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 the Postofllce, Medina. Ohio, as Second-class Matter. 



VOL. XXXVII 



NOVEMBER 15, 1909 



NO. 22 



Editorial 



By E. R. Root. 



WINTER WORK. 



Now would be a good time to melt up 

 crooked or otherwise imperfect combs that 

 will accumulate in a season's work. If one 

 buys up bees he will be almost sure to have 

 a motly lot of such combs that would be poor 

 economy to keep, especially if they have 

 many drone-cells. By the modern methods 

 now in vogue one can extract practically all 

 of the wax; yes, he can go further — he can 

 melt up his old combs, if imperfect or unde- 

 sirable, sell the wax, and have enough left 

 to pay for his labor and buy foundation. 

 Some may doubt this; but we have figures to 

 prove it. 



While this may look like a bid to get foun- 

 dation trade, the facts are that bee diseases 

 of various kinds are spreading over the 

 country at an alarming rate, and it is very 

 evident that many yards will have to be re- 

 combed in order to prevent disease from 

 getting a start, or to eradicate it after it once 

 gets a nold. 



MOKE EVIDENCE SHOWING THE INDISPENSABLE 



SERVICE PERFORMED BY THE BEES 



IN POLLINATING FRUIT-TREES. 



In one of the leading fruit-journals of the 

 country. Better Fruit, for July, appears a very 

 strong article from the Oregon College Ex- 

 periment Station, showing trie almost indis- 

 pensable service performed by bees in polli- 

 nating fruit-trees. It is shown conclusively 

 that many varieties are sterile to their own 

 pollen; that wind itself is not a very impor- 

 tant factor in carrying it from one tree to 

 another; that the bee is practically the sole 

 agent in doing this important work. 



We hope later to present before our read- 

 ers the full text of this, as the information, 

 coming as it does from a fruit-journal and 

 an experiment station, whose investigations 

 are from the standpoint of the fruit-grower's 

 interests, will have more weight with the 

 fruit-grower than if it came from the bee- 

 keeping interests. It is safe to say that prac- 

 tically all of our experiment stations ana our 

 most progressive fruit-growers have now 

 come to recognize the importance of having 

 bees located in their orchards. If they can 

 not get a bee-keeper to locate his bees near 

 them, they are buying bees themselves and 

 placing them there. 



BEE CULTURE TAUGHT IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

 OF NEW YORK CITY; STIMULATING A CHILD 

 HOW TO SEE, TO THINK, AND TO LOVE SOME 

 OF THE USEFUL THINGS OF THIS WORLD. 



We have known for some time that bee 

 culture has been made a department of na- 

 ture study in some of the public schools of 

 the big metropolis. Colonies of bees have 

 been sold to them, and the same are conven- 

 iently located in the buildings or on the 

 grounds, where the children can watch and 

 study them. 



We learn from the New York World that 

 Miss Emma V. Hagarty, one of the teachers, 

 has been out west studying bees and honey 

 production. She is an enthusiast on the sub- 

 ject, and now is said to be teaching at school 

 No. 190. According to the principal, Miles 

 Goldy, "It is astonishing what the children 

 have been able to get out of the watching 

 and studying of those insects. In all my 

 years of teaching I have known nothing that 

 would so develop a child's powers of obser- 

 vation and ability to relate orally or in writ- 

 ing a mass of true scientific information de- 

 rived from actual investigation. Almost any 

 child in the school can, at a glance through 

 the glass, tell the old bees from the young 

 ones, picking them out from thousands. . 

 It is worth something to get a herd of boys in 

 such a frame of mind that, under no circum- 

 stances, would one of them step on or other- 

 wise intentionally kill or injure a useful insect. 

 . . The children have drawn very valuable 

 lessons in loyalty to the school, the state, and 

 their homes, from the care and devotion 

 with which the bodyguard looks after the 

 queen of the hive." Italics are ours. Then 

 it is related how the children have written 

 "little parables," drawing valuable lessons 

 from the domestic economy of the hive. 



Nature study is being made a department 

 in many of our schools all over the land, and 

 our children are being taught to observe and 

 to see some of the pretty things in this great 

 world of ours. "Bees and bee-keeping" is 

 coming to be one of the themes. 



While we do not suppose that this depart- 

 ment of work is going to make bee-keepers 

 out of our children, we do feel very sure that 

 it is going to stimulate a demand tor honey, 

 and to dissipate some of the silly notions now 

 generally current about the so-called manu- 

 factured comb honey. A child is pretty apt 

 to tell his parents some of the wonderful 

 things he has learned about bees; and he'll 

 not forget to ask them to buy some honey. 



