5EE cijLTURE 



Published by The A. I. Root Company, Medina, Ohio 



E. R. ROOT, Editor a. L. BOYDEN, advertising Mgr, 



H. H. ROOT, A8ST. Ed. J. T. CALVERT, BUSINESS Mgr. 



A. I. ROOT, Editor of Hohe Department 



Vol. XXXVI. 



FEBRUARY 1, 1908. 



No. 3 



Some say honey is a luxury, some say it is 

 a necessity; but I rather like M. V. Facey's 

 idea that it's both. He says, p 86, "It is a 

 luxury, but where constantly supplied it is a 

 necessity. ' ' 



Right you are, Louis Scholl, in thinking 

 pi'oducers should have more to say about 

 prices of honey, p. 87. But let me w^hisper 

 in your ear that, even in the North, some of 

 us set our own prices. 



Lately I saw a queen-excluder advertised, 

 I think it was in a German catalog, about 

 the same as the Marbach, only it was of wood. 

 One would think it wouldn't last long, but 

 it might take the bees some time to gnaw the 

 round wood at the right places. 



J. L. Byer, after reading what you say. p. 

 98, I have a word of advice for you. Please 

 remember that I am older and more experi- 

 enced than you. My advice to you as to the 

 matter of feeding in the fall is to keep right 

 on the way you have been doing. 



Of many a man it is true that he preaches 

 better than he practices. I am glad to say 

 that the reverse is true of my good friend 

 G. M. Doolittle. Notwithstanding his shaky 

 preaching about bees holding the heat in the 

 cluster, his practice, as given p. 83, is sound 

 as a dollar. Shake, Gilbert. 



I don't know what Louis Scholl means, 

 p. 87. by saying a nail to hold a hive-tag 

 "would soon be driven into the wall of the 

 hive- bodies when these are handled," for in 

 all the years I have used them I have never 

 known one to be thus driven in. I must say, 

 however, that 1 like the looks of his arrange- 

 ment. 



That plan of stretching the cord down 

 tight and fastening with a safety-pin, as 



shown at Fig. 5, is especially to be commend- 

 ed to ladies. Indeed, it is the invention of a 

 woman not a thousand miles from Marengo. 

 [Yes, it is true that Miss Wilson suggested 

 to us the use of the safety-pin in a bee-veil 

 as described in our last issue. — Ed.] 



Doolittle says that, in his locality, a col- 

 ony which has stored comb honey is rarely 

 short of stores for wintering and springing. 

 Likely that is true of any locality t/ hives are 

 large enough, and I suspect he is talking 

 about ten-frame hives; at any rate, with 

 eight-frame hives last spring 1 should have 

 suffered heavily had I not had an extra lot 

 of heavy combs of honey. 



I READ Gleanings, Jan. 16, as far as p. 80, 

 and then I stopped and wrote three letters! 

 To Dr. Wiley I wrote, "Hearty thanks for 

 insisting that glucose shall be called glu- 

 cose." To President Roosevelt and to Sec- 

 retary Wilson I wrote, "If glucose is glucose, 

 please don't let it be labeled any thing but 

 'glucose.'" [Good! If others have not al- 

 ready written, let them do so at once. Ed.1 



As footnote to that veil article, p. 93, it 

 might be said that, where one works much 

 with bees, it is well to use a permanent bee- 

 hat with veil sewed to the edge of the brim 

 instead of having a rubber band hugging the 

 crown. Where a rubber cord is used at the 

 lower edge of the veil it is better to have a 

 hem of wnite material to avoid crocking the 

 clothing. [Yes, and the vei l ing could be sewn 

 half an inch or one inch from the edge of the 

 hat-brim. The purpose of this is to keep 

 the sun from striking the veiling at such an 

 angle as to interfere with the sight.— Ed.] 



The longer the honey remains in the 

 hive, the less sucrose (cane sugar) will be 

 found, page 81. Please explain. [If we are 

 correct, the process of inversion continues 

 after the honey has been sealed in the combs. 

 The older it becomes, the less there will be 

 of sucrose or cane sugar. Apparently the 

 process of inversion, after the bees get through 

 with it, is not entirely complete; therefore 

 the United States standard allows us a small 

 per cent of sucrose in normal honey. But 

 that does not mean that some one else may 

 put in cane sugar; for the cane sugar of com- 



