October, 1912. 



American Vee Journal 



so far from the truth as to be absurd. 

 The latest instance to hand is perhaps 

 the limit. The Irish Bee Journal quotes 

 as follows : 



" Capture in an airv box with a little honey 

 a bee whose [lollen-bags contain lioney. Give 

 opportunity for a good look at it. noting 

 body, wings. It'gs. antenuie, and. if possible, 

 its tongue. Do not at present explain pol- 

 lenbags." 



How's that '' It is not taken from 

 the column of jokes in a funny paper. 

 It appears in a school paper under the 

 head of "A Nature Talk" on "Bees as 

 Busy Workers," and appears in all seri- 

 ousness to be intended as instruction 

 to teachers in public schools as to how 

 they shall talk to the children. Among 

 those who read that school paper some 

 will be amused and some will be mad. 



Uniform Gradiug' Rules 



Secretary Tyrrell is putting up a 

 good fight for a uniform set of grading 

 rules for the whole country. This is a 

 big country, and pasturage and condi- 

 tions vary greatly throughout its length 

 and breadth. What is considered honey 

 of best flavor in one part of the coun- 

 try is not looked upon with favor in 

 another. Yet even so, there are 

 enough points in common to make it 

 worth while to set up a standard with 

 regard to those points to which honey 

 anywhere in the country should con- 

 form. 



Take the matter of density in ex- 



tracted honey. Immense harm has 

 been done to the honey market by the 

 watery, unripe stuff that has been put 

 upon it by unscrupulous — more often 

 ignorant-producers. Let a certain 

 standard of so many pounds to the 

 gallon be set as the least density to be 

 allowed, and it is not impossible that 

 in time even the most ignorant might 

 learn to conform to that standard. 



In the matter of comb honey the 

 correspondence published in the Bee- 

 Keepers' Review shows a wide diversity 

 of opinion among bee-keepers. One 

 will admit in No. 1 what another will 

 admit only in No. 2. One will ad iiit in 

 the lowest class what another will con- 

 demn as culls and unmarketable. No 

 matter what the flavor, there may be 

 an agreement that in a certain class 

 there must not be more than so many 

 unsealed cells, .^nd so with regard to 

 other points. There can be — there 

 should be— a getting together and 

 agreeing, just so far as this is possible. 

 Secretary Tyrrell is the right man to 

 take the lead in this matter, and all bee- 

 keepers should second his efforts. 



Three Editors for the IJeview 



The Bee-Keepers' Review now flings 

 to the breeze at its masthead as its 

 corps of editors E. B. Tyrrell, Manag- 

 ing Editor, with E. D. Townsend and 

 Wesley Foster as Associate Editors. 

 That's a strong team, and ought to do 

 good work. 



Miscellaneous ^ News Items 



They also make plaster casts shaped 

 over rolled mats. After the plaster is 

 dry, the mat is easily removed, to be 

 used again. They have even hived 

 bees in drain tiles of the proper size, 

 and the author cites an instance where 

 a pioneer settler had imported a lot of 

 10-inch tiles which disappeared gradu- 

 ally from his premises. He was unable 

 to ascribe any cause to this occurrence 

 until one day, during the course of a 

 wild-boar hunt, away from his imme- 

 diate vicinity, he discovered his tiles, 

 carefully piled on a hillside, constitut- 

 ing the hives of a magnificent and 

 prosperous apiary. 



In the mountains of Kef, and south 

 of Sidi-Bouzid, they hive the swarms 

 in holes dug in the ground on a hill- 

 side. The hole, made of proper depth 

 and length, is covered with parallel 

 stems of thuya, a native, sweet-smelling 

 sort of juniper. With a few guides 

 fastened to the underside of these 

 stems, they serve, like the top-bars of 

 our frames, as comb bearers. The 

 whole thing is covered with flat stones, 

 or earth and grasses. The author calls 

 this bee-keeping by the name of "trog- 

 lodyte." It will astonish no one to 

 read of such underground habitations 

 for bees, since the mountains inhab- 

 ited by "troglodyte" human beings are 

 to be found only a few miles to the 

 south of the Tunis protectorate. 



The natives appear to believe that 

 bee-pasturage may be pointed out to 

 their colonies, and for this purpose 

 they enclose a number of bees from 

 their apiary in some sort of closed re- 

 ceptacle and carry them to fields of 

 blossom at a distance, where they re- 

 lease them, claiming that in this way 

 the bees are directed to crops which 

 they might entirely miss. (?) 



Apiaries of oUO colonies are common. 



Bibliography. — "La Tunisie Apicole" 

 (Apiarian Tunis), by J. Georges, Cheva- 

 lier du Merite Agricole, President of 

 the Tunis Bee-Keepers' Association. A 

 volume of 224 pages, with numerous 

 engravings, maps and tables of statis- 

 tics of bee-culture and its products in 

 Tunis. Price, S,2o francs (65 cents). 



Mr. Georges is a young pioneer of 

 Tunis, a professor educated at the 

 Tunis Normal School, backed by the 

 French Departments of Agriculture 

 and of Education of this colony. 



His acquaintance with native condi- 

 tions of apiculture is thorough. His 

 first chapter is devoted to a description 

 of the methods and the hives in use by 

 the natives from time immemorial. 



The Tunis hive, or " djeba." is a cylin- 

 der similar to those in use in Asia 

 Minor and a part of the Orient. It is 

 from 8 to 12 inches in diameter, and 4 

 to 5 feet in length. Driving 6 or 8 

 stakes into the ground, the native inter- 

 weaves through them flexible switches 

 of willow, reeds, and sometimes wires 

 or twisted straw. After the weaving is 

 finished, the tube is covered with a 

 mortar made of wet clay and cow- 

 dung, which is afterwards dried in the 

 sun. The circular openings at the ex- 

 tremities are closed with disks made 

 of straw and mud, in the same way, 

 one of the end disks having a notch for 

 the entrance. 



In districts where the cork-oak is 



A Lesson in Bee CiLTiRE— Sun-Exth.^cting of Beeswax— M.^noih.v. Tunis. 



plentiful, a roll of bark is peeled ofif a 

 medium-size tree and the split edges 

 are coarsely sewed together. A disk 

 of cork from the same tree closes the 

 ends. The male cork-tree is not fit for 

 industrial uses, and is used for this 

 purpose on account of its low value. 

 In localities where wood is scarce, they 

 use such vegetable fibers as dwarf 

 palm, etc. 



and the hives are piled in rows, in tiers 

 of three and four, then covered with 

 straw, hay or weeds to protect them 

 from the direct rays of the sun. Thorny 

 brushes are used to fence away maraud- 

 ers who are numerous. 



The queen-bee is called "sultan," or 

 king, and the drones " berra," or mules. 

 The queen-cells, which we compare to 



