44 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan 15 



Bro. a. I., you speak of a young man 

 *' picking out a girl just because of her good 

 looks," p. 24. Well, now, that isn't as bad as 

 it might be; for when a fellow's over head and 

 ears in love with a girl she's the best-looking 

 girl in the world to him, no matter how home- 

 ly others may think her. Don't you remem- 

 ber? I do. [Yes, doctor, I do remember. 

 The girl I am thinking about was " all the 

 world to me," and for that matter she is yet — 

 or at least I tell her so almost every day. — 

 A. I. R.] 



Tha.t Utter-Utter decision is alone worth 

 more than all the money that has been put 

 into the N. B. K. A. treasury. So was the 

 adulteration fight in Chicago. Now, my 

 friends, who are not yet members, don't you 

 think you can afford to put in a dollar each to 

 help on the good work ? A lot more good can 

 be done by the Association if it has a full 

 treasury. I just suggest it to you. [In my 

 humble judgment the decision of the Utter 

 trial was worth more — vastly more — than that 

 of the celebrated Arkadelphia case, important 

 as that was. If the decision in the first nam- 

 ed had been against us, and left there, bee- 

 keeping might have been wiped out of many 

 fruit sections of the United States. The Ark- 

 adelphia case related only to bees in towns 

 and villages ; and if that had gone against us 

 it would have wiped beekeeping out of the 

 great centers of population only, but would 

 not have affected it in the least in the great 

 areas of country half a mile and more from 

 those centers. Why, it seems to me that the 

 results of the Utter trial are worth thousands 

 and thousands of dollars. If the National 

 Bee-keepers' Union, the United States Bee- 

 keepers' Union, or the North American Bee- 

 keepers' Association, now all merged into one, 

 had never done any more, we could still feel 

 that the money that has been put into the sev- 

 eral treasuries was well invested. — Ed ] 



Fresh warning is given in the Br-itish 

 Bee Journal against the use of beet sugar 

 made in imitation of Demerara cane sugar. A 

 London daily has an article on " Beet Sugar 

 and Arsenic," in which it is said that " in 

 course of manufacture of the white granulated 

 grades of sui^ar, considerable quantities of 

 sulphuric acid are used " to clean the vacuum- 

 pans, "wash" the sugar white, and give it 

 the proper " bloom." The British Bee Joiir- 

 nal has steadily insisted that beet sugar is bad 

 for bees. A large part of granulated sugar in 

 this country is from beets. Can our experi- 

 ment stations tell us about its purity ? also its 

 wholesomeness for bees? [In our recent con- 

 vention at Traverse City, Mich., Prof. Ran- 

 kin, of the Michigan Agricultural College, 

 emphasized very particularly the fact that su- 

 gar from beets is exactly the same thing as 

 sugar from cane, and no chemist can tell a 

 particle of difference. He said the idea that 

 beet sugar was not as good for bees as cane su- 

 gar is all foolishness. You' may be aware that 

 I have taken the same ground for years. Our 

 sugar makers, with their great costly plants, 

 and wonderful skill that has come through 

 ages of experience, manufacture sugar that is 



almost absolutely chemically pure, no matter 

 what they make it of. Prof. Rankin said that 

 the greater part of the sugar now in the mar- 

 kets of the world is made from beets. — A. I. R.] 



Good thing that Rambler champions ama- 

 teur bee-keepers, p. 10. An amateur may or 

 may not be a novice. He generally knows 

 less than the professional, but he may know 

 more. We owe a big debt to amat<:-urs. But 

 I protest against Rambler's classing among 

 amateur bee-keepers a man who doesn't keep 

 bees at all. Still worse : how could you, 

 Rambler, say "of course" A. I. Root is an 

 amateur bee-keeper when he turns over his 

 bees to others and goes off after greenhouses 

 and gardening ? He 7vas an amateur, a fact 

 greatly to the profit of bee-keeping, and at 

 present you may put him into almost any class 

 of bee-keepers you like, but not among ama- 

 teurs. He is an amateur florist, an amateur 

 gardener, just now an amateur poultry-raiser, 

 and I don't know what next ; and when A. I. 

 is an amateur in any thing he is an amateur 

 of the most pronounced type. [Now look 

 here, doctor ; I appeal to the good people of 

 that convention at Traverse City whether I 

 did not rank fairly with the best scientific 

 bee-keepers of the age — at least when I attend- 

 ed that convention. Why, several times I 

 was rated as the great " poo-bah " in bee cul- 

 ture — yes, and not only in Michigan but in 

 York State too.— A. I. R.l 



A'. J. Fisher sends a tough conundrum. 

 With old comb l^V think, and ]/% added for 

 cappings, spaced \}i, there is only i\ between 

 combs; then he flmgs this at me: "If you 

 began anew, would you space 1^ or 1 )^ ? " I 

 don't know, but I think not. I'd space 1/g, 

 unless swayed from it by its being too much 

 out of fashion. It does seem that 1>^ ought 

 to give a better chance for proper clustering 

 in winter. [Now look here, doctor ; why do 

 you back down, for you have formerly believ- 

 ed that iy% was the right spacing ? Don't you 

 remember that, out of 49 measurements of 

 comb naturally built in straw hives, Wey- 

 precht found that the distance was 1 3^^ from 

 center to center? and that Berlepsch, in 49 

 measurements, ver'fied this result ? Old comb 

 Ijig thick must be 25 years old ; and we may 

 safely say there is not more than one comb in 

 ten thousand — no, nor in five hundred thou- 

 sand — that will be that old. Then, again, Mr, 

 Fisher is assuming that ]\ is too small a space 

 for bees between combs. There are some who 

 believe that ^^ is the right bee-space, and we 

 certainly know that that spacing is by no 

 means impracticable. No, sir, 'e, doctor ; 

 don't you countenance wider than \y%. If 

 any thing, make it a shade less. And don't 

 you know, too, that if the frames are 1^ wide, 

 propulis will increase the spacing ? The older 

 the comb, or the older the frame, the wider 

 will be the spacing. Leaving theory entirely 

 out of the account, practical experience in 

 hundreds of thousands of self-spacing frames 

 has shown that 1^ is not too narrow. And 

 one more fact : Narrow spacing has a tenden- 

 cy to keep out drone comb and drone-rearing. 

 —Ed.] 



