Miy 14, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



313 



tion one time as another ; but it is more likely to be can- 

 died in the sprinff, and then the job of spring-cleauinfj is 

 very different from fall-cleaning-. 



He asks : " Can't they clean them c/^a« and free from 

 honey, whether candied or otherwise, in the spring, sum- 

 mer, or fall ?" 



Yes, I think they can. But it doesn't matter whether 

 they can or not, if they won't. As a matter of fact, our bees 

 don't clean out candied honey the same as they do liquid 

 honey, and this is not "a belief in an old assertion, taking 

 it for granted it was true," but a fact that I have seen 

 demonstrated many and many a time. Any one can prob- 

 ably see the same thing demonstrated in almost any case 

 in which a colony has been robbed out in the spring. The 

 liquid honey will be taken, but the candied honey will be 

 left, every time. The granules seem to be to the bees no 

 more than so many grains of sand, and they are only re- 

 moved, apparently, just so far as it may be necessary to 

 remove them in order to get at the liquid honey. 



Even if the bees should clean out the candied honey as 

 well as the liquid, there would be an objection to the waste, 

 for the bees throw away all the granules they carry out of 

 the cells. 



Mr. Doolittle tells about using sections for stimulative 

 feeding, and says : 



" Opening hives a week after they have been so treated, 

 I have found them with more than doubled brood, and 

 thought I was doing a nice thing in this way. But Miss 

 Wilson says not." 



I hardly think Miss Wilson ever said anything about it. 

 She thinks he would be doing not only a nice thing, but a 

 very nice thing to have " more than doubled brood " in a 

 week's time. But she would prefer that the feed should be 

 given some other way than in sections of candied honey, 

 and Mr. Doolittle will probably agree that for stimulation 

 it would be better to have thinner feed, and that at least 

 part sugar would be cheaper. 



Mr. Doolittle asks if I have tried fall-cleaned and spring- 

 cleaned sections side by side. No, I never made any exact 

 comparison. I would do so this year if I could find any sec- 

 tions containing any candied honey. But our honey has 

 kept too well for that. Nearly a hundred sections are on 

 top of the kitchen safe, most of them having some unsealed 

 cells, but I can not find a single cell that shows the least 

 sign of granulation. 



But I think several have reported in the past years (I 

 can not name them novr), that their sectiions have been 

 spoiled when spring-cleaned ones were used. If Mr. Doo- 

 little succeeds, others may not be so fortunate. 



It is probably not necessary to say that the least gran- 

 ule left in a cell will serve as a starting-point for further 

 granulation ; all scientists are agreed upon that ; the only 

 question is whether the bees will clean out the granules. 

 The fact that I have seen so many cases in which the liquid 

 was a/l emptied out of the cells and the granules left is 

 pretty good proof; but if any of the sisters, or indeed of 

 the brothers, have any sections of candied honey, by all 

 means let us have them tried. If Mr. Doolittle is right we 

 ought to know it. 



Rightly managed, there is no need of having our beau- 

 tiful sections torn. We have had thousands of them so 

 cleaned without being torn in the least. Wrongly managed, 

 they will be torn either spring or fall. 



Lotion for Whitening the Skin. 



The following is given in the "Health and Beauty De- 

 partment" of the Chicago Daily News, as a good and harm- 

 less lotion for whitening the skin : 



"Pure honey (extracted) four ounces; glycerine, one 

 ounce ; rose water, one ounce ; citic acid, three drams ; 

 essence of ambergris or essence of rose, six drops. 



Our Wood Binder (or Holder) is made to take all the 

 copies of the American Bee Journal for a year. It is sent 

 by mail for 20 cents. Full directions accompany. The Bee 

 Journals can be inserted as soon as they are received, and 

 thus preserved for future reference. Upon receipt of $1.00 

 for your Bee Journal subscription a full yearin advance, 

 we will mail you a Wood Binder free— if you will mention it. 



The Premiums offered this week are well worth working 

 for. Look at them. 



« The Afterthought. ^ \ 



The "Old Reliable" seen throuKh New and Unreliable QIassei. 

