowers, I would say: The leaves of moun- 

 tain laurel (Kdlmia latlfoHa) are well known 

 to be poisonous to man, sheep, and some other 

 animals, but are not poisonous to deer, goats, 

 quail, etc. Why this is so I am unable to state, 

 neither have I ever heard a reason given. May 

 it not be that laurel is poisonous to gall-secret- 

 ing animals, while non gall-secreting ones may 

 eat it with impunity? Deer have no gall-pro- 

 ducing glands in their liver. I have never ex- 

 amined a goat's liver. If Dr. Stell had used 

 nux vomica instead of laurel leaves, he would 

 have had strychnine instead of laurel poison- 

 ing, and would have proven as much; that is, 

 honey can be poisoned ; but the secretion of 

 poisonous honey is a difl'erent thing. I think 

 his poisoned honey would have killed bees had 

 he confined them to it. 



Poison in the honey-sac of bees (unless very 

 concentrated) would not afifect them in the 

 short time required to load up, carry to, and 

 deposit in the hive, as very little if any absorp- 

 tion takes place through the walls of their lioa- 

 ey sacs. As Dr. Stell used a tincture of the 

 leaves, and not honey from the laurel flowers, 

 his experiment proves nothing as to ihe secre- 

 tion of poisonous honey. 



There are hut two avenues open to us to reach 

 a conclusion in this question; namely, analogi- 

 cal reasoning and actual experience. Analogy 



