• DELVOTED 

 •To -13 EEL'S . 



•AND HOME." ■?* ' 



W-^^a:^^^^ TUhshedbv-THEA I'Roo'f Co. 



Vol. XXIX. 



JULY I, 190T. 



No. 13. 



For chapped hands or rough face, one 

 part borax, two parts honey, eight parts glyc- 

 erine, and a few drops of orange-flower water. 

 — Union Apicole. 



Under no consideration use basswood in 

 brood-frames. Use pine, as that will not warp 

 and twist and crawl out of the hive. [You 

 are right, I think. — Ed.] 



The statement is going the rounds in for- 

 eign journals that a monument costirg |3000 

 has been put up in memory of L?ingstroth. 

 That gives American bee-keepers undue cred- 

 it. It should be §300. 



Deacon Hardscrabbi^e, in the Ameiican 

 Bee-keeper, quotes Mrs. Rorer as saying, 

 "Honey is an admirable sweet if taken once 

 in a while with moderation." Instead of 

 taking his with moderation, the deacon pre- 

 fers to take it with bread and milk. 



The assertion that, when the bees of a 

 colony with laying workers are shaken off the 

 combs at some distance from the hive, the lay- 

 ing workers will not find their way back, Ed- 

 itor Kellen, of the Luxemb. Bieneiizeitung, 

 says is simple humbug. I guess he's about 

 right. 



In Hungary, says the Leipziger Bienen- 

 zeitung, where tobacco is largely cultivated, 

 at Nagy-lesca, bees work busily on the blos- 

 soms, but thousands of dead bees are found on 

 the leaves, and colonies are greatly weakened. 

 Why don't they offer the bees a smoker to let 

 the nasty stuff alone ? 



It is said there is a vast amount of igno- 

 rance about " scientific queen-rearing." That 

 hits me. I don't know much about it, and I 

 should like to. If the good brethren who 

 know all about it would take up less space 

 scolding and more in giving information I 

 should have a better chance to learn. ["Sci- 

 entific queen-rearing" — is that not somewhat 

 of a misnomer ? All queen-rearing has to do 

 with science. The word "scientific" in this 



connection I suspect more often means " mod- 

 ern " or " up to date." — Ed.] 



The rui,E that a bee works on only one 

 kind of flower on the same trip is not without 

 exception. I have seen a bee vibrate from one 

 kind of flower to another half a dozen times in 

 half as many minutes, and I've seen a bee 

 busily working on white clover with orange 

 pollen on its legs. [I have seen bees in Cal- 

 ifornia work from one species to an entirely 

 different species of flower. If bees work on 

 one flower I suspect that it is because almost 

 nothing else is in bloom. — Ed.] 



Comparing the bee with ourselves, we are 

 likely to think of the thorax as containing a 

 considerable portion of the digestive system. 

 Nothing of the kind. All of the digestive 

 system found in the thorax is the oesophagus, 

 or gullet, a narrow tube that runs straight 

 through the thorax to find the honey-sac in 

 the abdomen. Then comes the chyle-stom- 

 ach, or true stomach, and the small and the 

 large intestine But the length of intestine is 

 very small compared with that of the human 

 system. 



Yes, that cover described on page 522 may 

 be just what is wanted. The dead-air space 

 is all right, and it is absolutely essential that 

 the grain of the two thicknesses run in oppo- 

 site directions. That secured, and the cleats 

 so made that they will not project below the 

 surface, and I see no reason why you have not 

 a cover for all climates. [I find that there is 

 a tendency to use a double cover here on the 

 Pacific coast. Rambler has just shown me 

 one of his, and it is like our cover. It must 

 be a good one. — Ed.] 



That suggestion of E. H. Schaeflfle is 

 worth thinking about. It seems pretty well 

 agreed that honey extracted from black 

 brood-combs is not quite as light as that from 

 new comb, and any one may have noticed 

 that when water stands for some time in old 

 brood combs, and is then shaken out, it will 

 be quite black. But I think Mr. echaeffle is 

 the first to put the two facts together and sug- 

 gest washing' out the combs. Lay the combs 

 flat, fill the cells with water from the rose of 

 a watering-can, then after soaking throw the 

 water out with an extractor. 



