1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



57 



ture for the West Indies, written by W. K. 

 Morrison, well known to readers of Glean- 

 ings. As its name indicates, this book is 

 prepared especially for the tropics, and a 

 very careful reading- fails to show any 

 thing- which is subject to adverse criticism. 

 On the other hand, it is worthy of a careful 

 reading- by kee-keepers and prospective 

 bee-keepers in that section of the country. 

 It is intended as a guide to beginners, and 

 is full of valuable information. The be;- 

 keepers of the British West Indies are to be 

 cong-ratulated on having- so able a man as 

 Dr. Morris, for he has not only made it 

 possible to furnish them this book without 

 expense, but is assisting- them in many oth- 

 er waj's. 



PROSPECTS NOT FLATTERING FOR CALIFOR- 

 NIA HONEY NEXT SEASON. 



Several of our subscribers in California 

 have written us that, up to the 1st of Janu- 

 ary, there had been little or no rain, and 

 that this was the smallest amount up to 

 that date for -a. period of over thirty years. 

 Of course, there may be copious showers 

 }'et; but they will need to come soon if they 

 are to do any g-ood. 



There are quite a number of bee-keepers 

 on the coast who held back their crops last 

 summer rather than sell at low prices, and 

 wisely so, I believe. They will surely find 

 a market next season for all they have, at 

 g-ood figures. A prospective short crop in 

 California ought to mean a stift'ening- of 

 prices throughout the whole United States; 

 for there is no one State in the Union that, 

 in a good year, gives anywhere near the 

 amount of honey that California does; and 

 when it unloads after one of its big seasons, 

 it is apt to make a flurry in the market. 



THOSE COMB-HONEY CANARDS, AGAIN. 



A GOOD part of my daily correspondence 

 is answering a great variety of clipping-s, 

 slandering the comb-honey busines, in the 

 various weeklies and dailies throug-hout 

 the country. The task seems almost hope- 

 loss, and I again call on our readers to 

 help. If every one of our subscribers would 

 sit down and write a short note to the pa- 

 per publishing such stuft", its editor would 

 begin to think bee-keepers were somebody, 

 and that he would lose subscribers if he 

 did not retract. Suppose a publisher got a 

 dozen letters a day, and some days a hun- 

 dred; and suppose the flow of protests con- 

 tinued for two or three weeks, he would 

 soon see that he would have to do some- 

 thing to square himself with the world, and 

 he would. There is nothing like the force 

 of numbers in a fight of this kind. 



Brothers and sisters, this me^ms bread 

 and butter to you. If you do not wish to 

 see a staggering comb-honey market anoth- 

 er year, get right down to business at once. 

 But perhaps you say you do not know what 

 paper to write to, or have forgotten. Let 

 me suggest that you turn your guns on the 

 Chicago Tribune — the paper that started 



these comb-honey canards and which has 

 never really retracted. Let that paper 

 feel that there is a power back of bee-keep- 

 ers. The Chicago C/ri-ofiicle has retracted 

 handsomely, and so have half a dozen others. 



There is another paper that persists in 

 the wrong, and that is the Fanners' Guide 

 (blind?), published at Huntington, Ind. 

 Besides these two, there are scores of other 

 sheets that I will not mention particularly, 

 as I am not in position to know whether or 

 not the}^ have made any correction or pro- 

 pose to. 



Our attorney is at work on the case where 

 the members of the Root Co. are accused of 

 putting out manufactured comb honey. The 

 law is slow, but we have ever}' reason to 

 believe that our accuser will have to "eat 

 crow "or go to jail, for we have been ac- 

 cused of a crime. 



THOSE BEES IN THE MACHINE-SHOP CEL- 

 LAR; IMPORTANCE OF FRESH AIR IN 

 BEE-CELLARS. 



There are 200 colonies of them, and they 

 are wintering finely. To all appearances 

 they are doing as well as the SO colonies 

 did a year ago; and these, it will be re- 

 membered, came through without the loss 

 of a colony, and scarcely an}' dead bees on 

 the floor. During warm nights, when the 

 air is sultry we open the door opening- into 

 the outer cellar, and just opposite this door 

 is a window leading- to the outside. The 

 cool fresh air pours in all nig-ht, and then 

 before daylight comes on the door is closed. 

 We have tried keeping the door shut every 

 night running for three or four days, but 

 the bees get uneasy and begin to roar. 

 This g-oes to show that an infusion of fresh 

 air from outdoors and a constant supply of 

 it all the time, day and night, from the out- 

 er cellar having ten times the cubic capac- . 

 ity of the room in which the bees are, is 

 important. Yes, indeed, I am becoming 

 more and more convinced that plenty of 

 fresh air in indoor wintering is one of the 

 prime essentials, and that variation in tem- 

 perature is only secondary. Why, the mer- 

 cury in our bee-room last year, where the 

 bees wintered so perfectly, moved up and 

 down all the way from 38 "to 60, and noise — 

 there was a constant banging and slam- 

 ming, and yet you will remember I kept 

 those bees in till about the middle of May. 

 The dead ones had never been swept up, 

 and yet you could ahnost walk across that 

 cellar without stepping on one. When we 

 remember that it is considered good winter- 

 ing indoors, even if the cellar is completely 

 covered with dead bees, the results I have 

 mentioned are all the more remarkable. 



The bees in the out-yard cellar are not 

 doing quite so well, for the reason that a 

 street-railway company have two or three 

 times filled our drain, causing the water to 

 back up. But we are sure of this, that 

 Bingham's idea of ventilation through a 

 shaft 20 inches square, going from the roof 

 of the cellar on through the roof of the 

 building above, is all right. 



