8 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1 



is the larg'er. We had a drouth here last 

 summer that wecouldn't fight, for no friend- 

 ly' mountain was nigh as a reservoir of 

 moisture. The mountains make the drouth, 

 but they are alwaj's ready to give back the 

 moisture, with special advantages, as j'ou 

 mention. G. Stull, that brother-in-law of 

 mine in whom your father was interested 

 as the raiser of such fine strawberries, has 

 gone to spend the winter in Phoenix, Ariz.; 

 that or death, said the doctors; and it may 

 be he will owe his life to those same moun- 

 tains. My apologies herewith, Mr. Editor. 



An interesting table of tongue-mea- 

 surements by Prof. Gillette is given in Adi. 

 Bee Journal. It seems there is no fixed re- 

 lation between total length of tongue and 

 tongue reach. In one lot of blacks the total 

 length was uniformly .24 inch, while the 

 tongue reach, instead of being uniform, va- 

 ried from .16 to .19. Bro. Doolittle, please 

 give us tongue reach of those bees reported 

 on p. 976. Prof. Gillette seems a bit sus- 

 picious that bees get only pollen from red 

 clover, seeing that the tubes measured from 

 .34 to .37, while the greatest tongue reach 

 he found was .23. But I think there has 

 been much reliable testimony that red-clo- 

 ver honey has been obtained. [See edito- 

 rials elsewhere. — Ed.] 



Sports or freaks among animals have 

 also been the basis of new tj'^pes, although 

 in animal life the new type may take long- 

 er to establish than in plant life. But with 

 the right kind of freak it doesn't require a 

 long lifetime with any thing which pi'oduces 

 so many generations in a season as the bee. 

 We are told that a single freak sheep prop- 

 erly used produced an entirely new breed 

 of sheep. A single freak queen ought in 

 much less time produce a somewhat similar 

 result. I don't believe it will take an^^ three 

 lifetimes, nor any three years, to make a 

 long stride ahead, if we all keep our eyes 

 wide open for the right kind of sports, and 

 then make the right use of them. [See ans- 

 wer to another Straw in this issue. — Ed.] 



That tall section, p. 981, looks larger 

 than the other, and it is larger — has 11 per 

 cent more surface. Costs 11 per cent more 

 for full foundation too. [Exactly. In one 

 way it is larger, and in another it is not. 

 In superficial surface or cappings of comb 

 face, one has a larger area; in actual 

 weight they are both the same. Now, the 

 question is, "Would it cost any more to pro- 

 duce one section than another?" So far as 

 the wood of the sections is concerned, the 

 two are the same price. If the tall one sells 

 for one cent more, and the foundation in it 

 costs 11 per cent more, there is still a large 

 gain on the credit side for the box with the 

 large surface. Assuming that the founda- 

 tion costs 11 per cent more, then it would 

 make, as I figure it, only ^V of one cent 

 more; or a credit, assuming that the sec- 

 tion brings one cent more on the market, of 

 \% of a cent. Or, if it sold for two cents 

 more in the open market, there would be a 

 credit of \\% of a cent. So, taking it all in 



all, the mere difference in superficial sur- 

 face of the foundation doesn't cut any fig- 

 ure. — Ed.] 



There you go again, still on a side 

 track, Mr. Editor, p. 971. Let's get back 

 on the main track and begin Jill over again. 

 We were talking about the least that could 

 be expected in the worst 3'ear, and I said I 

 would be satisfied if I could be sure of at 

 least $1 a colony. You ask if I have data- 

 handy. Yes, my worst year was an utter 

 failure of the crop, and a ton of granulated 

 sugar fed. That was a good deal less than 

 $1 a colony. Other years I've had more 

 than $10 a colony, but that has nothing 

 whatever to do with the case. Now let's 

 keep on the main track, and say whether 

 you think it a conservative estimate to say 

 that in any year the yield will never be less 

 than $5 a colony. [Perhaps I have been 

 on a side track. If so, I stand corrected. 

 No, I don't think we can go so far as to say 

 that the income in any year will never be 

 less than $5.00 a colony. What I had in 

 mind was an average, taking in a period 

 of ten or fifteen years. — Ed.] 



A WILD statement is going the rounds 

 of the European bee-journals, the last one 

 I've seen it in being Le Rucher Beige., a 

 really excellent journal. In that it is said 

 in all seriousness that Mr. Root, the well- 

 known American bee-keeper, has succeeded 

 in obtaining long-tongued bees of such ex- 

 cellence that, notwithstanding the high 

 price at which Mr. Root sells them, $200 

 apiece, he has not been able to supply the 

 demand, and has been obliged to start an 

 additional queen-rearing establishment in 

 Texas to help out! Now, I wonder how 

 many of our foreign friends will make the 

 proper correction by saying that The A. I. 

 Root Co. merely valued one queen (that was 

 never offered for sale) at $200, and never 

 sold a queen for more than $10.00. [It is 

 evident that soine of our friends across the 

 water see through a glass darkly. That is 

 to say, they have acquired only a smatter- 

 ing of English, and a very poor smattering 

 at that, with the result that they do not 

 read aright. Whew! if we could sell queens 

 for $200 a piece, and not supply the demand, 

 we would go out of the supply' business in- 

 stanter. — Ed.] 



A correspondent who does not court 

 publicity is very emphatic in the belief that 

 *' whenever and wherever you find extreme- 

 ly light color, or more than the three bands, 

 there is black blood every time. " Unrea- 

 sonable as that may look, he seems to have 

 some proof for his belief, and I must confess 

 that, in the early years of Italianizing, 

 while there was a constant tendencj' toward 

 black blood there was also a tendency, 

 more or less constant, toward lighter-color- 

 ed queens. [A good many have not under- 

 stood why we of the Root Co. have favored 

 the importation of queens direct from Italy, 

 arguing that home-bred American queens 

 were better than the inferior-looking stock 

 from Italy. The trouble with many of our 



