224 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar, 15 



daylight. Our regular apiarist is an ear- 

 ly riser and an early-to-bed man; and as 

 he sleeps in our factory, the opening and 

 closing of the doors works like clockwork. 

 The bees in our outyard, in the bee-cellar, 

 are not doing as well. The cellar is damp, 

 and ventilation limited. — Ed.] 



C. P. Dadant says in Revue Internation- 

 ale that nearly all of the wax in the United 

 States comes from the South, the reason 

 being that the northern bee-keepers do more 

 reading of bee journals and books. And I 

 wonder if it is not also because there is a 

 larger proportion of dark honey in the 

 Soulh, hence a larger proportion extracted. 

 [Your supposition is correct. There is 

 more dark honey in the South than in the 

 North. In the extreme South, and especial- 

 ly in Cuba and Mexico, it is profitable to 

 produce wax rather than a cheap grade of 

 honey, by converting such honey into wax. 

 —Ed.] 



Dr. H. E. Fisk, principal of Northwest- 

 ern Academy, an important institution near 

 Chicago, has advised students, who can not 

 give up cigarettes, to leave, offering to re- 

 fund their tuition. He says only two per 

 cent of cigarette-smokers are in the highest 

 grade, while .S7 per cent are in the lowest, 

 while four-fifths of those who persist in the 

 cigarette habit ultimately fail in their stud- 

 ies. [I was surprised and pained to read 

 in the papers that Prince Henry, who is 

 now paying us a complimentary visit, is a 

 lover of cigarettes. Such fieures as j'ou 

 give ought to stop any sensible man from 

 continuing in the awful habit. — Ed.] 



The Burlington Railroad has hereto- 

 fore rigidly enforced the rule against the 

 use of liquor by those who had any thing 

 to do with the running of trains. Hereafter 

 the rule will be enforced against the em- 

 ployees of all departments, including even 

 the track, bridge, and building depart- 

 ments. Here's the rule for all: "The use 

 of intoxicants by employees while on duty 

 is prohibited. Their habitual use, or the 

 frequenting of places where they are sold, 

 is sufficient cause for dismissal." How is 

 that, Ernest? [Yes, and there are a great 

 many roads that are going still further. If 

 a man is seen going into a saloon, that is 

 sufficient cause for his dismissal provid- 

 ing he can not give a good and sufficient 

 reason for going there. The time is not far 

 distant when every road in the country will 

 have these rulicgs; and when the great 

 corporations that employ thousands of men 

 take the same stand we shall put the whole 

 saloon business where it belongs, and thus 

 probably do actually more to prohibit the 

 use of liquor than any laws that can be en- 

 acted. — Ed.] 



The many reports in European jour- 

 nals of drugs curing foul brood certainly 

 looks as though the disease were milder 

 there. E. Bochatey reports in Revue In- 

 ternationale a number of cases cured by 

 dropping in the corner of the hive every 

 three or four days 15 to 20 drops of the 



essence of rosemary. [We have very little 

 faith in the application of any drug, no 

 matter how powerful, administered in such 

 small quantities as in the manner stated. 

 The fact is, I believe that many of our Eu- 

 ropean friends are confusing foul brood 

 with several forms of dead brood that are 

 comparatively mild, and disappear them- 

 selves. Two-thirds of the brood that is 

 submitted to us for examination is pickled 

 brood or another form of dead brood that is 

 found sometimes in the summer, but which 

 g^oes off of itself. Pickled brood in north- 

 ern localities will very often disappear, and 

 one might pour in a few drops of rosemary, 

 salicylic acid, carbolic acid, or even salt 

 water, and. because the disease disappear- 

 ed, as it would naturally of itself, he would 

 conclude he had struck a great remedy. I 

 am satisfied in my own mind that foul brood, 

 such as I have seen, would never yield to 

 such treatment as that. — Ed.] 



"Nor do i consider any Italian queen 

 as pure." When Bro. Doolittle saj's that, 

 p. 182. I think that what he means is true, 

 but that what he says is not true unless he 

 uses the word "pure" with some meaning 

 other than that found in the dictionary'. 

 From what he has said in other places, I 

 understand him to believe that no Italians 

 are of an entirely fixed or permanent char- 

 acter, in which he is probably strictly cor- 

 rect. But I do not know that in the term 

 "Italian" there is at all involved the idea 

 of strict permanence of character. If a 

 man should order a queen, saying, "I want 

 a tested queen, for I want to be sure that I 

 have nothing but pure Italian," I think 

 Bro. Doolittle would be able to fill the or- 

 der, and it would not surprise me if at 

 some time he may have sold a queen that 

 the purchaser supposed was "pure Ital- 

 ian." If there is no such thing as a pure 

 Italian queen, there is an immense amount 

 of correcting that should be done in our 

 bee literature. In looking over a half-page 

 in the A B C I found just nine such cor- 

 rections needed. Moreover, if no Italian 

 queen ever sold was pure, an immense 

 number of frauds have been committed by 

 men supposed to be honest. 





m^m:0tl/l NEJGHBOflS FIELDS^ 



Resp'nsive to the sun's approach, 

 I,ife springs from Winter's death ; 



The bitds return, the f ra-s starts up. 

 Revived by Spring's warm breath. 



\i« 



The Review of Reviews says: 



Apples from America and Tasmania can be sold at a 

 profit in Loudon, when apples growing a few miles 

 out of the city are left to rot on the trees, because the 

 railroad charges are so high that the farmers cau not 

 afford to send them to market. 



Just how far that afi'ects the producers of 

 honey wotild be an interesting question. 



