1244 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15 



accepted than a younger one. If Mr. Beuhne 

 really means it so, I will believe it, altliough I 

 have always supposed it was the other way. [We 

 feel sure that Mr. Beuhne meant by " these old 

 queens" those that were at least three years old. 

 The idea, as we gathered it, was that they must 

 be so old that the young queen would consider 

 that they had about outlived their usefulness. 

 Perhaps the bees take the same notion, and hence 

 they tolerate them more freely in a strange colo- 

 ny than they would a laying queen less than a 

 year old. — Ed.] 



Uniting, in this locality, is done mostly after 

 this fashion: One colony (preferably queenless) 

 is set over on the other, on the stand of the under 

 hive, a sheet of newspaper between the two. The 

 bees will eat a hole through the paper, and slow- 

 ly unite without fighting. The short imprison- 

 ment over the paper helps to prevent any return- 

 ing to the old stand. A few days later, extra 

 frames are removed and only one story is left. 

 [You have hybrid bees, and it is probable that it 

 is not advisable to let them get together imme- 

 diately; hence the use of a sheet of paper to keep 

 them apart a day or two. But with the ordinary 

 pure Italians we never find it necessary to use 

 any thing. — Ed.] 



J. E. Crane, p. 1121, questions my estimate 

 of 5 lbs. of comb to contain 100 lbs. of honey. 

 Friend Crane, I quoted that from memory, as 

 one of the many things I had learned from the 

 first volume of the American Bee Journal, year 

 1861. Upon reference, how-ever, I find that mem- 

 ory tricked me, for on page 282 I find: " It takes 

 about Yx lb. of comb to hold 15 lbs. of honey." 

 Also: "One pound of honey contains about 20 

 cubic inches; " and I got the figures mixed into 

 "One pound of comb for 20 pounds of honey." 

 Half a pound of comb to 15 of honey makes SJ^ 

 pounds of comb to 100 pounds of honey, which 

 is not so very far away from your estimate of 4 

 pounds. Thanks for correction. 



Albert I. Mills asks whether foul-broody 

 honey is fit to eat, page 1208, and is told that the 

 germs are not injurious to a human being. I sus- 

 pect that he, liice a good many others, is not so 

 much interested as to its wholesomeness, but 

 wants to know about its cleanliness. I think 

 there prevails more or less the idea that any thing 

 connected with such a filthy disease must be ut- 

 terly unfit for human food. A larva dead with 

 foul brood is certainly a loathsome object. Any 

 one who has smelled it would gag at the thought 

 of having it mixed in his food. But it does not 

 follow that there is any thing filthy about the 

 germs themselves. They are merely tiny plants, 

 perhaps daintily neat, which, growing in a larva, 

 cause the death of that larva, and then the larva 

 putrefies and becomes offensive. It's the dead 

 larva that's objectionable, not the germs them- 

 selves. 



THE COLOR OF HEARTSEASE HONEY. 



My clover crop was 25,000 lbs.; heartsease 

 and fall crop not off. I think Dr. Miller mis- 

 taken as to color of heartsease honey, as it is 

 lighter than buckwheat instead of white, as he 

 states. D. E. Lhommedieu. 



Colo, Iowa, Sept. 14. 



Editorial 



By E. R. Root. 



honey market more STABLE; SHIPPING COMB 

 honey in COLD WEATHER. 



There is not much new to report in regard to 

 the honey market except that it seems to be more 

 and more stable. It is to be hoped that most of 

 the stock will be unloaded before the holidays; 

 at least, the carload shipments should not be on 

 the rail after the cold freezing weather sets in; 

 small lots should be in the hands of the dealer. 

 Honey will stand considerable cold for a short 

 time, but it should not be subjected to it too long. 



SHALLOW versus DEEP EXTRACTING-SUPERS. 



Mr. Scholl presents elsewhere some good ar- 

 guments in favor of a shallow frame for extract- 

 ing purposes. We have been experimenting 

 along the same line during the past summer. At 

 our south yard we produced several thousand 

 pounds of honey in shallow frames. These shal- 

 low supers are just right to put on colonies of 

 moderate strength, and they are just right to give 

 room gradually on the tiering-up plan. To give 

 the full standard-depth super at one time is too 

 big a jump at once, and, moreover, it is awful 

 heavy to handle when full of honey. We say 

 "awful, "because no other word seems to describe 

 fitly one's feelings when he is lifting these heavy 

 loads, especially if he keeps it up all day. The 

 tendency is more and more toward shallow supers 

 for extracting, and we believe there is good rea- 

 son for it. 



HONEY-KNIVES WITH STRAIGHT HANDLES VERSUS 

 THOSE WITH THE OFFSET HANDLES. 



Elsewhere in this issue Louis H. Scholl says 

 he prefers and uses a straight butcher-knife in 

 preference to a standard uncapping-knife with an 

 offset handle. We desire to inquire whether oth- 

 ers have used knives with the handle in the same 

 plane as the blade. If so, please tell us about it. 



It sometimes happens that one man will set the 

 pace for a certain style of tool, and all the rest 

 will follow suit, never thinking for a moment 

 that the shape of a tool could be changed to any 

 advantage. Is it possible that a knife with a 

 straight handle is better on plain work, saving 

 strain on the wrist, than one having a handle an 

 inch or more out of the plane of the blade.-" But 

 the user of the standard knife will say, of course, 

 that we must have the crook in the shank in or- 

 der to get down into places that can not be 

 reached with a standard butcher-knife. We 

 arise to inquire whether that is absolutely so. 

 Possibly it might transpire that one might be 

 able to use to advantage a straight-handled tool 

 on plain work and another knife, with an offset 

 handle, in places which can not be reached with 

 the straight knife. We should like to have a 

 discussion of this question in these columns. 

 Surely there are many among our readers who 

 have tested both kinds of knives. 



SYRUP FOR WINTER FOOD. 



In feeding bees for winter we advise granulat- 

 ed-sugar syrup made by mixing two parts of su- 

 gar to one of water by measure. We formerly 

 recommended equal parts of each. While this is 



