•^J 



' -ANbHoNE-Y 

 «MD HOME, 



TubliafaadyniLSrPRoof Co." ' 



Vol. XXX. 



JULY I, 1902. 



No. 



13 



"There are man}' worse things in this 

 world than tobacco," p. 509. Yes, there's 

 strong- drink, and — and — and — say, what is 

 that other thing- that's worse than tobacco? 

 [The police-court records give the whole 

 category. — Ed.] 



I AM quoted in Gerstung's Bienenzucht, 

 p. 76, as saying that, instead of 17 days, 

 onl}' 13 are required for the development of 

 a queen in a strong colony. Fifteen, not 13, 

 is what I said, good friends Gruendig and 

 Straeuli. Kindly correct. 



Adrian Getaz, p. 504, finds but one ob- 

 jection to the honey- producer buying his 

 queens — the damage in the mails. I should 

 make a second objection: The honey - pro- 

 ducer would not have the pleasure and ad- 

 vantage of working for improvement of 

 stock. 



Mr. Editor, I was in dead earnest when 

 I spoke of Demaree's plan of preventing 

 swarming as being- a success, p. 499. Of 

 course, it can be used only by extractor 

 men. [If you were in dead earnest, doctor, 

 then I was not familiar with the plan. — 

 Ed.] 



Do BEES work on tomatoes? [Do you 

 mean on the tomatoes or on the tomato-flow- 

 ers? I have seen them work on the fruit 

 when broken by chickens, or because it was 

 overripe. I do not remember to have ob- 

 served them working on the blossoms in the 

 spring. — Ed.] 



"Do THIS as rapidl}' as possible, " says 

 Adrian Getaz, p. 506, in speaking of find- 

 ing a queen. I'm not sure that I ever saw 

 that in print before, but rapidity is an im- 

 portant factor in the case. The queen is 

 constantly trjung to get away from the 

 light, and if you work slow enou^^k you may 

 be pretty sure of having to lift out every 

 comb before finding her; whereas if you 

 had been lively j'ou might have found her 

 on one of the first combs. [The " rapid" 



part had escaped my notice. Since you 

 draw my attention to it, I believe there is 

 something in it. — Ed.] 



If Denver doesn't have a good conven- 

 tion it will not be the fault of the bee jour- 

 nals. They never before gave any thing 

 like the advertising they have given this 

 time. [Yes; and the Denver papers have 

 been full of the talk about the big conven- 

 tion. When our bee-keeping friends of the 

 East go west they will find that their co- 

 laborers of Colorado are a lot of hustling 

 fellows. — Ed.] 



The supposition that no wax is to be 

 found in a cell-bottom except the original 

 layer is erroneous. Dr. Bruennich, in the 

 Schweizerische Bztg., shows that there are 

 layers in regular succession: First the orig- 

 inal wax; then the shed skin of the larva; 

 then the dejection of the bowel; then these 

 three layers are continuously repeated, only 

 the layer of wax is exceedingly thin after 

 the first. [This is news to me. But why 

 should bees put wax in the bottom of the 

 cells? We are certain that they remove the 

 shed skins whenever they becoi-ne too thick. 

 —Ed.] 



As I READ about A. I. Root's forest home 

 by the babblings brook, I keep wondering 

 why he doesn't tell us about his windmill. 

 Is it possible that he is living all this time 

 without a windmill? [A. I. Root's wind- 

 mill — the one he used to w^rite about — has 

 gone all to smash. The 2000-barrel tank 

 burst during some repairs. A heavy wind 

 came along one night and finished up the 

 old mill; and now all you would see if you 

 were at Medina is a large pile of brick 

 standing where the large tank of water had 

 once stood. But A. I. R. has a new scheme 

 up in his new Michigan home. He does not 

 have to have wind to pump the water, for 

 the water comes from a spring- dow7i hill. 

 Gravity, instead of wind, does the work, in 

 other words. — Ed.] 



Here's the last half of June; and instead 

 of hustling to get on additional supers, I've 

 been hustling to feed. That tells the story 

 here. [The weather is cool, and has been 

 cold for a week back. A week ago, or a 



