GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



tive. With the co-operation of the Forest 

 ►Service the Laboratory is now looking for 

 a cheap wood charcoal which will take out 

 the color, and experimenters believe that 

 they will soon find it. 



If such a process of filtering dark honeys 

 and syrups can be made so cheap as to 

 become available to the ordinary honey- 

 producer, a great deal of honey which has 

 been going for manufacturing pur]>oses, or 

 has been fed back to the bees, can be placed 

 directly upon the retail markt. There is 

 still a qustion, however, whether such a 

 process could ever be made so cheap as to 

 bring such honeys as the inferior tropical 

 grades into competition with the best white 

 clover, sage, and alfalfa, noAv on the market. 



Ohio State Convention 



The Ohio state beekeepers will meet in 

 convention at Akron, 0., Nov. 26, 27. Dr. 

 Phillips has promised to be present and 

 give an address; and it is expected, also, 

 other prominent beekeepers from outside 

 tlie state, as well as those locally, will par- 

 ticipate on the program. 



Akron is the home of the rubber industry 

 of the United States, and an opportunity 

 will be given for the members to go through 

 one of the big rubber plants, and possibly 

 visit the Barber farm, owned by 0. C. 

 Barber, the match king. Mr. Barber has a 

 model apiary on his place. Further an- 

 nouncements will be given later. 



Nosema Apis, Bee Paralysis, or What ? 



Since our editorial on page 7S4, Oct. 1, 

 Vie have received quite a number of letters 

 from subscribers, telling of the peculiar 

 malady which has come and gone, but which 

 does not quite tally with the symptoms giv- 

 en for bee paralysis. The presumption is 

 that it is nosema apis; but if it is not that 

 disease it is evidently the same thing that 

 has wrought such destruction in the Missis- 

 sippi Valley northward in Wisconsin, and 

 up and down the Pacific coast. The follow- 

 ing letter from A. R. Miner is a fair sample 

 of some we have been receiving : 



I am -writing to get some information. For the 

 past two years I have noticed my bees dying off at 

 intervals. The disease is something similar to paral- 

 ysis, hut T do not notice any swollen condition. The 

 bees seem rather to shrivel up. For three or four 

 days they will die by the thousands, then all of a 

 sudden they will seem to be all right again. I have 

 noticed that they die mostly when cool days hinder 

 tlieiv flying in fall and spring. Some hives are not 

 iilfected, while others beside them become so weak 

 that they make scarcely any surplus honey. 



I have seat some of the dead bees to Washington, 

 D. (,'.. and received the reply that they could not 

 tell from the bees sent what was the matter. I 

 thought perhaps >ou could help me. If you can, it 

 will be greatly appreciated. 



Fowler, Oal., Sep. 28. A. R. Miner 



We shall be glad to get an exact descrip- 

 tion of the disease that has been killing 

 bees this summer in the different localities 

 mentioned, or anywhere else in fact. We 

 do not care for letters desci-ibing a mild 

 form of bee paralysis; but what we do de- 

 sire to get is a description of the malady 

 that is killing so manj' thousands of bees, in 

 some cases resulting in the almost complete 

 destruction of the entire colony. 



J. E. Wing, Apostle of Alfalfa 



Any one who knows alfalfa knows 

 Joseph E, Wing. The spread of alfalfa in 

 the states east of the Mississippi has been 

 due more to his work than to any other 

 cause. His experiments at Woodland Farm, 

 his articles in the agricultural press, liis 

 lectures, his books, make him the most 

 prominent authority on alfalfa in the Unit- 

 ed States, and that at once interests west- 

 ern beekeepers, so closely are their interests 

 tied up with the jDrosiDerity of alfalfa. 



Joseph Wing died Sept. 10 at his home 

 in Mechanicsburg, Ohio, at the age of 54 

 years. " Alfalfa in America " was Iris best- 

 known work, the one which made liim fa- 

 mous. He wrote three others, ''Sheep Farm- 

 ing in America," " Meadows and Pastures," 

 and " In Foreign Fields." In all of them 

 liis charmingly intimate style is the delight 

 of readers. 



There is no branch of agriculture in this 

 country but has felt the impress of his 

 brain and hand. Not a beekeeper, his con- 

 tribution to beekeepers in publishing the 

 gospel of alfalfa and sweet clover has never 

 been fully appreciated by them. 



A Word of Warning in Marking the 

 Minimum Net-weight 



We have learned that quite a number of 

 producers are marking all their comb hon- 

 ey with one rubber stamp reading " Weight 

 not less than 6 oz." A larger number are 

 using a stamp, " Not less than 10 oz. net." 

 They put all their honey in a shipping-case 

 indiscriminately, marked in the same way. 



The fact is, ordinary good comb honey 

 produced witli separators runs anywhere 

 from 10 to 12 ounces minimum. We have 

 learned from high authority that the federal 

 Govei'ument considers low marking of comb 

 honev as a sLuions coutiavcnlion of the 



