Gleanings In Bee Culture 



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



H. H. ROOT, Assistant Editor E. R. ROOT, Editor A. L. BOYDEN, Advertising Manager 



A. I. ROOT, Editor Home Department , J. T. Calvert, Business Manager 



Entered at tlie PontoHiee. Medina Ohio, as Seeoud-claBS Matter. 



VOL. XXXVII 



JUNE 15, 1909 



NO. 12 



Editorial 



By E. R. Root. 



Reports from over the country regardino- 

 L'luver are very favorable. While the drouth 

 of last fall was severe, the bountiful rains of 

 this spring and early summer have more than 

 made up. Just as we are going to press, the 

 clovers are coming out m bloom in our 

 Northern States. 



The discriminating reader will notice that 

 we are now printing Gleanings on a new 

 and larger face of type. Our heavy runs 

 wear out our type faces in about a year's 

 time. At the present rate we shall be 

 obliged to renew our type much oftener than 

 we have been doing. 



SMALLPOX AT DR. MILLER'S HOME TOWN. 



There is an epidemic of smallpox at Ma- 

 rengo, 111., so Dr. Miller writes, seventy -two 

 cases in all. All public places are closed and 

 business is crippled. We trust that condi- 

 tions will not get so bad that we shall not be 

 able to draw upon Dr. Miller's Straw pile. 

 In the meantime he is keeping quietly at 

 home tending to business. 



IS A BALLED QUEEN EVER STUNG? 



Some little time ago ye editor and Dr. Mil- 

 ler had a little controversy as to whether 

 worker-bees ever sting a laying queen 

 while balling her. We mentioned the mat- 

 ter to neighoor H., who used to rear thou- 

 sands of queens for us. "Why," said he, 

 "bees not sting the queen in the act of ball- 

 ing? To be sure, they do. I have pulled 

 many a ball apart, and found one and some- 

 times two stings in the almost lifeless body 

 of the queen." He was of the opinion that 

 a (jueen that has been balled and killed dies 

 more from stings than from actual suffoca- 

 tion. 



THE QUALITY OF TEXAS CATCLAW HONEY. 



Mr. Louis H. Scholl, in his department 

 in this issue, page 359, criticises somewhat 

 our statement in the A B C of Bee Culture, 

 wherein we describe the Texas catclaw as 

 being equal to the "ordinary" white honey 

 of the North. The objection seems to be to 



the use of the word "ordinary," as if it re- 

 ferred to a very common kind or medium 

 grade of honey. When we speak of honey 

 as being equal to "ordinary " white, we mean 

 that we are putting it in the very front rank. 

 But we have substituted, in place of the word 

 "ordinary," the word "best" in the coming 

 edition of the ABC book. This will elimi- 

 nate the apparent misunderstanding on the 

 part of our Texas readers. 



AUTOMOBILES FOR OUT-APIARY SERVICE. 



We have been getting more or less inqui- 

 ries of late regarding the practicability of au- 

 tomobiles for work in the out-apiary, and 

 whether there were not alow-priced machine 

 that would be reliable. As our readers know, 

 we have been using automobiles for our out- 

 yard work more or less for several years. 

 One machine, a two-cylinder Reo, five pas- 

 senger, that we bought three years ago, is 

 still doing good service. It has carried two 

 families about for pleasure, and has made 

 numerous trips to outyards. It has been in 

 service- almost every day for three years, 

 winter and summer. To-day it will climb 

 hills, and pull as well as it ever did; and dur- 

 ing all of this time the repairs, including the 

 tires, did not exceed $60.00 a year. When it 

 is remembered that tires are worth approxi- 

 mately $25.00 apiece, and are supposed to 

 last from one to two years, this is not bad. 

 We have run a single-cylinder Reo for the 

 same length of time with equal satisfaction. 

 If we could have eliminated the tire repairs 

 and replacement, the expense of operating, 

 outside of gasoline, would have been scarce- 

 ly more than the up-keep of a harness and 

 buggy. The cost of operating for gasoline 

 alone is anywhere from half a cent to one 

 cent a mile, depending on the condition of 

 the roads and the load carried. The oil has 

 been an insignificant item. This comparison 

 does not take into account that an auto will 

 do five times the work in a day that a horse 

 and buggy can for the same time. 



There is on the market a couple of reliable 

 high-wheeled automobiles that do not use 

 pneumatic tires that are doing good service. 

 There are several makes of this type of ma- 

 chine that are— well, worse than nothing. 

 We are looking up the records of a couple of 

 the best high wheelers, and hope later on to 

 give our readers the benefit of this investi- 

 gation. 



A high-wheeled automobile eliminates the 

 cost of tires, and, besides, it will run in the 



