586 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15 



as every queen-breeder has his favorites ; but 

 it shows that, in the near future, the red-clo- 

 ver crop is ours. 



Bradford, N. Y. 



[Mr. Wright is entirely correct in regard to 

 wire cloth. The meshes of ordinary queen- 

 cage cloth are too large, 

 and, what is worse, they 

 are usually somewhat ir- 

 regular. Sometimes the 

 bees will stick their noses 

 down through a large hole, / 



and at others through a 

 small one. Perforated met- 

 al having openings as large 

 as the corolla-tubes of red- 

 clover, for instance, should 

 be used. Then care should 

 be taken to see that there 

 are no burr edges around 

 the perforations. It is pos- 

 sible and even probable 

 that a glossometer— some- 

 thing that requires the bees 

 to stretch their tongues 

 (while in life) to their ut- 

 most limits may be better 

 than the measurements 

 effected by methods de- 

 scribed in G1.EANINGS re- 

 cently, by which the bees 

 are chloroformed, decapi- 

 tated, and the tongues 

 combed out on the steel 

 rule. But such treatment 

 can hardly be regarded as 

 inhuman, as suggested by 

 Mr. Wright, for the simple 

 reason that any animal or 

 insect under the influence 

 of chloroform experiences 

 no pain, much less when 

 the head has been severed 

 from the trunk ; but for 

 other reasons the glossom- 

 eter may give us more uniform and accurate 

 results ; and if so I should be very glad to 

 acknowledge the fact. — Ed ] 



do not lay claim to owning the longest- 

 tongued bees. 



Now it strikes me that, if the proper-sized 

 wire mesh could be decided on, then every 

 bee-keeper with some such arrangement as I 

 send you could find the length of his bees' 



WHITING'S GLOSSOMETER. 



A Simple and Practical Device. 



BY W. M. WHITING. 



I take the liberty of sending you a feeder 

 that I have been experimenting with to find 

 the length of my bees' tongues. The parts of 

 the feeder that hold the diluted honey have 

 been waxed so as to stop all absorption. I 

 first level the hive so that the top is perfectly 

 level. Then I bore an inch hole through the 

 top board, and place the feeder over the hole, 

 la a short time the bees will lower the liquid 

 as far as they can reach it through the wire 

 netting. I have one colony of bees (and the 

 best honey-gatherers I ever owned) that lower 

 the liquid ^^^ ; and as the longest-tongued 

 bees that I ever read about have tongues only 

 ■^^y I think my feeder must be a little off, as I 



Fig. 1 — A is a bottomless bottle connecting with wire-covered hole B, 

 which passage also is well waxtd to prevent abborption. 



C, hole or bee-passage connecting through the cover of the hive. E, mea- 

 suring-scale. F, wire mesh covering hole B. D, confining-frame. G, wire 

 cloth covering D. 



Fig. 2. — This shows the application of the glossometer to hive D. 



Fig. 3 shows the principle involved. 



tongues with very little trouble. I have tried 

 measuring the tongues with a rule, and I con- 

 sider it too uncertain. 

 East Orange, N. J. 



[This glossometer is all right, I think, and 

 so simple any one can make one. We have 

 tried it to some extent, as we go to press, with 

 fairly good results. The wire cloth through 

 which the bees run their tongues is 11 meshes 

 to the inch. It is so coarse the bees can run 

 their mandibles clear down through the mesh- 

 es. For this reason the tongue-reach is long- 

 er than what we get by our steel-rule plan. — 

 Ed.] 



A VISIT TO HENRY ALLEY. 



BY A. C. MILLER. 



Mr. Henry Alley, easily the foremost queen- 

 rearer in the country, is as hale and hearty at 

 67 as many a man at 40. In a recent visit to 

 his apiary I found him hard at work, moving 

 with a quick, springy step, all his operations 

 betokening a sound body and an alert mind. 



