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APRIL, 1919 



WHERE was 

 your blue 

 pencil, Mr. 

 Editor, when 

 you let " Our 

 Food Page" get 

 by you in March 

 Gleanings? All 

 that about pick- 

 ing fruit off the 

 tree in winter (it was zero here March 1), 

 grapefruit at 20 cents a dozen, and things 

 like that to make our mouths water and to 

 make us wish we were millionaires so we 

 could mount a flying-machine for Florida. 

 Have a heart, Mr. Editor, and look out what 

 that Puerden woman gets in hereafter. 



* * * 



Not more than a quart of dead bees in the 

 Medina cellar in the first month or so, but 

 wait till the last month. 



* * * 



In one respect the National convention at 

 Chicago was better than any other I ever 

 attended — more women there. With two 

 such women as Mrs. Allen and Miss Fowls, 

 it just had to be a good convention. 

 » * * 



' ' The extent of honey exportation can be 

 judged in some degree by the fact that a 

 firm in Medina, 0., exported more than $1,- 

 000,000 worth of honey to Belgium alone 

 during the past year. ' ' — Los Angeles Times. 



* * * 



H. K. Hartman inquires about my 1918 

 crop, page 172. The season was a failure. 

 The worst drouth ever known here dried up 

 the clover, and the fall crop, which of late 

 has been considerable, was lacking, cutting- 

 down the average to 36 pounds. 

 « * * 



The objectors to large hives because they 

 are too heavy to handle "should not over- 

 look those weekly examinations that large 

 hives (timely supported by supers and other 

 essentials) permit to be entirely discarded," 

 says D. Barone, page 172. Yes, the total 

 pounds lifted may be less with large than 

 with small hives. "But," replies the ob- 

 jector, ' ' that hardly counts when I can 't 

 lift the big hive at all." 



J. P. Parker uses staples on end-bars to 

 prevent killing bees when handling frames, 

 page 169. I tried that, and altho one can 

 handle frames with such staples more rapid- 

 ly without killing bees, I gave it up because 

 the jarring of the staple on the hive-wall 

 stirred up the bees too much when looking 

 for a queen. For one with very unsteady 

 nerves the staples may be advisable, but the 

 average beekeeper can avoid killing bees 

 without the staples. 



* * » 



White ants have been known in one or 

 two cases to injure wooden hives when the 

 hives were in direct contact with the 

 ground, page 172, March Gleanings. I never 



G I. K A N T N G S IN BEE CULTURE 



STRAY STRAWS 



Dr. C. C. Miller 



3 



231 



saw a white ant, 

 but there is a 

 big black ant 

 here that's a 

 dangerous custo- 

 mer for any one 

 who hauls hives. 

 I never knew of 

 i t s disturbing 

 the bees, but it 

 honeycombs the bottoms of the hives — and 

 they needn 't be on the ground either — so 

 that when hauled they are jarred to pieces, 

 altho without careful examination one 

 would discover nothing wrong. 



# * » 



On page 175 George Kissam asks about 

 "a bluish tint on the cappings of the 

 stores. ' ' I suspect he refers not to the color 

 of the cappings, but to something on the 

 cappings. I don 't remember seeing any- 

 thing of the kind in late years, but formerly 

 I sometimes found on the cappings of brood- 

 combs in early spring a bluish-gray sub- 

 stance that was not ordinary mold but look- 

 ed a little like it. I don 't know what it was, 

 but as it was on the cappings of sealed 

 honey it was no evidence of insufficient 

 stores. It was found in prosperous colonies, 

 and didn't seem to do any harm. 



# * * 



Arlie Pritchard gives some definite figures 

 on page 167 as to naming the badness of 

 cases of foul brood. Good for you, Arlie; 

 that helps. But wouldn't it be better to 

 give the per cent of diseased cells instead 

 of the number? Wouldn't 40 bad cells in 

 a small colony be worse than 40 cells in a 

 large colony? Still it's much easier to give 

 the absolute number than the per cent. The 

 editor says beekeepers will not agree as to 

 what is bad or mild. That's just it. How 

 can they agree so long as neither knows 

 what the other is talking about? But if 

 the views of inspectors and others were ob- 

 tained, don't you believe we could settle 

 upon some sort of standard? Certainly we 

 never can agree upon what a bad case is so 

 long as no one says just what he means by 

 "a bad case." » * # 



That Medina cellar, page 1.37, interests 

 me very much. The inside ceiling is 4 feet 

 below the level of surrounding ground. Not 

 many cellars like that, and it must be a 

 good thing. I wish the bees might have had 

 a longer winter in it. Mine were taken in 

 Nov. 19, 17 days before the first of yours, 

 find 37 days before the last. Being able to 

 hold temperature between 44 and 50 is fine, 

 but I wonder if the bees wouldn 't like it 

 a little warmer. Wait till I go down cellar 

 * * *. It's 52 in my bee-cellar this 26th 

 day of February at 11 a. m., and the bees 

 quiet. Outdoors it is 16 above zero, and this 

 morning it was 6 above. I think it has not 

 been above 60 in the bee-cellar, nor below 

 40. But that 20 degrees of variation looks 

 pretty crude beside your 6. Yet the bees 

 will stand it all right if they have pure air, 



