200 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



ence. Pretty soon, other boys took it up, 

 and before I knew it rumors of a microscop- 

 ic club reached my ears. I was finally asked 

 to attend one of them, but of course I was 

 too busy. Finally, one evening, I dropped 

 in by invitation, and was surprised to find a 

 house full of well dressed people, young and 

 old, as eager on examining the dozen instru- 

 ments, as you might expect to see the savants 

 of the age. The party seemed to embrace 

 the most learned and intellectual people of 

 our town, and the wonderful part of all of it 

 was, to find almost the whole of them con- 

 versing as familiarly about infusoria, dia- 

 toms, polarized light, etc., as if it was the 

 most natural thing to talk about in the world. 

 The boys have instruments costing from 

 $20.00 to perhaps $25.00. As a sort of a joke, 

 I told them I would like a cross section of a 

 bee sting, and an accurate drawing showing 

 how the mechanical parts of it were ar- 

 ranged. Perhaps it were well to remark 

 that young Gray has rather taken the lead 

 in executing the finest and most difficult 

 work. Being one of our compositors, and a 

 nice job printer, he puts up his choice speci- 

 mens with as neatly printed labels as any of 

 the city opticians, or even those across the 

 water. Well, Ernest, not to be outdone, 

 and knowing how anxious I was to have the 

 bee sting worked out, decided to set apart 

 his week of vacation to the work. Bees 

 were sacrificed to the cause of science with- 

 out number, and, failing to get one to intro- 

 duce his sting into a cork, as he had plan- 

 ned, he cut a narrow slit in the cork, intro- 

 duced the sting, and cemented the slit with 

 Canada balsam. When thoroughly dry, he 

 proceeded with a carefully prepared razor, 

 to slice off sections. His plan succeeded to 

 perfection, and he • yery soon showed me 

 sections of a bee sting, to my heart's con- 

 tent. To our surprise, we found the mater- 

 ial so light, and the hollows so large, it was 

 rather like quills, and sections cut off as thin 

 as he could slice them with the sharpest 

 razor's edge, looked more like little saw-logs 

 standing on end, than the thin sections we 

 tried to make. It is wonderful to see the 

 hollows so plainly visible clear through these 

 little logs, when "the whole thing is so small 

 as to be absolutely invisible to the naked 

 eye. 



Our engraver has shown you the appear- 

 ance of the top of one of these logs. The 

 "chopping knife" protuberances on which 

 the lances slide are as plain 

 as the nose upon your 

 face, and the husk, I), and 

 the two lances, A, B, en- 

 close the hollow space, E. 



J&rlH^S— <$ ^' ^' -^' are ^ ie res P ect i ve 

 \L x£3sx hollows in these quill like 



instruments. The dotted lines, II, show 

 about the positions of the barbs. Now a 

 query comes in here. One would naturally 

 suppose the poison made its way in the cen- 

 tral opening, E ; but after collecting a great 

 number of mounted specimens, Ernest has 

 at length found one that, when carefully ad- 

 justed to the focus, shows little tubes lead- 

 ing from the hollow in the lance, right out 

 under the root of the barbs. I will show you 

 the rest of it next month. 



rf, 



STILL. ANOTHER IMPROVEMENT. 



f'HAVE made just a little the handiest thing, I 

 think, in the line of smokers. The smoker 

 J "you preferred" would often "dump" off the 

 hive on which it was set, and then be out of 

 reach and probably be "spilled" when wanted. I 

 wanted one that would always be at my "fingers' 

 end?," and succeeded not only in this, but also in 

 having it always in ''■position to fire" at any instant. 

 I have used it in the apiary and want nothing bet- 

 ter. The bellows is like your cold blast smoker bel- 

 lows, except that the blast tube lies fiat across one 

 end of the bellows. 



FOSTER'S "BAG PIPE" SMOKER. 



The smoker is held in position under the right arm 

 by a heavy w ire loop passing over the left shoulder, 

 and hooking under the arm. The smoker can be 

 lifted from the hook in an instant, and used in the 

 hand if desired. See sketch. While lifting a frame 

 with both hands, the bees often recognize the fact 

 that the operator is perfectly "unarmed." It is 

 "comforting" on such occasions, to "j'tist show 'em" 

 with a little twitch of the elbow on the "bag pipe," 

 as I call it, Oliver Foster. 



Mt. Vernon, Iowa, Feb. 19, 1880. 



Good news ! Separator tin is down to old prices, 

 and we can ship it now from Philadelphia for $6.50 

 per box again. Separators at old prices ton, $1.75 

 per 100. 



I will pay90e each for laying daughters of im- 

 parted mothers, delivered here during this month. 

 If you are new hands at the business, try one first, 

 especially if you send them by mail. I do not like 

 to see boxes of dead queens and bees any better 

 than you do. There have been a good many of 

 them this spring, s o far. 



This month will probably be the time for planting 

 the early-amber sugar-cane with most of you. We 

 are still prepared to furnish the best snuthern-grown 

 seed at 15c. per pound, but the price is rapidly ris- 

 ing. Our neighbor, Mr. Bennet, planted his the first 

 of June, and yet had his seed ripe long before frost. 

 The 75c. book will be a good investment to all who 

 plant an acre. We send a sample of the sugar with 

 every packet of seed or book sent out. 



A few, a very few, insist that they want the old 

 style of sections with groove for fdn. To such I 

 would say, my friends, you are making an awful 

 mistake. We have made and sold over 200,000 this 

 spring already, and a complaint, since we have got 

 our machinery to working nicely, is an unheard of 

 thing. The sections are so much handsomer, you 

 would hardly use the old ones if they were furnished 

 free; and friend Parker's fdn. fastener will enable 

 atiy child to put in the starters securely, and at a 

 rat*? never dreamed of with the old groove. 



