78 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 15 



of my bees. A drup of water dropped in 

 Lake Michigan at Chicago doesn't raise the 

 level of the lake much ten miles distant, 

 but it does raise it. 



In 1880 Frank R. Cheshire was engaged as 

 lecturer of the National Temperance League, 

 and up to the time of his death he had de- 

 livered 2100 lectures in metropolitan schools, 

 which were valued by the young people to 

 whom they were addressed. — British Bee 

 Journal, Oct. 11, 1894. 



A friend calls my attention to the forego- 

 ing; and in these days, when such a wave of 

 prohibition is sweeping over our land and 

 other lands, it is pleasant to recall that one 

 so prominent in the rank of bee-keepers 

 should have used such an influence among 

 the young folks who are now voters in the 

 old country. I wonder, now, whether a 

 greater proportion of prohibitionists may not 

 be found among bee-keepers than among 

 any other class, not even excepting ministers. 



"Whfn the moth is disturbed it moves 

 with a jump and a flit, making it hard to 

 catch," p. 21. Yes, hard to catch after it gets 

 to jumping and flitting, but very easy before. 

 Move the fingers slowly till within an inch 

 or so of where the moth is sitting, then quick- 

 ly make a dab, and you have it. Now some- 

 thing interesting to the youngsters When 

 you catch a moth, pull off its head; and if it 

 is a female — nine times out of ten it will be 

 one — it will almost immediately begin feeling 

 around with its ovipositor. Shut together 

 your thumb and finger, and let the oviposi- 

 tor feel its way into the crack between them, 

 and a very little round white egg will be 

 laid there— perhaps several. [This is an in- 

 teresting contribution to natural history. We 

 do not remember to have seen it given be- 

 fore. — Ed.] 



"In thk Wells system there was no in- 

 termingling of the bees," p. 17. Did not the 

 bees from both parts enter the same super, 

 thus making an entire intermingling? [In 

 most of the cases where the Weils system 

 was illustrated and described in the British 

 Bee Journal, the super was divided as well 

 as the brood-nest, so there was no intermin- 

 gling of bees as suggested by you. In one 

 or two cases of the Wells system, however, 

 the bees in the two divisions in the hive could 

 mingle after they got into the super; but, ap- 

 parently, the author of the system did not 

 contemplate any intermingling of bees either 

 in the super or brood-nest. We have lately 

 been over the files of the British Bee Journal, 

 and we are convinced there is a sharp dis- 

 tinction between the Wells system proper 

 and the two queen system with perforated 

 zinc— Ed.] 



W. S. Pangbukn wiites: "E. R. Root ob- 

 jects in the A B C to your tent-escape for su- 

 pers, for the reason that the very young bees 

 are unable to get back to the hive," and per- 

 haps for that reason I find no mention of it 

 in the 1908 edition. Please tell us on what 

 ground you base your objection. [Your tent 

 escape, aoctor, was dropped for one embody- 

 ing the same principle by W. M. Whitney. 



As his modification we consider superior to 

 yours, and as our space was cramped, we 

 dropped yours and substituted his. Mr. 

 Whitney's has the advantage that bees will 

 come out of the supers because they do not 

 have to travel from one super to another in 

 order to find daylight. By consulting the 

 Whitney bee- escape in our new ABC book, 

 which escape was illustrated and described 

 by the author on page 1150 for Sept. 1st last 

 year, one will see more clearly why the 

 change was made. With either escape it 

 would be my opinion that some young bees 

 will be lost. — Ed.] 



Sr. Pons Fabreques, p 27, is threatened 

 with lynching in Germany or Scotland for 

 saying heather honey is of inferior quality. 

 Certainly in Scotland; but wouldn't he be 

 safe at least in parts of Germany? [At the 

 risk of being lynched ourselves, we will state 

 that a very fine section of heather honey was 

 sent us from "Merrie England." Perhaps 

 our tastes have been educated wrongly in 

 this country; but of all the vile honey we 

 have ever tasted, we should certainly put this 

 at the head of the list. We have since sub- 

 mitted it to guests as well as to connoisseurs 

 of honey; and the verdict of all of them alike 

 was to the effect that it is an ill-flavored hon- 

 ey to say the least. Perhaps some of our 

 British cousins may say this was not a good 

 sample; but the correspondent who sent it 

 said it was something extra fine in heather 

 honey. If we were not familiau with the 

 taste of buckwheat we probably would class 

 it as bad as heather; but the very fact that 

 some residents of the buckwheat country 

 consider buckwheat honey the best honey 

 sold, and that expert connoisseurs in England 

 and Scotland consider heather honey the very 

 finest that is produced, it shows that there is 

 every thing in getting our tastes educated to 

 a certain flavor. — Ed.] 



Rudolf Hora, Deutsche Imker, 347, is en- 

 thusiastic over a half-cold-and-half-warm ar- 

 rangement. He says the cold arrangement 

 in use in this country (frames running at 

 right angles to the entrance) makes the bees 

 move to the back part to get away from the 

 cold; while the warm arrangement, largely 

 used in Europe, makes the bees cluster to- 

 ward the entrance to get the air. He com- 



ENTRANCE ENTRANCE 



promises by making the entrance at one cor- 

 ner, which favors clustering in the center of 

 the brood- chamber. Not hard to do if there 

 is any thing in it. [The arrangement illus- 

 trated above is very pretty in theory; but 



