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PER YtAR'^\§)"nEDiNA- Ohio- 



Vol. XXX. 



JUNE I, 1902. 



No. 



II 



DziERZON and others had four-banded 

 Italians a third of a century ago. 



Rambler's slatk, p. 436, tells us he has 

 bought a house, and then tells us to keep 

 an eye on that spot. I'm going to keep mj' 

 eye on his slate to find out what "lady 

 fair" is slated to occupy that house with 

 him. 



"As FOR ROBBERS, since our bees are all 

 Italians we have almost forgotten there are 

 any, and scarcelj' take any precaution at 

 all, now." That's what A. I. Root said 

 in Ainer. Bee Journal, 1870, page 259. It's 

 just as true now. 



Replying to a question on p. 411, Mr. 

 Editor, I should say that, instead of going 

 to Europe to find out about formalin for foul 

 brood, you should applj' to Prof. Harrison, 

 up in Canada. His experiments have per- 

 haps been more favorable to the use of for- 

 malin than any thing reported in Europe. 



John Hardscrabble says, in Amer. Bee- 

 Keeper, "It do be queer how every time a 

 new idea about queens gets a start, the 

 'boys' in the trade shout, 'I've got 'em, 

 and got 'em fust, too!' And when they 

 can't keep the pace, then 'the new ideas 

 ain't no good.' " Say, John, that tongue of 

 yours will get you into trouble yet. Don't 

 you know the truth musn't be spoken at all 

 times? 



Stenog is doing some excellent work in 

 conducting the Question-box in Chat, telling 

 how to use that troublesome thing, the Eng- 

 lish language. His ruling as to "first" 

 and "last" may make some of his readers 

 dizzy. "All the letters of the alphabet are 

 first except Z;" but if recited backward, 

 all are last except A. You must say "the 

 three first books of the Bible;" but when 

 the number is large it's different; then j'ou 

 may have the "first thirty-nine books." 

 I'm interested to know if some of his read- 

 ers will want to know the exact point at 



which the word "first" shall be shifted to 

 the first place. [Send your puzzles by 

 mail, doctor. — St.] 



Stenog wants me to tell if I can about 

 bees injecting poison in a cell of honey just 

 before sealing it over. Years ago Rev. W. 

 F. Clarke said they did so, and also that 

 they used the sting as a trowel to assist in 

 forming the wax into comb. When I re- 

 monstrated with him privately, he said he 

 saw the bees at work in the cells, and what 

 else could they be doing? I don't believe 

 he had an iota of satisfactorj' evidence for 

 his belief, and that it was only a wild 

 guess ; but his belief has been quoted a 

 good many times since as something rea- 

 sonable and real. If I remember correctly, 

 Cheshire says the formic acid gets into the 

 honey through the blood of the bee. 



The editor of Amer. Bee-Keeper is get- 

 ting me into trouble. He wants me to tell 

 how to pronouce "super; " and if I do there's 

 a whole lot of people will think I'm telling 

 what isn't so, for they want to persist in 

 saying "sooper," just as they say, and as 

 I too often say, "soo" for "sue," " soope- 

 rior" for "superior," etc. The fact is, if 

 they will look in the dictionary they will 

 find that, among the words in common use, 

 there is not one in the English language be- 

 ginning with "su" and pronounced "soo." 

 And it's just as much out of the way to say 

 "sooper" for "super" as it is to say 

 "coo" for "cue." The "u" in "super" 

 has precisely the same sound as it has in 

 "cue," "bugle," "fury," or "pure." 

 [You are entirely correct. — Ed.] 



In a two-story hive, the space between 

 the upper and lower set of frames must be 

 "not more than one inch, or the bees will 

 build combs there." So says A. I. Root in 

 Amer. Bee Journal, Vol. VI., page 223. I 

 should like to ask him whether, in his 31 

 years' experience since that time, he has 

 not found at least some cases in which 

 combs would be built, even with so small a 

 space as one inch. [What started 3^ou, doc- 

 tor, to going away back into ancient litera- 

 ture? Well, I kyiow that A. I. R. would 

 not to-day subscribe to the statement that 

 one inch is a proper bee-space between the 



