iHoNE.Y 



fiOMEL' 



'ubhshedy THE~A I'RooY Co. 

 ii£ p[RVtAR'^'\@^ Hedina- Ohio • 



Vol. XXX. 



AUG. 15, 1902. 



No. 16 



BlC.C.Miller. 



In the wax-press the lever g^ives contin- 

 uous pressure, but not the screw. But the 

 screw can be made continuous too. Instead 

 of a sing-le head-plate have two, with a 

 spring- or springs between them. [S. T. Pet- 

 tit made this same suggestion. But the com- 

 bination of a screw and spring- would make 

 ihe apparatus expensive, I fear. — Ed.] 



Phacelia talk in last Gleanings leaves 

 still untouched the main question, "What 

 is the phacelia that Europeans got from 

 California, and is so valued in Europe for 

 forage and nectar?" Do you California 

 fellows know any thing- about it? Some of 

 you please say yes or no. [Will our Cali- 

 ifornia friends respond with what informa- 

 tion they have? — Ed.] 



W. L. CoGGSHALL, the same man who 

 gave us the valuable hint about the little 

 cleats on smokers, is the man who told us 

 about coffee or gunny sacks for smoker fuel. 

 He said, "Roll up your sack in a roll, tie 

 a string around it once in about six inches, 

 then take an ax and chop 'er up." [Yes, 

 that is so. He is the man, although I had 

 forgotten the fact. — Ed.] 



Bisulphide of carbon, C. Davenport 

 sa3^s in Anier. Bee Journal, he has proven 

 does not injure honey for winter stores. 

 Moreover, comb honey subjected to the fumes 

 for ZYz hours or longer showed no trace of 

 g-ranulation the following spring, and he 

 wants to know whether that was the effect 

 of the bisulphide. [I should say that it 

 was only an incident, or, rather, a coinci- 

 dence. I do not quite see how the fumes of 

 the bisulphide could sufficiently penetrate 

 the capping to such a degree that the honey 

 would not granulate. It may be well for 

 us all to watch the matter, for Davenport is 

 not aguesser at things. — Ed.] 



Adrian Getaz quotes the editor as say- 

 ing "it is nature's way to raise queens 

 during- the swarming season," and adds, 

 "Thafs true." I arise to remark that it 

 is also nature's way to raise queens after 

 the swarming season is all over. Remem- 

 ber that every queen is superseded at the 

 close of her life. In an apiary left to na- 

 ture, if there is no swarming, all queens 

 are supersedure queens, and the supersed- 

 ing- nearly always takes place at or near 

 the close of the harvest. I suspect that, if 

 a census of all queens were taken, it would 

 be found that half as many, possibly quite 

 as many of them, were born in August as 

 earlier. [I think you are right. — Ed.] 



G. M. DooLiTTLE says, p. 634, "It is 

 now the 30th of June, and clover is on the 

 wane." Clover is usually on the wane here 

 about that time; but I never knew a year 

 like this before, and never expect another 

 like it. The cold wet weather seemed to 

 keep clover back, and it was waxing in- 

 stead of waning June 30, and Aug. 5 finds 

 more clover in bloom than any previous 

 date. Whether the bees will store any 

 thing from it I don't know yet. [You have 

 not yet told us definitely, doctor, just what 

 the season has been with j'ou. Lately I 

 have been scanning- your writings closely 

 to get an idea as to whether there was any 

 honey in sight. Of course, you could not 

 determine exactly; but you could tell wheth- 

 er you had any honey at the moment of 

 writing, and whether the season had been 

 good, bad, or indifferent. — Ed.] 



For THE BENEFIT of Nivcr and ye editor 

 I'll label this Straw "Not loaded." Not 

 the least suspicion of a joke about it. Years 

 ago I got a lot of loose-hanging frames that 

 were made of basswood. Although end- 

 bars and bottom-bars were ;U wide, leav- 

 ing a }% space between, it was a painfully 

 common thing for them to be glued togeth- 

 er at one end, no matter how carefully top- 

 bars were spaced; and when a hive was 

 raised, the bottom-bars presented a rather 

 zig-zag appearance. But this was just com- 

 mon basswood, and I don't insist Groton 

 basswood would act so. [I have seen 

 frames of Michigan and Ohio basswood 



