i'iiii BEh-KEEPERS REVIEW. 



297 



it four feet hiyh, and iniiae them feed it 

 duwu clear to the t^rouud. 



Win. Stolley, of CJraud Island, Nebraska, 

 says sweet clover saved the year from be- 

 ing a honey failure with him. Got ir)(K) 

 pounds from :.'(! colonies, where otherwise 

 there would have been none. He notes that 

 his cows gain in milk when turned upon it. 

 Oct. B. B. 17. 



But the editor (Oct. B. B. i;?.) is conserv- 

 ative, and puts in many "ifs" about stock 

 eating it, and the difficulty cf getting an 

 even stand of it in field culture. This is the 

 first tiiije the Busy Bee has indulged in a 

 special number, if I mistake not. 



Who can break this honey record of half 



a pound a day ? 



"Tho editor of tlio Busy Beo eats honey throe 

 times a ilay, at the rate of about fifteen pounds 

 pernioiith, aniMie has no hesitancy in saying 

 that honey has been one of the means of taking 

 liini from a clironie state of invalidism." Sept. 

 B B. I-,'. 



Friend .\bbott complains that he cannot 

 often get his houey abroad, even when vis- 

 iting bee-keepers. He protests against the 

 general omission to practice what we preach. 

 This opens the svay to the skeleton which 

 is in our closet. With many if not most 

 perso's steady consumption of honey grad- 

 ually destroys that keen relish for it which 

 almost all originally feel. That's what 

 makes the bee-keepers cease to practice 

 what they preach. My brother with whom 

 I live, and of whom I bought the apiary, 

 seldom touches honey now. If on the wit- 

 ness stand I should have to confess that it 

 does not taste to me as it did even twenty 

 years auo. There is another corner to the 

 matter however. I find my inclination to 

 eat a large nuantity at a time increasing^ 

 often eat a half a section at once, not as a 

 relish for anything, but just as one would 

 eat a plate of douglmuts he might come 

 upon in the pantry. The idea prevails that 

 it is not good form to eat honey at table, 

 except about as muclias one might politely 

 eat of butter. This pestilent idea rules with 

 such an iron sceptre that few of us would 

 dare to break over at a friend's tabic — cer- 

 tainly not I. Where is the table in this 

 whole laud at which houey is regarded as a 

 thing to be sailed iuto for all one's appetite 

 calls for, like bread or potatoes? I some- 

 what suspect that it ought to rank with 

 bread aud potato. Bee-keepers themselves 

 bolster op the homeopathic style of eating 

 by preferring to offer honey for sale in very 

 small amounts or packages, and by the in- 



flated prices put upon these little morsels. 

 It is as if butter were generally offered for 

 sale in one ounce rolls, at five cents a roll. 

 Let's think of the matter, whether we can- 

 not by an all-together effort set honey where 

 butter used to stand in ancient times ( See 

 J udges .^):2."). ) as a food to be eaten freely 

 aud alone. 



The next editorial suggests that the cross- 

 ness or otherwise of the bees of an apiary is 

 often a matter for which the keeper is re- 

 sponsible. Probably correct. In fact it is 

 very plain that a little omission of proper 

 acts and doings gets a colony on a regular 

 rampage — just as plain that such a colony 

 shows a disposition to renew hostilities for 

 some days after — and therefore it can hard- 

 ly be doubted that enough of that sort of 

 thing would make almost any apiary a ter- 

 ror to all around. 



Ou page 14, B. B. Sept., friend Kretchmer 

 says there is a class of bee folks who reg- 

 ularly remit to their supply dealer 25 cts. or 

 50 cents less than the bill, and then slip out 

 of evening it up. Sorry to hear it. Most of 

 this class would not steal outright (because 

 they never got in the habit of it) but where's 

 the moral difference ? 



Emma Abbott, Aug. B. B. 12, prefers to 

 render beeswax in ( or over ) a pan contain- 

 ing water in a moderately heated oven. 

 Tie the material up in thin cloth, and lay 

 slender sticks over the pan to hold the drip- 

 I)ing bundle up. Gasoline to clean the pan — 

 practically impossible to rub and scrape 

 the wax off it. 



I am pleased to see that C. P. Dadant ad- 

 vises beginners to set foundation with the 

 Parker machine. Aug. B. B. 3. For all 

 sorts of weathers and blunderers, I don't 

 believe there is anything equal to it — yet the 

 majority is pretty heavy against us I reckon. 

 Friend Dadant advises not to use founda- 

 tion in replacing small patches of drone 

 comb which occur in finished combs. 

 ( )ther good authorities have advised this, 

 if I mistake not. He would have pieces of 

 finished worker comb grafted in. 



The General round-Up. 



It's not directly bees, but a curious leaf 

 of man's experience in meddling with nat- 

 ure that comes to us from the island of 

 .Jamaica. The latest phase of the case is 

 given in Gleaning 4H.'J. Bee men are nec- 

 essarily naturalists, and therefore do well 

 to keep posted as to nature's ways. 



