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 •INTERESTS 



'•^^s^J^^^ I'ublishedby-THEA'll^OOl' CO. 



_$is°ptRYtAR. '\@ "Medina-Ohio- 



Vol. XXIX. 



MAY I, 1901. 



No. 9. 



Is THERE NO LAW against cock-fighting in 

 Ohio to prevent A. I. Root from carrying on 

 in the way described on p. 357 ? 



I WONDER what makes the difference be- 

 tween Mrs. Barber's experience, p. 338, and 

 mine. Her bait sections are left unsealed. 

 Mine are sealed ^/-5/^, and in a season of failure 

 a bait section will be filled and sealed, and 

 not a drop of honey in another section. 



L. Stachelhausen's brushed swarms have 

 this in their favor, that they were championed 

 by one of the ablest bee-keepers of the 19th 

 century, the late C. H. J. Gravenhorst. [Yes, 

 and then the advantage of such " swarming " 

 is that it is all done at our convenience. — Ed.] 



Theodor Weippl, in Detitsche Itnker ans 

 Boehmen, speaking of the theory that bees 

 inherit their qualities from the nurse-bees 

 rather than the queen, says it appeared among 

 others in Gleanings. Friend Weippl, I think 

 it was not advocated in Gleanings, only men- 

 tioned as a foreign product that has not yet 

 taken root in American soil. 



I don't know whether I made the blunder, 

 p. 330, of saying that my top-bars, end-bars, 

 and bottom-bars are 1 /g wide, or whether the 

 printer was fooling with my copy ; but at any 

 rate it should be l}i. Possibly \^^ might be 

 better, for there's more building between the 

 bars than I like. [By referring to your copy, 

 doctor, we find the mistake was yours. — Ed.] 



F. Greiner, p. 328, thinks that, when I 

 said apiaries of at most 120 colonies were plac- 

 ed "at least }i mile " apart on the Lueneburg 

 heath, the German % mile was meant. I have 

 not at hand the Centralblatt quoted from, so 

 I can't be sure about it, but nowadays the met- 

 ric measure is generally used in German jour- 

 nals ; and if my memory is not at fault the 

 distance was a kilometer, or about }i, of a 

 mile, and to put it in round numbers I said at 

 least Yz mile. Still, friend Greiner may be 

 right, and the question is open. 



How PRONE we are to have our eyes open 

 wider to see what suits us than what doesn't ! 

 The editor, p. 326, calls Arthur C. Miller's 

 theorizing my " conclusion," leaving entirely 

 out of view the fact I gave on the other side. 

 The theory looks pietty weighty, but I con- 

 fess that the fact that, with four painted hives, 

 in a lot of more than 200, the hive that stood 

 conspicuous above all others for moisture was 

 one of the painted ones, looks about as weighty 

 as the theory referred to. [I should be in- 

 clined to believe that the one that was con- 

 spicuous for moisture was not conspicuous be- 

 cause of the paint, but because of some con- 

 dition in or about the hive. But there is one 

 point in regard to paint that has not yet been 

 touched on, and that is this : The paint pre- 

 vents the hive-body from warping and twist- 

 ing ; and aside from the one point of durabil- 

 ity this is very important in moving bees to 

 outyards. Unpainted hives are liable to gap 

 at the corners, to say nothing of the fact that 

 the covers do not rest down squarely. — Ed.] 



You MAY be right, Mr. Editor, that steam 

 is better for a wax-press than water, but it 

 must be remembered that Gerstung, who pre- 

 fers water-presses, was familiar with different 

 steam-presses by actual use, while you, per- 

 haps, have tried neither. Of course, though, 

 Gerstung might be expected to be partial to 

 his own baby. Say — you try both, and then 

 we'll trust your word as to which is best. 

 [Mr. W. W. Cary, then of Colerain, Mass., 

 advocated the use of a press in a vat of hot 

 water, something like 23 years ago. This 

 method was published in our ABC book in 

 some eight or ten editions ; but so far as I 

 know no one who ever tried it liked it very 

 well. When the press is put into hot water 

 the wax must flow off on the surface of the 

 water and with it. When the press is put into 

 a box or can of hot steam, the wax, by gravi- 

 ty, runs down to the lowest portion of the en- 

 closure, free from the hot water, and free from 

 dirt. While just as much wax can be obtain- 

 ed by one method as by the other, yet steam 

 gives us the advantage of convenience. — Ed.] 



Are you not a little modest, Mr. Editor, 

 in demanding only 40,000 to 50,000 bees, p. 

 331, for a "large force"? L. Stachelhausen 

 says, p. 333, "I have, in large hives, many 



