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*MDHOMEL- ■^ ■ 

 •1NTEFIEST.S- 



Vol. XXIX 



OCT. I, 1901. 



No. 19. 



"We have combs over 40 years old that 

 I would not exchang-e for the same area of 

 foundation," sa3's C. P. Dadant in A))iei-. 

 Bee Journal. 



Small plots of alfalfa have been raised 

 at Medina, and larg-e fields of it in my 

 county. But if it jaelds no nectar, and if 

 it is worth no more for fodder than sweet 

 clover, wh5^ raise it? 



A. I. Root, the poultryman, sa^'s, p. 762, 

 he doesn't work for pure blood nor color, 

 but for vig-or and strength. I prefer pure 

 blood; but if I can hnd suftlcient im- 

 provement outside of pure blood, the pure 

 blood can go. 



If Ra:\iblicr doesn't stop throwing- stones 

 into vciy Straw-cutter, p. 745, I'll swap it 

 for a meat-grinder, and put him throug-h. 

 [I will furnish the meat-grinder if you will 

 "put him through." He has been thi-ovv- 

 ing clods of dirt over into m^^ wheat-fields. 

 Yes, pulverize him. — Ed.] 



It jolts one's feelings to have the editor 

 talk on page 748 as if Eastern bee-keepers 

 must take top-bars they don't like just be- 

 cause it serves the convenience of the man- 

 ufacturers, and he at the same time so 

 strong on "difference of localit}'." But one 

 is reassured by reading on the next page 

 that several styles of frames are made. 



To HOLD combs in frame when transfer- 

 ring, C. P. Dadant uses No. 16 wire bent at 

 right angles at each end, long enovigh to 

 have one end driven into the top-bar and 

 the other into the bottom-bar, holes being 

 previously punched with an awl. For small 

 pieces in corners a short wire may go from 

 top or bottom to end-bar. — Amci'. Bee Jour- 

 71 al. 



The WORST dangers of in-breeding are 

 where two beings are mated that are of ex- 

 actly the same blood, having the same fa- 



ther and mother. Fortunately, the bee- 

 keeper need take no pains to avoid such 

 close breeding; nature takes care of that. 

 A drone and a queen from the same mother 

 are not full brother and sister, for the fa- 

 ther of the queen is not father of the drone. 

 The only way to mate two of exactly the 

 same blood is to mate a drone to his mother, 

 and the drone is born too late for that. 



Vernon Bukt's plan of leaving a hive 

 full of brood with no bees till they hatch 

 out, p. 755, would generally result in loss 

 of brood in this locality. [Why? You 

 will recall that I explained that Mr. Burt 

 iTiakes sure there is plenty of hatching 

 brood, and that this work is done during 

 the height of the honey-flow. Trj^ the ex- 

 periment, doctor. Take a note of the un- 

 sealed brood in each comb, and then see 

 whether any of it starves or dies for want 

 of nurses to take care of it. — Ed.] 



From what is said, p. 753, some one has 

 been losing queens by following Doolittle's 

 instructions to set in place of a full colony 

 a hive full of combs of brood, one of thein 

 with its bees and queen being- from a nu- 

 cleus. This season I did something nearly 

 in that line, the only difference being that 

 I put no brood except the one or two frames 

 from the nucleus, and it is possible that if 

 the hives had been filled with brood there 

 would have been no failures. Out of 35 

 cases, 9 queens turned up missing. The 

 queens should have been caged. 



You THINK, Mr. Editor, that in a nor- 

 mal honey - flow in full blast bees don't 

 lunch on eggs, p. 380. Now when a queen 

 of Stachelhausen's laid 71,400 eggs in 21 

 days, don"t you think it likeh' there was a 

 normal honey-flow in full blast, or at least 

 full enough to prevent lunching? and then 

 where would you be with your "large 

 force" of 40,000 or 50,000? [I am not fa- 

 miliar with, or perhaps I do not recall, the 

 reference to which you refer, of Stachelhau- 

 sen's queen that laid 71,400 eggs in 21 days. 

 Mr. Stachelhausen is one of the very best 

 bee-keepers; but how could he or any one 

 say positively that the queen did not lay 



