1889 



GLEANINGS IN REE CULTURE. 



69 



causes tbem to be pushed out of the nest; and my 

 objection to them is, that when they get soiled you 

 can not wash them up as you can the glass ones. 



BAROMETERS, AND WHAT THEY ARE GOOD FOR. 



When 1 first got up, on the morning of January 

 9th, I happened to pass the aneroid barometer 

 hanging in the greenhouse. As the indicator was 

 clear down below the markings of the scale. I con- 

 cluded the machine had broken; but to be sure, I 

 ran at once over to the house, where hangs a mer- 

 curial barometer, only to discover that the column 

 of mercury was also clear below the marks on the 

 scale, and below any thing that I had ever known in 

 perhaps twenty' years of observation. I at once an- 

 nounced to the family and neighbors that we were 

 going to have a fearful flood, hurricane, cyclone, or 

 something of the sort. As the morning was per- 

 fectly still and warm, nobody paid much attention 

 to my warnings, unless it was Huber. He was 

 greatly exercised for fear the house would sail off 

 into the flood which papa was talking about; but 

 when mamma informed him that brick houses never 

 float away, he admitted the correctness of her rea- 

 soning, and put away his dismal forebodings. To- 

 ward noon, however, it began to rain, and by noon 

 it rained in torrents. Pretty soon, with the rain 

 came one of the most fearful winds ever witnessed 

 in this locality. By night it was blowing so that 

 people had difficulty in keeping on the sidewalks, 

 and still the barometers stuck to their positions. 

 The wind blew and shook the buildings all night; 

 and in many places we read accounts of fearful 

 losses of life as well as destruction of property. 

 Now, I think it pays to have a barometer. At the 

 noon service I cautioned the hands about leaving 

 things about that would be blown down and de- 

 stroyed by the wind. I told them to look well to the 

 glass doors about the premises. At the close of my 

 remarks I was informed that one glass door had 

 been smashed already. Such a warning may easily 

 save many times the cost of a barometer, to say 

 nothing of loss of property and loss of life. 



THE COMING BEE IN SIGHT. 



I inclose a note from the Youth' 8 Companion, on 

 the coming bee. H. P. Langdon. 



East Constable, N. Y., Jan. 8, 1889. 



TRAVELING BEES. 



Tlic distances traversed by bees in pursuit of honey are sur- 

 prising to a person unfamiliar with the habits of these bus} 

 workers. 



A bee-keeper one morning dredged the backs of his bees 

 with flour, as they were leaving the hives. He did this by a 

 preconcerted arrangement with a friend who had a fine clover- 

 field in bloom forty miles away. 



The day following the experiment, he received a letter from 

 this friend, stating, " There arc plenty of your white-jacket 

 bees here in my clover." It was truly- a wonderful instinct 

 t hat Fent the bees so tar from home in truest of honey. 



Well done, friend L. But is not the Youth's Com- 

 panion getting out of its beat just a little? Their 

 item would do nicely for ;i joke; but the trouble is, 

 the general press will go to work and copy it, and 

 spread it broadcast, taking it for fact. True, it is 

 not so bad as the stories about artificial honey and 

 artificial eggs; but still it should be corrected at 

 once, and we hereby beg the publishers of the 

 Youth' 8 Companion to at once inform their readers 

 that their statement is a blunder. It should have 

 been four miles instead of forty. The extreme limit 

 of reports like this— that is, tests made by sprink- 

 ling the bees with flour— has shown that they may 

 fly in quest of stores as far as perhaps eight miles. 

 In all of the reports that have come in, not one has 

 ever gone beyond this; and the general testimony 



seems to be to the effect that bees seldom go be- 

 yond two or three miles. When the Italians were 

 first introduced in Medina County I took pains to 

 go out with the horse and buggy in different direc- 

 tions, and at different seasons of the year, and it 

 was only in extreme cases that I found them as 

 much as three miles away from home. In view of 

 the fearful blunders that journalists have been 

 making in matters out of their beat, would it uot 

 be a wise precaution to submit questions pertain- 

 ing to some particular branch or industry to ex- 

 perts or editors of journals pertaining to that par- 

 ticular industry? It is an easy matter to start a 

 misleading statement; but it is a tremendous task 

 to chase it out and head it off when it once gets 

 into print. 



DIMENSIONS OP EHAMES IN COMMON USE, ETC. 



The Bet-Keeper's Guide stirs things up lively in 

 its issue for Jan 1. on the matter of frames. A.I. 

 Root and Prof. Cook are the parties who need cor- 

 recting. For myself, 1 can only repeat that, when I 

 commenced making Langstroth hives, I sent to 

 father Langstroth and had him express to me a 

 frame of exactly the dimensions he would have it. 

 He sent me the frame, and I think I have it yet up 

 in the attic. From this frame I took my figures, 

 not noticing that it did not agree exactly with the 

 dimensions given in his book. This frame, as I 

 started it, is also exactly right for eight Simplicity 

 sections, 4Vix4 , 4. Now, if we go back to the old di- 

 mensions of the old frame, it will not hold eight 

 sections; and, as a matter of course, we want the 

 wide frames to have exactly the same dimensions 

 as the brood-frames. In regard to the American 

 frame and American hive, which was originated by 

 H. A. King more than thirty years ago, I also got 

 the dimensions of my American frame from friend 

 King himself. This, however, was after he had de- 

 cided to change the dimensions of his frame from 

 what it had been originally. If I am correct, the 

 first American hives made were changed so many 

 times there was for a time no particular dimensions 

 to either the frames or hives. Perhaps H. A. King 

 or his brother can tell us something about the cor- 

 rect dimensions of the American frame. At the 

 same time, I think we can show that there are 

 • more frames of both Langstroth and American, of 

 the dimensions we give, than of all the rest in the 

 world, by a very great odds. This being true, it 

 would be folly to attempt, at this late date, to make 

 any change. It now remains for Prof. Cook to 

 stand up and tell us why he doesn't say whether 

 the dimensions he gives in his Manual are inside or 

 outside dimensions. Inasmuch as the outside di- 

 mensions must be exact, while the inside may be 

 just as it happens taccoi'ding to the thickness of 

 the material), I do not see why anybody should ever 

 think of taking dimensions of frames to refer to 

 the inside. Permit us to thank friend Hill for his 

 very kind mention of our latest edition of the ABC 

 book. He says: " It is the largest and most extrav- 

 agant publication of the kind, and one must see it 

 to appreciate or comprehend its excellence. It is 

 the accumulation of years." We don't exactly 

 know what he means by the word " extravagant;" 

 but from the general bearing of the notice we feel 

 sure it can not mean any thing bad. 



DADANT'S FOUNDATION FACTORS', WHOLE- 

 SALE AND RETAIL. See advertisement in 

 another column. 3btfd 



