33f; 



GLEANINGS IN JJEE CULTUllE. 



i^tAV 



friend Root, that you will sell thousands and thou- 

 sands of this little work, although the buyers will 

 have the best end of the bargain. We wish that 

 every one who is now engaged in some occupation 

 that is capable of profitably absorbing aU his time, 

 talents, and money, but is thinking of adding bees, 

 or any thing else, to his regular occupation, with 

 the hopes of making money thereby, might read 

 the chapter upon " Potato-growing as a Specialty." 

 That one chapter is, in our opinion, worth $.5.00— 

 no, it is priceless— to one who has never given the 

 matter much thought. 



The reason we sent the book to Mr. Heddon is. 

 that he might enjoy seeing his views upon this 

 subject (specialty) so well expressed; and we sent 

 it to Prof. Cook because he has opposite views, and 

 we hope that a perusal of this chapter might cause 

 him to at least modify them. Prof. Cook may not 

 be opposed to specialty, but we have never known 

 him to argue as does Mr. Terry; in fact, it seems to 

 us.that he always takes a nearly opposite view. 



We must not omit to mention that Mr. Terry payx 

 the children for " picking bugs." How much better 

 than compelling them to do unpleasant work I how 

 much easier and more pleasant for the children ! 

 At " our house" the little girls earned nearly enough 

 by " whacking together sections," as they call it, 

 last winter, to buy each of them a "little red rock- 

 ing-chair." His views upon raising a first-class ar- 

 ticle are exactly in accord with our own, as will be 

 seen by comparing them with those given in our ar- 

 ticle on raising first-class honey. Those who raise 

 potatoes should get the book, and learn how to do 

 better, or else quit the business: those who do not, 

 should get it as a " brain-tonic." 



W. Z. HUTtlllNSON. 



Rogersville, Mich., May, 188.5. 



AVhy, old friend, what ails you? I was 

 afraid to send you a copy of our book on po- 

 tato culture, because 1 knew you were so 

 much in favor of specialties, and I was 

 afraid you would not want to take time to 

 read a book all about potatoes. It did occur 

 to me, that there were many things in it 

 that would please you, but I liad no idea 

 that you and your wife too would drink it 

 all in, as you seem to have done. Your con- 

 cluding sentence hits the spot exactly, and 

 it has seemed to me every time I read it, 

 that it is good for everybody as a '' brain ton- 

 ic." I have thought of a hundred different 

 friends to whom I wanted to send it. but 1 was 

 afraid that they would think that I and my 

 books were a nuisance. I do love to see 

 these outdoor rural industries developed 

 and unfolded, and it lias sometimes almost 

 seemed to me that the milh-nnium was com- 

 ing along this line, by having iirople waked 

 up to the possibilities of tliese homely, ev- 

 ery-day things all rt)und about them. Just 

 think of the idea— making the raising of po- 

 tatoes a new industry, and the corner-stone, 

 almost, of a new science! Yes, it struck me, 

 too, that we bee-keepers need just such talks 

 and teachings as friend Terry is capable of 

 giving. The farmers of the State of Ohio, 

 in fact, decided upon this some time ago; 

 for they bid fair to keep him employed most 

 of his winters in talking to the farmers of 

 the State at our excellent farmers' institutes. 



What can be more homely or common- 

 place than a potato? and yet how odd it 



seems to think of a talented and educated 

 man making the potato his life study I 



"DRY rECES."i?» 



PKOK. COOK IS STILI, V£KV DECIDED IX REGARD 

 TO THE MATTER. 



R. ED1T0R:-This "dry feces" matter is go- 

 ing to be a veritable "wheat into chess" 

 controversy in apiculture. Science may 

 kill theory so dead that there is not enough 

 of the corpse to decently bury; yet, like 

 Banquo's ghost, it will spring to life again, and 

 resurrected, too, not bj' ignorant men, but by those 

 whom we should expect would be too wary to be 

 carrying about an old theory never possessing any 

 vitality, and, moreover, killed dead time and again. 



Recently I have received these "dry feces," in- 

 directly from Mr. Cornell twice; from W. F. Clarke, 

 James Heddon, G. M. Doolittle, etc. What are 

 they? Mostlj- beeswax, often containing pollen, 

 and frequently wood, paper, paint, indeed any 

 thing that the bees may attack with their jaws in 

 the attempt at removal. 



Mr. Editor, did you ever try to remove— in the 

 absence of a pocket-knife— bitter bark from a twig, 

 or any other ill-t.isting substance, with the teeth? 

 What did you do? You spit it out, of course. Well, 

 you may not like to be told so, but that was the 

 e.xact parallel of " dry feces." You remember that 

 bite of comb with its bitter hee-brcad, and how you 

 cast it forth with spitfire-like energy. Vou extrud- 

 ed "dry feces," not only in origin, but in ver>- 

 nature— wax and bee-bread. 



As will be seen in the paper that I read at Lex- 

 ington, Ky., before the N. A. B. K. A., I have ex- 

 amined this subject with glass, test-tube, and 

 crucible, and each and every test spoke the same 

 conclusion— rejected pellets formed by gnawing of 

 the bees. They taste like wax, or wax and bee- 

 bread; melt easily like wax; dissolve quickly in 

 alcohol or ether, but not in water, are seen to lie 

 wax often containing pollen grains and miscellane- 

 ous substances, when viewed with the microscope; 

 blaze up when put in a flame, with the odor of wax, 

 and sometimes of burning nitrogenous substance. T 

 have these pellets now that contain fibers of wootl 

 as long as a bee. Suiely this would have been a 

 pretty irritating cathartic. 



I have dissected hundreds of bees, and dry ex- 

 creta is never found. The real excreta of bees al- 

 ways breaks up readily in water— there is no wa.v 

 in it— forming a yellowish or light-colored mixture. 

 This is true if we take them even when dry and 

 hard, after the bee has been long dead. These 

 gnawings will never break up in water. I will tell 

 you, Mr. Editor, where you will find these gnawings 

 piled up quickly and high. Where a weak colony is 

 robbed. The bees in robbing cut olT the cappings, 

 rejecting the gnawings, and the weak bees are too 

 reduced or too occupied to carry oflf the chips, and 

 so the "chips" pile up high under the combs. I 

 have just seen such a case, and could gather a 

 table-spoonful of gnawings just like those received 

 from AV. F. Clarke, and all made or dropped in a 

 few hours. 



Some harder darker pellets from Mr. Corneil seem 

 like feces. I have never seen such in bees, and 

 have never found any such under bees in winter or 

 spring; yet that bees, like other animals, may, upon 



