November, 1916. 



873 



American He e Journal j^^^y 



answers for lack of space. 



In looking over the files for the past 

 years we find that at some time Dr. 

 Miller has answered questions relating 

 to almost every conceivable angle of 

 bee-culture. Maurice G. Dadant has 

 been at work for some time sifting all 

 this material to find the best answer 

 given to every kind of question, and 

 over a thousand of these questions with 

 Dr. Miller's answers will be published 

 in book form. We plan to use a num- 

 ber of illustrations to make the text 

 clear, and believe that such a reference 

 work will find a welcome among the 

 Doctor's many admirers. This depart- 

 ment has been continued so long that 

 most of the answers now appearing 

 are to questions that have been an- 

 swered at some time in years past and 

 some of them several times. 



We do not intend to discontinue the 

 department, but believe that the book 

 will cover the entire field so fully that 

 persons possessing it will be able to 

 find the answer to almost any question 

 that suggests itself. The questions 

 coming to this department are at times 

 so numerous as to make a heavy de- 

 mand upon the Doctor's time. It seems 

 desirable to save him from going over 

 matter that he has already covered 

 many times before. 



Australasian Beekeepin;; 



"Money in Bees in Australasia," is 

 the title of a very practical treatise of 

 293 pages, now before us. The book is 

 by the well-known Tarlton Rayment, 

 whom our readers will remember as a 

 contributor to the columns of the Bee 

 Journal in September and December, 

 1915. 



The book is on fine paper, well got- 

 ten up, with good illustrations, the 

 most of which are original with the 

 author. Perusing its pages convinces 

 the reader that Rayment is not only a 

 practical man, but a student who has 

 read and tried most of the methods 

 now in vogue in profitable beekeeping. 

 We predict for it a ready sale in the 

 Southern Hemisphere. The price is 7s. 

 6d., and the publishers are Whitcorabe 

 & Tombs, of Melbourne. 



Shallow Supers 



In Gleanings for Oct. 1, Mrs. Grace 

 Allen writes that full-depth supers are 

 too heavy for comfortable handling, 

 "but that she dislikes the shallow supers, 

 which contain " not much more than 

 half the weight." 



Our own shallow supers are consid- 

 erably larger than those used by the 

 majority of beekeepers. The frames in 

 them contain 92 square inches of comb 



as against 13.5 of the average full depth 

 Langstroth frame, or a little over two- 

 thirds of the contents of such a frame. 

 As we use only 10 super frames over 

 the top of an 11-frame hive, in a space 

 of It) inches, our super combs are also 

 thicker than those of the full-depth 

 frame. But there is no comparison in 

 the ease of handling those shallow e.x- 

 tracting supers. They are exactly of 

 the proper width for a single stroke of 

 the uncapping knife. That is why our 

 uncapping is so expeditious. If Grace 

 Allen were to try such shallow frames 

 she could never agree to use the deep 

 super again. 



We have tried both the full-depth 

 supers of the Langstroth pattern and 

 our own shallow supers side by side in 

 hundreds of colonies, and we could not 

 think of ever going back to the full- 

 depth supers. 



Professorship in Pomona College, 

 since which time he has been less 

 directly interested in apiculture. In 

 l;)ll he entered politics and was ap- 

 pointed California State Commissioner 

 of Hortculture by Gov. Johnson, which 

 office he still retained. 



Prof. Cook was regarded as one of 

 the foremost educational instructors of 

 his day, his trend of thought being 

 practical as well as scientific. He pos- 

 sessed the faculty of imparting infor- 

 mation in an interesting manner, and 

 was a popular lecturer as well as in- 

 structor. 



He is survived by his widow, living 

 in Claremont, Calif., and a son and 

 brother of Owosso. — "Viestern Honey 

 Bee. 



DEATH OF PROF. COOK 



Dr. Albert J. Cook, State Horticul- 

 tural Commissioner, died at the home 

 of his son in Owosso, Mich., after a 

 long illness, on Sept. 29, aged 74 years. 



Prof. Cook received his degree from 

 the Michigan Agricultural College, 

 with the entomological department of 

 which he was connected for many 

 years, during which time he was one 

 of the leading apicultural inspectors 

 and authorities of the country. His 

 "Beekeepers' Guide," published in 1883, 

 attained a large sale, and is still a 

 standard text book. 



In 1893 he accepted the Biological 



Houeytlew 



The interesting article and free trans- 

 lation of Prof. Heberle in this number 

 will be read with interest. As a rule, 

 the Swiss beekeepers ascribe the dark 

 fir honey to an exudation. But in this 

 country there is little doubt that the 

 honeydew gathered mainly on the 

 hickory, the oak, the basswood, etc., is 

 a product of plant lice or aphides, often 

 of the winged aphides. The writer dis- 

 believed this theory until one day he 

 saw honeydew on the upper surface of 

 some dried leaves which were on the 

 end of a limb, with nothing above 

 them. It does not follow, however, 

 that all honeydew is caused by plant 

 lice, as the exudations of sweet juice 

 have been proven by Bonnier. 



THE LATE PROF. A. J. COOK-THIRTY YEARS AGO 



