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^^ublisliedyTHE>|-K00l' Co. 

 $15-°FERYEAR.'"'\g)"nEDINA-0H10 



Vol. XXIX. 



OCT. 15, 1901. 



No. 20. 



Just as i thought possible, F. B. Simp- 

 son did not mean in Review that long- 

 tongues were not of value per se. I find, 

 however, that Hasty understood him just as 

 I did; and when as bright a chap as Hastj' 

 gets frojn a sentence a meaning other than 

 the intended one, there must have been 

 some reckless use of the English language. 



One of thk items of September pi-epa- 

 ration for winter, given on p. 785, is to see 

 that e;ich colony has a good queen. Isn't 

 it rather late for that, Bro. Doolittle? A 

 good man}"^ of my colonies cease to rear 

 brood in September. [Why late? It is a 

 common practice with us, away up into Oc- 

 tober. Much of September with us is very 

 warm. Sometiines we then have the hottest 

 daj's in the 5rear. Perhaps your locality is 

 much colder. — Ed.] 



"Do THE Germans mean that feeding in- 

 duces a drain on the vitality of the bees to 

 ripen or invert the syrup?" is the question 

 asked, p. 778. I think that is not the idea, 

 but that the syrup lacks some elements con- 

 tained in honey necessary to vigor of con- 

 stitution. [If this is so, then the experi- 

 ence and practice of American apiarists 

 seem to be quite the opposite of those in 

 Germany. Of all things that were settled, 

 I supposed it was that good sugar syrup, 

 fed thin, and properly ripened, was a bet- 

 ter food than any honey. — Ed.] 



Sometimes I find an article in a bee- 

 journal which is too much of a puzzle for ine 

 to make out its meaning, and I feel out of 

 patience with the writer, who mig^ht easily 

 have made all clear if he had not omitted 

 one or two additional points. It now seems 

 that I have sinned in that way myself, for 

 the astute editor of Gleanings could not 

 make out my meaning, page 785, till he got 

 one of our good British cousins to help him. 

 I suggest that hereafter such articles be re- 



turned to the writers to have the puzzles un- 

 puzzled. 



I indorse Arthur C. Miller when he says, 

 page 780, "It is necessary to encourage the 

 eminently practical though non-scholarly 

 bee-keepers to contribute of their experi- 

 ence." And I suspect inostof our bee-jour- 

 nals are trying to do that. [Th^it is what 

 Gleanings is trying to do. Indeed, I have 

 more than once rejected articles from scien- 

 tific men that, in my judgment, were too 

 scientific, too theoretical, or too something, 

 to be useful to the plain every-day bee- 

 keeper who keeps bees for the money or for 

 the bread and butter he can get out of 

 them. In saying this I do not wish to give 

 the impression tliat we have no use for sci- 

 entific articles. — Ed.] 



A question that will some of these days 

 need to be supplied with a new answer is 

 this: "What is a tested queen?" The an- 

 swer has been, "A queen whose three-band- 

 ed workers show that she is pure Italian in 

 origin and mating. " But since the entranee 

 of five-banders, as the editor correctly saj^s, 

 p. 790, there may be black blood in a queen 

 which produces three - banded workers. 

 That knocks out the old answer. What 

 shall the revised answer be? Don't ask 

 me. I don't know. [This is one objection 

 to the rearing of five-banded bees. But 

 that objection would have no weight with 

 me providing I could see in color greater 

 longevity or more pounds of honey. — Ed.] 



"Ridiculous" is the label that F. B. 

 Simpson, in Review, puts on the notion that 

 keeping a queen in a nucleus will beget 

 longevity in her oft'spring. Sure. But it 

 had escaped me that any one advocated 

 such a notion. He says his breeders must 

 do their duty in a full-sized hive, so he can 

 compare them with others. All right, F. B. ; 

 but after a queen has fully established her 

 reputation I like to give her a light job so 

 as to keep her as long as possible. A queen 

 I'm now trying to winter was born in 1897. 

 After doing extra work during four years I 

 felt she would be insulted if I had said, 

 "Now let's see what kind of stuff's in you," 



