908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Disc. 



both the A. B. J. and Gleanings ; and as 

 it will not be very profitable for them to 

 find the same matter occupying the same 

 pages of each, I prefer to give you such 

 random notes of the proceedings of the con- 

 vention as may seem to me most valuable, 

 taking into consideration the fact that you 

 can get a copy of all the papers read, from 

 the A. B. J. If you do not choose to take 

 the latter, write for a single copy, costing 

 but five cents. The copies for Nov. 28 and 

 30 will contain, I believe, the whole pro- 

 ceedings. 



By the way, friend Newman has been for 

 some time on the sick-list ; and when he 

 came into the convention it was evident to 

 almost any one tliat his doctor was right in 

 telling him he had better not go at all. 

 After he had been among such a jolly set 

 of men as we were, however, for a few 

 hours, he seemed to be gradually looking 

 up a little ; and on the last day of the con- 

 vention he was decidedly better. Who 

 shall say it was not the effect of the in- 

 spiration that is always found, to a greater 

 or less extent, in our national conventions? 



Our friend C. C. Miller is a very good 

 man to preside at the desk ; and it pleased 

 me exceedingly to hear him talk to us as if 

 we were a lot of schoolchildren and he the 

 schoolmaster. 



'•(ientlemen,'" said he, " you must not 

 talk while somebody on the floor is talk- 

 ing.'' And although 1 wondered at the 

 time whether he would carry it out as he 

 had started, I found him fully up to the 

 occasion. When we got excited in discuss- 

 ing very important questions, there was 

 quite a temptation for somebody to whisper 

 to his neighbor ; and sometimes they got so 

 much absorbed in their whispering that 

 they did not hear the president's general 

 request. At such times he called them by 

 name, and made them behave. It did not 

 make any difference if it was Prof, ('ook or 

 the editor of a bee-journal ; if he forgot 

 himself, or if he did not remember himself, 

 friend Miller called him to order by name. 

 Some of us were a little inclined to feel 

 hurt, I fear, once or twice ; but we finally 

 concluded, from Dr. Miller's kindly counte- 

 nance, that he was an old hand at the busi- 

 ness. He opened the meeting with prayer, 

 as was told you, and I guess the spirit of 

 those morning prayers went with us clear 

 through every day's deliberations. 



Sometimes even the best of us fall into a 

 notion that the way to do duty is to stay at 

 home and mind our own business ; and 

 this feeling, no doubt, has kept a good 

 many from attending conventions. Some 

 have" suggested tliat our books and bee- 

 journals contain the summing-up of every 

 thing that is important ; but I tell you, it is 

 a mistake. Let me illustrate : 



Some time during the convention the 

 matter came up that has been recently 

 started by J. A. Green (see page 764). 

 Well, after a good many discussions in ref- 

 erence to the matter, the president finally 

 asked all those who were satisfied that full- 

 sized starters of foundation in sections 

 would really produce more and better hon- 

 ey than even good-sized starters of clean 



white natural comb, to rise up. Now, from the 

 discussions we had had, I thought the opin- 

 ions would be about equally divided ; but aris- 

 ing vote greatly astonished, I think, the most 

 of us. Almost every one present had been 

 slowly coming to the conclusion that it does 

 not pay to save our unfinished sections for 

 filling casts another year. Our teaching 

 has been so much*to the contrary — in fact, 

 almost any one would say that even com- 

 mon sense was to tlie contrary — that at first 

 there seemed'no explanation for it. It was 

 really amusing and funny to see fact after 

 fact come forward. You may say these 

 facts might have been given in the bee- 

 journals. True ; but we could not make 

 the giver of the facts stand up and answer 

 questions ; neither could you call for a rising 

 vote through the journals— that is, without 

 waiting for a couple of weeks or more. 

 After asking several more questions of dif- 

 ferent ones present, I became satisfied that 

 I had got hold of some loose threads leading 

 to an important fact ; and as this matter is 

 one of great moment to us I will try to 

 give the conclusions here as I did during 

 the convention. 



AVHY BEKS CAN STORE HONEY FASTER 

 WHEN FURNISHED WITH FOUNDA- 

 TION, THAN WHEN FURNISH- 

 ED WITH EMPTY COMBS. 



Most honey, as it comes from the flowers, 

 is not honey really, but what may be called 

 nectar, or sweetened water. If you raise a 

 frame of comb during a flow of honey, the 

 newly gathered nectar will often run outi it- 

 self, when the comb is turned up sidewise. 

 I have learned this to my sorrow, by tipping 

 up such combs when I had on my Sunday 

 clothes. I do not \yant you to think that I 

 open the hives on Sunday, dear friends, but 

 sometimes I have on my Sunday clothes on 

 week-days. At such times, if I open bee- 

 hives I am sure to get daubed if honey is 

 coming in briskly. Well, the only way the 

 bees can manage to make this nectar into 

 thick honey is by evaporating it to the prop- 

 er consistency. J This evaporation is pro- 

 duced by sending a stream of air through 

 the hive. The air passing over these cells 

 of nectar carries off the moisture. When 

 we first commenced drying lumber by 

 means of a steam dry-kiln, we were foolish 

 enough to think that hot steam-pipes w^ould 

 dry lumber, even if there were no draft of 

 air through the dry-kiln. We were badly 

 mistaken, however. To dry lumber, you 

 must pass hot dry air on both sides of the 

 boards ; and when this hot air has become 

 charged with moisture, it must be sent out 

 of the'[ dry-house, and some more brought 

 in. So you want a regular blast to dry 

 your boards. This blast must also go be- 

 tween every two boards. Well, now, the 

 blast of the bee-hive, to evaporate the nec- 

 tar, must pass close to the surface of the 

 nectar. Where bees have full sheets of 

 foundation to start on, they raise the cells a 

 very little. Then they put in a drop of hon- 

 ey, or. rather, nectar. This nectar is put in 

 until it is full, up with the cell-walls, or per- 

 haps a little more. Who has not admired a 

 new comb of foundation the first time it 



