132 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 



GLEANINGS tNJEE CULTURE. 



-A„ I. ROOT, 

 EDITOR, AND PUBLISHER, 



MEDINA, OHIO. 



TERMS: $1.00 PER YEAR, POST-PAID. 



FOR CLUBBING RATES, SEE FIRST PAGE 

 OF READING MATTER. 



iviEiDirj^. 3vt^^rL. x, isao. 



Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? 

 shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or fam- 

 ine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?— Rom. viii, 35. 



We can use Canada postage stamps, where it is 

 more convenient for our friends to send them. 



Friend Nellis comes out with his January No. of 

 the Exchange greatly improved, through the influ- 

 ence of a bran new press. 



Our friend D. D. Palmer, of New Boston, 111., has 

 been engaged in exposing the swindles of Spiritual- 

 ism and has published a little pamphlet in regard to 

 the matter. "By their fruits shall ye know them." 



The papers will have it that " managing bees by 

 electricity" is sense, and not nonsense. The Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal speaks of it as if it might be a 

 "great invention," and even the American Ai/ricuJ- 

 turixt seems inclined to give it a sort of credence. 



HANDLING BEES OFTEN. 



Our friends across the water, some of them at 

 least, seem to have decided that it is not well to 

 handle bees often. How is it, my friends? Do the 

 bees you handle and look at most gather the most 

 honey, or those you seldom disturb? 



HONEY WANTED. 



There is, at present, quite a call for honey, and 

 none to be had, as you will see by our honey column. 

 Now is the time for our southern friends to see who 

 will get the first new honey into market. Get in 

 first with a nice article, and you can have almost 

 any price you want. 



THE CHEIROGRAPH. 



Considerable complaint has been made that the 

 cheirograph, instead of giving 100 impressions, only 

 gives from 20 to 30. This is owing to the ink used, 

 the way in which the writing is done, and the hard- 

 ness of the pad. If the pad is soft, more of the com- 

 position is used at each impression, and therefore it 

 soon wears away. Use less glycerine to the amount 

 of glue, write over the lines twice with very thick 

 ink, and you can get 100 legible copies I think, with- 

 out doubt. We do not use it in our work, because 

 we have plenty of printing presses. 



RACK FOR PRIZE SECTIONS ON THE L. HIVE. 



In many of our price lists, I see an engraving of a 

 rack to hold prize sections on the L. hive. This rack 

 not only allows the bees access to the bottom bars 

 of the sections, to gum and propolize them, but it 

 has the sections separated by wide, vacant spaces 

 right over the centre of the brood nest. I can but 

 regard both as moat serious blunders. Cover the 

 whole of your section completely, that it may be as 



white and clean when handed to consumers, as when 

 it left the saw, and push your sections up close to- 

 gether over the brood nest, leaving spaces, if there 

 must be such, at the ends, and not in the middle. 



SYRUP FOR TABLE USE. 



Melt together 3 lbs. of coffee A sugar, with 1 lb. 



of confectioners grape sugar, adding water enough 



to bring it to the consistency desired, and 5'ou have 



a pure white syrup that will never grain, at a less 



price per gallon than the brown golden syrups of 



the groceries. It has no flavor to be sure, but you 



can flavor it with honey, or maple syrup, and you 



then have the most beautiful and healthful table 



syrup that can be procured, and almost any one will 



prefer it to pure honey. At present, it would cost 



about 75c per gallon, as thick as the best thick 



honey. 



m ••> m 



HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE. 



Our friend Fahnestock, of Toledo, O., says his 

 neighbor Detweiler exhibited at the Chicago conven- 

 tion a queen cage with double wire cloth, which 

 doubtless suggested to friend Cook the idea, and in- 

 duced him to order of me a cage made as per his let- 

 ter on page 490, Dec. No. Although the idea of hav- 

 ing a cage made with double wire cloth has before 

 been mentioned in the journals, if our friend exhib- 

 ited such a cage at the convention, he should cer- 

 tainly have the credit of so doing. I am sure friend 

 Cook had no thought of depriving him of this cred- 

 it, for we all know how conscientious he is in such 

 matters. 



Friend Nellis sends us a sample of Feet's combi- 

 nation and introducing, cage. It certainly is very 

 ingenious, and in many respects very convenient. 

 In my experiments with a cage to attach to the 

 comb, I used tin or wire cloth, and the bees would 

 often get into the cage in a few hours, by cutting 

 the wax away. As this cage has only wood to come 

 in contact with the comb, it may do better, for the 

 bees seem more inclined to dig out metal as a for- 

 eign substance, than wood. The point on which I 

 am sure this plan will fail, is in letting the queen 

 out, and leaving her to be attacked or not, as it hap- 

 pens. We find many colonics that will kill a queen 

 anyway, no matter by what plan she is let out. 

 With such, you must watch and rescue her, or have 

 her killed. If the bees gnaw her out, you can not 

 well do this. 



GRAPE SUGAR. 



We have before us three samples that I know are 

 safe for feeding bees, but I can not tell you which 

 will be most profitable to purchase; you must de- 

 cide it by experiment. The samples mentioned are, 

 our best, refined, confectioners grape sugar, at the 

 prices given in our price list; a cheaper quality, 

 made also at Buffalo, a little darker, at \ic less; and 

 last, the product of the Davenport factory, where 

 the company has just got under way again in their 

 new buildings, at the following extremely low 

 prices, compared with the Buffalo company: In 50 

 lb. boxes, here in Medina, 4J4<J; 110 lb. boxes, 4c; in 

 barrels of about 375 lbs., 3%c. If shipped from the 

 Davenport factory, V 2 c per lb. less. Y"ou see this 

 will bring it down to 3%c, by the barrel, at the facto- 

 ry. The sugar is of about the same quality they 

 used to furnish us, and is, they say, made especially 

 for feeding bees. Samples of all the grades, mailed 

 for 10 cents. 



