jii,v, mi9 



G L K A N r N G S IN B K V: V U L T U R E 



c 



SA. Eatliff, 

 I' res id e ii t 

 of the A Ill- 

 mi n mil lloiicy- 



o 111 b Co., lias 



just sent us a 



copy of a letter 



that he sent .). 



E. Crane, ixitvv 



reading the hit- 

 ter's comnieiit on aluiiiiiuiin combs, page 

 302, of the May number. Mr. Ratliff thinks 

 that Mr. Crane should not pass judgment 

 eoncerning the company except after an 

 examination of its affairs. He says he would 

 also like to see I\Ir. Crane's expression after 

 he had made some test of the comb itself. 



In regard to the sale of stock, Mr. Ratliff 

 says: "I have no idea who the stockholder 

 is who wrote you a letter. His statement 

 is true that we had orders for more than 40,- 



000 combs. A number of wealthy men in 

 IjOS Angeles have made propositions con- 

 cerning the purchase of a controlling inter- 

 est in the concern. Mr. Root has never 

 made the writer a proposition to buy an in- 

 terest in the Company, and likewise the 

 writer has never mentioned any such propo- 

 sition to Mr. Root. We have never sold 

 a beekeeper stock unless we also tooli his 

 order for combs at the same time, and these 

 combs we are glad to say are being delivered 

 to their entire satisfaction. The writer is 

 personally acquainted with Mr. E. R. Root 

 and I do not believe he would say that it is 

 the intention of the Company to sell stock 

 rather than combs." 



* ' During the past year I have found the 

 use of steam heat in the extracting-house a 

 great success. I use it for melting the cap- 

 pings and for heating the honey and keep- 

 ing it just right so the honey-pump can han- 

 dle it. The steam is led into the cai^ping- 

 melter, the uncapping-tank also, under the 

 extractor, and under the pan that heats the 

 honey for straining, and under the tank that 

 delivers the honey to the pump. All of 

 these five places need no special attention. 



1 sin;ply have to keep up the steam out- 

 side under the boiler, and that is easy." — 

 Daniel Danielsen, Morgan County, Colo. 



"To patch a torn queen-cell, warm a piece 

 of foundation and lay it over the hole. 

 Daub with hot wax along the edges; then 

 dip in wax that has just started to cool and 

 has formed a film on top to about % inch 

 from the point. If short of protectors, dip 

 all cells as above and fasten a nail at the 

 top of each cell and insert in the comb." — 

 J. E. Thompson, Medina County, O. 



' ' In the editorial in the May number, 

 on the increase of foul brood, the editor 

 speaks of a 'beeman' who used his hive-tool 

 to dig out diseased brood, and went on to 

 the next hive and dug into healthy brood 

 without cleaning his hive-tool. That remind- 

 ed me of what our county bee inspector did 

 in my yard. In eighteen colonies inspected 

 he found six with European foul brood, and 



BEES, MEN AND jTHINGS 



(You may find it here) 



1 



he never cleaned 

 li is hive - tool 

 (iiice during the 

 (ijieration. It is 

 Ijad enough for 

 a bee m an to 

 make such blun- 

 ders; but when 

 an inspector does 

 it, what should 

 the bee owner do to him?" — F. W. 



' ' I avoid mixing frames and supers at 

 extracting time by having a piece of colored 

 chalk handy and drawing a line across the 

 frames and edges of the super close to one 

 end before uncapping. With the next super, 

 I draw the line quarter way, with the 

 third super in the middle, then begin over. 

 If one needs more than three kinds to avoid 

 conlusion, every second set can be marked 

 out with double lines." — Harrison H. 

 Brown, San Juan County, N. M. 



' ' I left eight of my colonies in a bee- 

 house last winter; but a small tree fell on 

 it and knocked a few shacks off the roof; 

 and this spring, while I spent sixteen days 

 in the hospital, an old bear went thru the 

 roof and cleaned up the eight hives. He 

 broke the frames in pieces and killed all the 

 bees." — Sherman Craig, Skagit County, 

 Wash. 



"Dear Mrs. Grace Allen: Did some one 

 ask you of the word ' bee-er ' and 'beerette'! 

 In Japanese language the both of the man 

 and the woman who works with bees is call- 

 ed as 'yo-ho-ka,' equally. W^oman and man 

 is the same human being. Then they must 

 be called the same, or equally, 'bee-er' or 

 * yo-ho-ka.' Is it not sof" — Yasuo Hiiat- 

 suka, Japan. 



"Every man with whom I come in contact 

 enjoys the M.-A.-O. department. When I 

 was in Washington, Phillips, Demuth, and 

 I had several good laughs over the M.-A.-O 

 articles in the back files of Gleanings, e.sjje- 

 cially Pritchard 's 'Odorless method of han- 

 dling skunks. ' ' ' — Jay Smith. 



' ' We have seven out-apiaries, and the 

 younger generation of Dadants, the third 

 in beekeeping on a large scale, assert that 

 a man, with a little occasional help, can take 

 care of a thousand colonies and make it 

 pay." — C. P. Dadant, Editor American Bee 

 Journal, Hamilton, 111. 



"My bees began to swarm on Easter Sun- 

 day; and as I had no hive I kept them three 

 days and three nights without a hive. I 

 put earth on the ground and then got the 

 bees on the earth, drove four two-foot stakes 

 around them, and spread a sheet over 

 them. ' ' — J. H. Canady, Morgan County, Ind. 



"Since the fire, honey prospects for the 

 future look great up here. ' ' — J. Krminski, 

 Saint Louis County, Minn. 



' ' Our wet spring this year was like that 

 of 1916. We hope it will continue the simi- 

 larity thruout the season, for it was our best 

 ever." — Morley Pettit, Ontario. 



