1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



255 



It's a little stranjre how much the British 

 suffer from the attacks of the Eng'lish, for, 

 as the Premier of New Zealand says, one 

 person in ever}'^ five in London either dies 

 in the workhouse or lunatic asylum. 



ib 



L'APICULTEUR. 



As to the advisabilit3' of using- an extract- 

 or, Mr. Maujean replies to Mr. Sylviac: 



By the universal consent of bei--keepers. llie ex- 

 tractor is useful. And this concession is not made be- 

 cause of its novelty. The farmer knows too well the 

 value of money to buy an extractor on the affirmation 

 of an author or the say-so of another party. It is re- 

 markable that the old bee-men have all been convert- 

 ed to the extractor, and those who remain behind do 

 not say, " I am not convinc d," but, " I am too old to 

 adopt a new system." This would be reason enough 

 to decide a beginner. . . The extractor furnishes 

 advantages enough in one vear to justify one in not 

 going without it. Mr. Sylvfac believes that a bee-keep- 

 er using frame hives does not get any more honey th n 

 one using simply an eniptv hive. Unfortu ately for 

 Mr. Sylviac he .--peaks without any experimental 

 knowledge, as he admits he has never owned an ex- 

 trac or The writer had, for four or five years, me- 

 dium crops of honey, sometimes none a all. He was 

 almost discouraged, when he had occasion to read 

 Bertrand's "Management of the Apiary," when he 

 began to use the extractor. That was in 188(', and im- 

 mediately, as if by magic, it changed the whole aspect 

 of things. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 

 P. H. Harbeck relates the following in- 

 cident: 



I positively know that king-birds catch queens, for I 

 was out one day with a shotgun watching frir Mr. 

 Bird, and just when it caught a bee I let go ; and when 

 I picked it up I found in its bill a dron^ and queen 

 hanging to it yet alive, only one wing being torn off 

 by the shot. I took it back to the colony that swarm- 

 ed, and put it at the entrance. There came about 

 twenty bees, going for her as if they meant to pull her 

 to pieces : but that was not the idea, tor they pulled 

 something away from her, and then every thing was 

 all right, and tre queen marched right in, and the 

 bees were as happy as could be. Since then 1 have no 

 mercy for king-birds I may be wrong, but I think 

 they are not a bee-keeper's friend. 



Prof. Cook has finished his Home Circle 

 talks, and I can not better express my own 

 view of them than by saying- *' me too ' aft- 

 er the following, from the pen of Mr. E. E. 

 Hasty: 



Exit " The Home circle ! " A surprise for us that 

 was not agree ble. Gone, but not altogether forgot- 

 ten. Prof Cook may V)e assured. In the real home cir- 

 cle it oft happens that the one who is gone is. in a 

 kind of way, more emphatically permanent and pres- 

 ent than those who remain We can hope that some 

 of the tender sentences of our "Home Circle " may 

 enjoy a portion of the same sort of immortality. 



In the issue for March 6 is the second ar- 

 ticle from Miss Emma Wilson, on how to 

 begin bee-keeping. Although designed for 

 green hands, these sketches "bristle with 

 good points," as the saying is, and even 

 the veterans can read them with profit; for 

 the best workmen are those who continual- 

 ly keep in sight the principles of their 

 craft. As these articles come from the 

 household of Dr. Miller we may suppose 

 they have his " O. K." 



GATHERED BV A BEK. 



" Say. Doolittle, do you .suppo.«e we 

 could tell how much hone}' a single bee 

 would gather?" 



"I doubt it. But I have often thought if 

 we look at the matter in the right light such 

 an item may be made of interest to us if 

 we study it from the right standpoint." 



"How so? You know it takes thousands 

 upon thousands of them to do any thing to 

 advantage bj' way of honey-gathering; and 

 to study just what one bee would do would 

 be to look into an almost infinitesimal mat- 

 ter." 



"Yes, I know it takes thousands of bees 

 to make much headway at storing honey, 

 and this is just the very reason why many 

 mistakes have been made in the past, and 

 just the reason why there may be a profit 

 in looking into the matter of how much hon- 

 ey a single bee may gather." 



"What about the mistakes? I don't un- 

 derstand." 



"Some have been telling us all along 

 during the past, 'keep your colonies always 

 strong,' just as though a large number of 

 bees in a hive, at a/l times of the year, was 

 the thing to be always sought after, and a 

 thing of great value. But right here comes 

 in another side to this 'gathering' question. 

 We have just been saying that it takes thou- 

 sands of bees to make much headway at 

 gathering honey ; yet in this locality we 

 very rarely have a yield of honey lasting 

 through the length of life allotted to an in- 

 dividual bee, while many bees — yea, more 

 than half which are reared under the most 

 skillful management, never add an ounce 

 to our surplus product. If every bee rear- 

 ed could have a field of nectar placed be- 

 fore it in which to labor, then the motto, 

 'Keep your colonies ahvays strong,' would 

 be the right one; but inasmuch as this can 

 not be, and as bees at all times must be 

 consumers, no matter whether producing or 

 not, I can not now and never have been 

 able to see the philosophy of having a colo- 

 ny strong in bees at such seasons when of 

 necessity they can only be consumers. The 

 time to have our colonies strong, with thou- 

 sands upon thousands of bees, till the 

 'measure is heaped up and running over,' 

 is just when our field is yielding nectar." 



"Well, this is something I never thought 

 of before, and I think I do see now why col- 

 onies always strong may not be to the high- 

 est advantage to the bee-keeper." 



"Then right here comes in another factor 

 in this question, which is the field, or that 

 from which our supply of nectar comes 

 from. In reality we must begin with the 

 field, or, in other words, place that first; 

 for without the field, or neclar-flow. we 

 have no use for the bees. With a continu- 



