1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



517 



another comb one year old. Allow each to 

 remain in the brood-nest until they have cap- 

 ped brood almost ready to hatch. At this 

 time put each in a wire-cloth cage in the up- 

 per story of a strong colony, shutting out all 

 the bees at the time of caging the combs. 

 Now wait for the bees to hatch out. Keep the 

 bees confined in those combs, and then ask an 

 unprejudiced bee-keeper, who does not know 

 any thing about the controversy, to give his 

 opinion as to which bees are larger, if any. 

 Let us put this matter clear beyond the possi- 

 bility of guesswork or prejudice. After you 

 have called the attention of various persons 

 to the matter, send samples of each lot of 

 bees in a mailing-cage to me, and at the time 

 of sending these bees mail a card referring 

 me to this issue and this page. We have mi- 

 crometers with which we can measure to the 

 ten-thousandth part of an inch. I will ask 

 one of our men, who does not know any thing 

 about this controversy, to measure the bees 

 and see if he can detect any difference in the 

 size of the thorax, or waist. I should be 

 pleased to have any others who have any 

 combs that they know to be 15 or 20 years old 

 make similar experiments, and then send the 

 bees on to me for measurement. At the time 

 of sending the cages number them, but do 

 not tell which bees are which. If I have any 

 prejudice at all (and I think I have not) I 

 wish to be in position to give the facts just as 

 they are. — Ed.] 



TAKING ADVANTAGE OS' THE SITUATION TO 

 MAKE SALES. 



A certain portion of J. C. Wallenmeyer's ar- 

 ticle on page 189 is open to criticism. If Mr. 

 W. means his advice for just this season only, 

 it does very well for those who actually have 

 a short crop ; but one would naturally suppose 

 he meant it for all seasons and all places. 

 You will notice Mr. W. says, " Tell the would- 

 be buyer that the crop is very short, and that 

 you would not have much to sell." I wish 

 to say to Mr. W. that you can't catch birds 

 with chaff. I have been a commercial traveler 

 some six or eight years, and let me tell the 

 bee-keepers the best way is never to misrepre- 

 sent in order to make a sale. If Mr. W. would 

 tell his customers his crop was short when, in 

 fact, it was not the truth, he is not worthy the 

 name of bee-keeper, saying nothing about be- 

 ing a salesman. Aaron Snyder. 



Kingston, N. Y., Mar. 7. 



[Mr. Wallenmeyer says : ] 



The above criticism certainly displays Mr. 

 Snyder's wonderful ability as a sophist in thus 

 construing (or misconstruing rather) such a 

 plain statement as the one referred to. The 

 readers of Gleanings can rest assured that 

 the editor would never allow any article con- 

 taining even the slightest fabrication to enter 

 its columns. In proof whereof I will state I 

 •was asked, in 1895, by the editor to submit an 

 article on making and selling honey lemonade 

 at fairs. The same was rejected because I ad- 

 vocated the use of " large, heavy, 10-oz. thick- 

 bottom glasses." Mr. Snyder has simply set 

 up a "man of straw" and administered 



"knock-out drops." Is there not a short crop 

 in every State in the Union (except two) this 

 year ? Is not the article written for the pres- 

 ent time ? and does any one suppose it would 

 stiffen prices, or increase the tendency to buy, 

 if you inform the " would-be buyer " you have 

 5 tons of honey ? If I have a large crop I keep 

 mum ; if a small crop, I use that information 

 to advantage. J. C. WallEnmeyer. 



Evansville, Ind., Mar. 20. 



[I think Mr. Snyder, in view of Mr. Wal- 

 lenmeyer's statement, will be very ready to 

 acquit Mr. W. of any misrepresentation. Cer- 

 tainly we have a right, when the crop is short, 

 to make as much of a handle of the fact as 

 possible, and a bee-keeper would be a fool if 

 he didn't. When there has been a short crop 

 the price ought to be higher, and the only way 

 to get it higher is to impress on the consum- 

 ing public that what little there is must be 

 sold at an advanced price. — Ed.] 



swarming with deep frames. 



My experience with the Jumbo hive last 

 season was exactly the same as Dr. C. C. Mil- 

 ler's. My first swarm came from one of those 

 hives. I have two of these hives I made my- 

 self. The only difference is, I made them 

 eight frame instead of ten. Neither of them 

 gave me any surplus. I experimented with 

 two Dovetailed hives, one on top of the other, 

 last season, with good results, one of them 

 giving me 66 lbs. of comb honey. 



Mineral Springs, O. J. L. Eldridge. 



[Evidently it is not an easy matter to draw 

 definite conclusions where results seem so 

 contradictory. Possibly, advocates of large 

 hives might say something like this: "Your 

 eight frames with increased depth still left 

 your hive quite too small to prevent swarm- 

 ing; for your hive was only about the same 

 size as a ten-frame hive with the regular 

 Langstroth frame. If you have a hive small 

 enough, it will be difficult to get the colony 

 strong enough to swarm ; and this hive, being 

 a little larger than the other eight- fratne 

 hives, allowed a stronger colony to winter in 

 it, thus being sooner ready to swarm. If you 

 want a hive large enough to prevent swarm- 

 ing it must be still larger." 



If two stories did better than one, it is hard 

 to see any reason why a hive having a capaci- 

 ty between the two would not be better than 

 the one-story hive. — Ed.] 



A REMEDY FOR FERTILE WORKERS. 



Last spring I found one colony queen- 

 less, and with one or more laying workers. I 

 read all I could find on the subject, hunted 

 for the pests, gave the colony frames of brood, 

 young larvge, and eggs, from other colonies, 

 and also those containing queen-cells, but got 

 only drones, drones, drones. 



On June 19th I found an after-swarm bunch- 

 ed on a tree, and, not knowing where they 

 came from, I removed the cover from the 

 queenless colony's hive, turned up one corner 

 of the quilt, exposing space between frames 

 about equal to a hive-entrauce, placed au 



