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•1NTE.F^EST.S 



Tublishedy THE~A 1^0 oY Co. 



las p[RVtA^'^^@ "Medina- Ohio- 



Vol. XXX 



JAN. 15, 1902. 



No. 2. 



"Boiling honey will obviously spoil it 

 for vineg'ar," says the editor of British Bee 

 Journal. 



The length of English words is less 

 than 3'ou might suppose. In the nine verses 

 of the beatitudes, Matthew 5, the average 

 length of the words is a little less than Wz 

 letters each. In ordinary language, as in 

 the pages of Gleanings, the words are 

 still shorter. 



Propolosin is very highly spoken of in 

 Deutsche Jllus. Bztg-., Editor Gravenhorst 

 saying he has been astonished at the re- 

 sults of its use in different wounds and 

 sores. It is also said that, if the hands are 

 rubbed with propolosin, they will not be 

 stvnig bj' the bees. 



The IllustrierteMonaisblaettkk says 

 Reidenbach finds the weight of 30 bees' 

 eggs to be -^ milligrams; and that Cook, in 

 1891, in Gleanings, published 3.9 milli- 

 grams as the weight of 30 eggs (I don't 

 succeed in finding it in Gleanings); and 

 then asks which is right. 



To detect adulteration in wax, the 

 Schleswig-Holst. B~tg. says to burn a piece 

 on hot iron. If a pleasant smell arises, the 

 wax is pure. If it is impure there will 

 arise a disagreeable, fatty, white smoke. 

 Burn a piece that you know is pure, and 

 then compare the suspected article b}- burn- 

 ing. 



P. Schachinger, in Oest. Bzt"., gives 

 this: A cluster of bees were hanging under 

 an alighting-board, only two of the number 

 clinging to the board, the rest hanging to 

 these two bees. The little cluster was tak- 

 en off and counted, and was found to num- 

 ber 64. So each of the two bees supported 

 32 times its own weight I 



I AM ASKED how much acid I used in 

 syrup of 5 sugar to 2 water. An even tea- 

 spoonful of tartaric acid to every 20 lbs. of 



sugar. Dissolve acid in a little water, and 

 stir into the syrup about the time the sugar 

 is dissolved. But I'd much rather feed ear- 

 ly enough to have equal parts sugar and 

 water, and leave the acid out. [So would 

 I.— Ed.] 



When I have forced a very young bee to 

 sting me, I have been surprised at the mild- 

 ness of the sting. So I am not surprised 

 that Dr. Langer reports the amount of poi- 

 son carried by a nurse-bee to be .00015 of a 

 gram, while that of a field bee was twice 

 as much, ranging from .00025 to .00035. 

 [Sometimes the sting of a worker right from 

 the fields is so painful that I feel like groan- 

 ing — 3'es, and I do groan — with pain. I 

 am quite prepared to believe that the field- 

 ers have twice the amount of poison in their 

 poison-sacs that the home bees have. — Ed.] 



W. E. P^lower reports in AVivVif that he 

 succeeded in getting one queen mated in a 

 tent 12X10X6. That's hopeful— not because 

 of the large number of successes, but be- 

 cause a tent of that size is within easy 

 reach; and if he succeeded in one case he 

 may learn the trick of succeeding always. 

 Keep on, Bro. Flower! [This is the ver}' 

 experiment I had contemplated having tried 

 at our own apiary the past summer; but 

 absence from home, and general pressure 

 of work, precluded carrj'ing it out. I must 

 say I am very hopeful; for, as has been al- 

 ready said, if we are to bring about im- 

 provements in our breeding stock we must 

 control the selection of the males as well as 

 of the females; and the tent plan is often 

 the only feasible one for the average queen- 

 breeder to carry out. An island in a bodj' 

 of water is, of course, feasible to those who 

 are on such an island, providing the drones 

 from only one queen are allowed to fly on 

 that island. — Ed.] 



One ok the things that I can't under- 

 stand, although I must believe it, is that 

 length and reach of tongue have no fixed 

 relation to each other. Prof. Gillette's 

 measurements show six times as much vari- 

 ation in reach as in length, and in at least 

 one case two tongues can be found in which 

 the shorter tongue has the longer reach. 



