THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



183 



Emma Wilson tells, in Gleanings^, how sh 

 cleaned the propolis from separators and 

 supers by immersiiij,' them in a solution of 

 lye made boiling hot. If the supers were 

 painted, seems to me it would take off the 

 paint too. 



The " FEATHEE EDGE " On the Hoffman 

 frame is criticised in the Progressive Bee- 

 Kceper. In the corner where the edge strikes 

 the opposing frame will be a grand place for 

 stowing away propolis. That is the way it 

 strikes me. 



E. Feance allowed a swarm to raise no 

 brood for a period of DH days. At the end 

 of this time (Aug. 24) the bees were allowed 

 to rear and hatch brood. Contrary to his 

 expectations they wintered well and on May 

 ?>0 were a fair colony. 



Foul beood is not caused by decaying 

 brood, or by disturbing it by extracting 

 from the brood combs. E. France says in 

 Gleanings that for twenty years he has been 

 extracting from combs containing brood and 

 has yet to see a case of foul brood. 



Geanulation of honey is not a proof of 

 its purity. Neither is its non-granulation a 

 proof of its adulteration. I am glad to see 

 by reading the replies in the Query depart- 

 ment of the A. B. J. that most of the ''big 

 guns " are beginning to realize that the mat- 

 ter of granulation is of little value as an in- 

 dex to the purity of honey. 



Mice gnaw the combs in a hive to enable 

 them to reach the dead bees in the combs. 

 D. A. Jones says that if the combs are pla- 

 ced far enough apart to allow the mice to get 

 at the bees without cutting away the combs, 

 the little rodents will clean out the dead bees 

 " slick and clean " with no injury to the 

 combs. 



In Doolittle's plan of having artificial 

 queen cells accepted in an upper story with 

 a laying queen in the lower story, see that the 

 cells are well supplied with royal jelly (taken 

 from other queen cells) before the larvpe are 

 transferred, that there is a comb of unsealed 

 larva? each side of the cell cups and that the 

 bees are fed liberally if no honey is coming. 

 Doolittle gives these cautions in Gleanings, 



Galvanized iron ought not to be used in 

 making vessels for storing honey. What 

 makes this metal remain bright is because it 

 is gradually being eaten away. The zinc 

 eaten away enters the honey. Of course, in 

 a large vessel, the quantity that enters the 

 honey is so small in proportion to the 

 amount of honey that it is not perceptible. 

 But it is objectionable only in a lessened 

 degree. 



Seventeen-hundkedths of an inch is the 

 right size for the perforations in zinc to 

 make it queen excluding, says Gleanings. 

 By the way, some are asking whether it is 

 the thorax or the abdomen of the queen that 

 restrains her from passing through the per- 

 forations. I once caught a queen and forced 

 her into an aperture between two flat surfaces 

 placed 5-S2 of an inch apart. When only the 

 abdomen was between the surfaces she could 

 readily withdraw it — it was the thorax that 

 held her. The abdomen is soft and yielding, 

 to a certain extent, and can be flattened out 

 slightly— not so the thorax. 



Apis Dobsata may yet be in this country. 

 Frank Benton says in Gleanings that the U. 

 S. government will probably attempt their 

 importation. W^hether they are capable of 

 domestication, or of any special value when 

 domesticated are yet unknown. From 

 their large size they could probably get the 

 honey from red clover. If they should prove 

 of no value in domestication, Mr. Benton 

 thinks that if turned free in the South they 

 would probably produce large quantities of 

 honey and wax, the latter product forming an 

 important article of export in India. 



Deones congregating in large numbers at 

 a considerable distance from their hives, and 

 creating such an uproar that queens are at- 

 tracted to the spot, are again being discussed 

 in the bee papers. That they do so congre- 

 gate there is no doubt, and it is quite prob- 

 able that queens are sometimes mated at 

 these "trysting" places, but they are also mat- 

 ed right in the apiary, as my brother and my- 

 self have both witnessed with our own eyes. 

 The first bees that I kept were black, and half 

 the young queens met Italian drones from 

 colonies that were at least a mile and a half 

 away. If there were drones of a different 

 strain nearer than four miles, I should expect 



