DEVOTED TO BEES ATSD HONEY, AND HOME INTERESTS. 



Vol. VIII. 



MAY 1, 1880. 



No. 5. 



A. I. ROOT, 



Publisher and Proprutm\ 



Published Monthly. 



Medina, O. 



TERMS! $1.00 Per Annum, in 

 I Advance; 2 Copies for $1.90; 3 



: for $2.75; 5 for $4.00; 10 or 

 j more, 75e each. Single Number, 10c. 



\Established in I873\i%k™%%? >cm> * ma,J hc madeat 



NOTES FROM THE BANNER APIARY. 



No. 6. 



CLEANING WAX FROM UTENSILS WITH KEKt >SENE OIL. 



FERHAPS it was fortunate that friend Board- 

 man did not know how easily he could have 

 removed the "nickel plating:" of beeswax 

 from his wife's clothes boiler, by using- a cloth satu- 

 rated with kerosene oil; because, if he had known it, 

 he might not now be the possessor of such a nice 

 wax extractor as hc describes on page 60, of the 

 Feb. No. 



THE BLUE THISTLE IN YORK STATE — NOT MICHIGAN. 



On page 58, of the Feb. No., Mr. Clark Simpson, of 

 Flushing, Genesee Co., Mich., has a few words to say 

 in regard to the blue thistle, and speaks of getting 

 seed for you if you wish it; and you, very naturally, 

 inferred that he meant that the blue thistle had 

 found a home in Mich. Now, I am well acquainted 

 with friend S., having been to his house a great 

 manj- times, " gleaning ' ' information on bee-culture 

 and— well, I suppose I might as well own up — I per- 

 suaded his only daughter to believe that I was the 

 smartest, handsomest, "bestest" young man that 

 she ever knew, and she is now Mrs. W. Z. H. One of 

 her brothers writes as follows: "The blue thistle 

 that father wrote about grows in York State. We 

 don't want any of it here." You see Father S. used 

 to live "down east," and it is probably from there 

 that he would obtain the seed. 



We have nothing but the bull thistle iu this vicini- 

 ty, a specimen of which I sent to Prof. Cook, togeth- 

 er with a few inquiries in regard to thistles in 

 general. The following is his reply: 



The common thistle which you sent is the Cirsium 

 JanceoJatum. This is the bull-thistle. A quite com- 

 mon blue-thistle introduced from Europe is CentaVr 

 rea Gyanus or blue-bottle. This latter is a honey 

 plant. The former is not valuable. I think Mr. 

 Simpson could not have meant Canada thistle. 

 That is purple, not blue. And were it so common, 

 he would have known it to be the terrible pest that 

 it is. Canada thistle is Cirsium arvense, 



Lansing, Mich., Feb. 13, 1880. A. J. COOK. 



UNCERTAINTY OF BUCKWHEAT. 



In the seasons of '77 and '78, there were a few 

 small "patches" of buckwheat near me, and the 

 bees did so well working upon it that they not only 

 filled their brood combs but furnished a little sur- 

 plus. In "79, I sowed an acre of low, rich land to 

 buckwheat, and it grew so large that about \ of it 



"lodged," or fell down. The weather was so hot 

 and dry that it did not furnish honey enough to feed 

 the bees and their brood while it was in blossom. I 

 harvested 15 bu. of buckwheat. 



SILVER HULL BUCKWHEAT. 



D. N. Kern, of Shimersville, Penn., writes that in 

 '78 he sowed 4 qts. of silver-hull buckwheat upon J4 

 acre of land, from which he obtained 12 bu. of buck- 

 wheat. I should consider this an extraordinary 

 yield. If any one of the readers of Gleanings has 

 had any experience with this variety, I should be 

 glad to hear from him, either by letter or through 

 Gleanings. Novice, what has been your expe- 

 rience? 



ALSIKE clover not injured by frost. 



I notice that my Alsike clover is not injured by the 

 alternate freezing and thawing that we have had 

 this open winter, while considerable of my red clover 

 lies "top o' the ground." 



QUEENS BY MAIL. 



In regard to sending queens by mail, I do not quite 

 agree with Prof. Cook in thinking it of more impor- 

 tance for us to follow the letter rather than the 

 spirit of the law. We could easily conform to the 

 letter, and yet evade the spirit, and vice versa; but I 

 presume friend C. would have us follow both the 

 letter and the spirit, which would be all right if we 

 could do so with safety to the queens. I cannot help 

 thinking, however, that some of friend C.'s teach- 

 ings do uot "hang together " very well; i.e., they 

 do not quite agree. The postal rules state, very 

 plainly, that liquids as well as glass are unmailable, 

 and yet friend C. says that glass in the cages would 

 spoil it all, but to a tin tube filled with water he can 

 see no objection. Doesn't this seem a little incon- 

 sistent? I trust that friend C. will excuse these 

 frank criticisms, as they are made with the kindest 

 of feelings, and with the thought that it is mainly to 

 him that we are indebted for the ruling in our favor. 



The postal authorities, very wisely, exclude liquids 

 and glass, as there are many careless people in the 

 world, but both of these substances (and many other 

 unmailable substances) can be, and are, put up in 

 such a manner that they may be sent by mail with 

 perfect safety. The instructions to postollice em- 

 ployees state that the queens "must be put up in 

 accordance with section 2~:i, and so soon as they arc 

 found to injure the person of any one handling the 

 mails, or soil the contents of the pouches, this order 



