1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



435 



B's or Mr. A's. If all the money were put 

 into labels instead of stamps and paper to 

 write to the editors it would be better spent. 



I am working- rig-ht across a road from 

 my house now, on a 20-acre fruit-farm. My 

 bees came throug-h strong. 



Norwalk, Conn. Robt. J. Cary. 



LABELING COMB HONEY; THE COMMISSION 



MAN. 



Suppose you are the commission man, and, 

 while you would be making- your fine little 

 speech to the bee-man, you would be think- 

 ing, " If Mr. A puts his name on his hon- 

 ey, and my customer fails to get his honey 

 from me, he will order it direct from A, 

 and that commission will not jingle in my 

 pocket." Would The A. I. Root Co. think 

 of putting its goods on the market under no 

 person's name as manufacturer ? Why 

 should the honey-producer? If the commis- 

 sion man will not handle his honey, the 

 producer can get along better without him 

 with his name on his honey than with him 

 without his name. W. R. Martin. 



Hackneys, Pa., April 10. 



HONEY FROM ALFALFA IN KANSAS. 



Mr. Editor: — I notice on p. 179 that you 

 and Dr. Miller claim that alfalfa does not 

 3'ield honey except on irrigated land. I 

 have been in the bee business for only three 

 years, and my experience teaches me that, 

 if it were not for our alfalfa here, grown 

 without irrigation, we could do nothing 

 with bees in this part of Kansas. We have 

 some maple, elm, box-elder, willow, fruit- 

 bloom; then we have locust and catalpa. 

 This is all good feed for the bees. About 

 May 20 the first crop of alfalfa comes in 

 bloom; about July 1, the second; in Sep- 

 tember, the third; and all other crops yield 

 a good crop of honey of excellent quality. 

 As yet the alfalfa-fields are very limited, 

 but are enlarged every year, as the neces- 

 sity of a hay crop is very much in demand, 

 and the crop is mostly cut before the bees 

 get the full benefit from it; yet, dry as it 

 was the past season, my bees made, spring 

 count of 30 colonies, over 1500 lbs. of alfalfa 

 comb honey. I knew there was no other 

 bloom for bees to work on, and we have no 

 irrigation here; yet there is honey from al- 

 falfa here of a better quality than where it 

 is irrigated, as it is much thicker and 

 heavier. J. J. Measer. 



Hutchinson, Kan. 



SOME things about pear-blight that 



are not EXPLAINED. 



That pear-blight subject seems absurd. 

 How is it a tree that never blossomed, 15 

 years old, all of a sudden turns black, and, 

 of course, dies? I've had that experience. 

 I've had dwarf trees, the second year from 

 setting (no bloom), black about all over, 

 have had apple branches black and die — 

 no bloom either. I am very sure the bees 

 have no part in it. We may as well charge 

 potato-blight to bees. There was a time 



when old farmers really thought bees 

 blighted buckwheat; but it is generally 

 settled that they are a help in setting more 

 seed by the complete pollenizing. 



The season and something unseen must 

 cause pear-blight, the same as fungus, 

 which is so troublesome in many ways. 

 Being a fruit-grower and bee-keeper I have 

 no biased idea one way or the other. I am 

 sure bees are a great help in the cause of 

 more fruit, to say nothing of the excellent 

 sweets and the wonderful things other- 

 wise. Superstition should have no part in 

 the above subject. E. P. Churchill. 



Hallowell, Me. 



[See editorials in this issue.— Ed.] 



rambler taken to task; extracting 



honey too green in CUBA. 



As Rambler is down here in the interest 

 of Gleanings we shall have to hold it re- 

 sponsible for his statements, and ask for 

 more information through it regarding 

 them; and I wish, like some of his other 

 Cuban friends, to enter a protest against 

 his saying that we extract our honey too 

 green. That may be the case with some 

 of those bee-keepers who use one hive-body 

 to hold a day's uncappings. Now, I don't 

 claim to sling nearlj' as much honey in a 

 day as some of the writers in Gleanings; 

 but I have days when my uncappings of 

 one day will fill a Boardman solar extract- 

 or four times with all it can hold. Now, 

 most of the honey here is still raised in the 

 Cuban box hives. These are extracted from 

 three to four times in a honey-flow of from 

 six to eight mouths. How does Rambler 

 make this fact tally with his statement of 

 honey being extracted too green? Then he 

 goes further and makes us veterans here 

 feel in doubt whether to be sad or glad that 

 we are not in Tulipan. 



He does not tell us whether that colony, 

 page 288, that gave 90 lbs. at one extrac- 

 tion, was extracted only one time during 

 the honey season or once a week as is our 

 habit of doing here. If only onetime, then 

 it is not much for Cuba with its 30-cent hon- 

 ey; but if that colony gave that at each ex- 

 tracting, then it sounds like a land agent's 

 yarn to us veterans. Tell Rambler to be 

 precise in his writings on Cuba, as we are 

 very touchy in this new republic. 



The American Tramp. 



Punta Brava, Cuba, Apr. 21. 



CAGES FOR QUEENS DURING SWARMING 

 TIME. 



What kind of cage is used to cage the 

 queen in the hive, and how is the caging 

 done? I wish to prevent swarming by cag- 

 ing the queen. Do j'ou send packing with 

 the double-walled hive when you send the 

 hive in the flat? P. Huntington. 



Norwich, Ct., April 2. 



[Almost any kind of cage will answer for 

 caging a queen in the hive. The Miller 

 cage described in our catalog, page 29, is 