 By B. B. HASTY, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, O. 



CHAFF HIVES IN DIFFERENT LOCALITIES. 



So in Wisconsin they don't take to chaff hives at all. 

 In New York's best bee country they don't want anything 

 else. Dovfn in Missouri, Manufacturer Leahy gave his 

 away, because he wanted his hives all so as to carry into 

 the cellar easily. What snail we say, therefore ? I'll say. 

 If you have chaff hivesdon't give them away. I have some, 

 and you are not going to get them free gratis. Page 213. 



THE MICELESS HONEY-ROOM. 



Happy Greiner ! He has a shop and honey-room in 

 which there are never any mice. I suppose hundreds of the 

 brethren intended so ; but, alas, the chasm between inten- 

 tion and realization 1 It's all just so as it ought to be — to 

 put sections in the intended-to-be-mouse-proof box inside 

 the intended-to-be-mouse-proof room. Honey-keeping by 

 Double Entry better than honey-keeping by Single Entry. 

 Page 214. 



THE "POOR SEASON" AND "POOR PIE." 



Apparently the " poor season " of some bee-keepers is 

 like the " piece of very poor pie " which your hostess 

 blandly invites you to take. Page 214. 



ALFAI.KA-GROWING IN THE EAST. 



I stand convicted, Mr. Johnson. I climb down. I had 

 no right to speak of the tubercles of alfalfa as having 

 "bugs" in them — and so throw the learners in natural 

 science off the track. I guess my impression at the time 

 was that the tubercle-dwelling germs were animal ; and so 

 my short-coming stands as a case of ignorance, and not as 

 a frolicsome sort of perverse teaching. 



Thanks to Prof. Hopkins for the information that clover 

 bacteria will not serve the turn for alfalfa. And how well 

 the pictures on page 212 tell the story— story of something 

 lacking in the one case and of things all right in the other ! 

 It is quite reasonable for us to expect that alfalfa natur- 

 alized, and fully supplied with its own tubercle-dwelling 

 bacteria, and flourishing like a green-bay tree, would yield 

 honey here as well as elsewhere. Lack of nectar-flow seems 

 to be a plant's usual method of protest^protest that al- 

 though it can live and grow it is dissatisfied with some of 

 the conditions. Present appearance seems to be that alfalfa 

 is a coming crop ; and with it we see a new light. Page 215. 



JERSEY MOSQUITO AND BEE-STINGS. 



O the Mosquito, the .Jersey Mosquito ! 

 In size, vim and venom she can not be beat, ! 

 She martyrs the natives, sprinjj, summer and fall. 

 Until a mere bee-sting seems nothing at all. 



A HUMMING FAMILY "OUTFIT." 



Husband and I and Alice and Kate, eh ? Who couldn't 

 make the honey-business hum with such an outfit as that ? 

 Page 216. 



SPRING-WATER IN BEE CELLARS. 



No, Mr. Callbreath, it isn't the warmth of the spring- 

 water that makes a cellar with a running spring in it one 

 of the best of all places to winter bees. Running water 

 oxygenizes and ozoneizes the atmosphere, and also dis- 

 solves the carbonic aid gas and carries it away. Ventila- 

 tion of very best sort without any cooling, and without any 

 possibility of excess. 



THE NAME-ON-THE-SECTION CONTROVERSY. 



Tell Alma Olson I am on his side (languidly) in the 

 name-ou-the-section controversy— and, lo, I come to give 

 him an unbrotherly stab. He put his foot in it badly when 

 he referred to the seedsman's name on the package of seeds. 

 Many, if not most of the seed-packages, hold seeds raised 

 by some specialist farmer and sold to the seedsman who 

 takes tne responsibility of them before the world. If I am 

 right, the great seedsmen raise a great many seeds, but 

 still buy more than they raise. I think the farmer would 

 not be allowed to have his address on the seeds— pretty 

 surely would not ask for such a thing. Page 220. 



BEES STINGING AT A. MARK. 



C. Stimson will probably get the assent of many when 

 he says bees generally sting at a mark mouth, nose, eye or 



