756 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Dec. 15 



due to alcoholic liquors is $420,000,000. 

 Costs about twice what it comes to! That's 

 hardly business in Uncle Sam. [We don't 

 believe that Uncle Sam will stand for this 

 thing long. It may take him ten years; and 

 while he may be slow, he is sure. — Ed.] 



Bee-keepers say the pure-food laws now 

 prevent purchasers of honey from getting 

 stung. — Chicago Daily News. [The phrase 

 "get stung" originated, we are told, during 

 a hot political campaign in Toledo, of this 

 State, and from that point it spread through- 

 out the United States. Politically "get 

 stung" means being turned down by the 

 people or the party. In a general way it has 

 come to have the significance of bad luck; or, 

 if one does not "get stung," every thing is 

 going lovely. While the phrase is pure slang 

 it comes in very pat sometimes. — Ed.] 



Cellared my bees November 18. It 

 looked then that no more flight days might 

 come; but since that time it has been mild, 

 with several days warm enough for bees to 

 fly. But if I had it to do over again I would 

 do exactly as I did. The chances were much 

 in favor of its being cold; and if the bees 

 had been left out two weeks or more, and 

 then taken in without a flight, it would have 

 been rather hard on them; whereas two 

 weeks longer confinement in the cellar is 

 not so great a matter. Such a warm fall 

 may not come again in many a year. 



MORLEY Pettit, Provincial Apiarist of @n- 

 tario, has been looking up what our experi- 

 ment stations are doing in bee culture, and, 

 according to his report, Canadian Bee Jour- 

 nal, 400, the showing is pretty poor. The 

 work at Washington, under Dr. Phillips, of 

 course takes the lead; but Kentucky, Ten- 

 nesee, Maryland, and Texas are the only 

 States reported as doing any thing. Michi- 

 gan, where such fine work was done under 

 Prof. Cook, hadn't had a bee for ten years. 

 Are we overestim^ating the importance of 

 bee culture, or are the experiment stations 

 underestimating it? 



L. S. Crawshaw says, British B. J., p. 398: 

 "I see that E. R. Root recommends that 

 trapped robbers be destroyed; but I have 

 kept them confined for several days, or a 

 week, introducing a queen in the meantime, 

 and later treating as a nucleus with success. 

 In fact, I have often made nuclei by the sim- 

 ple process of allowing the trap to replace a 

 stock for a short time." Quite a convenient 

 way to make a nucleus, only the field-bees 

 that would be caught would hardly make a 

 good nucleus in which to have a virgin fer- 

 tilized. But likely he puts the nucleus-hive 

 to catch the bees at a time when the young 

 bees are out for a playspell, and then he's 

 right. 



Cement is the material for the coming 

 hive-stand, according to the report of quite 

 a number at the Chicago convention. Some 

 make a plain slab two mches thick and large 

 enough to hold the hive, using also the same 

 slabs to make sidewalks. Some have mere- 

 ly a rim, and some straight sticks. Possibly 



the best of all is the slab with a cement block 

 at each corner to raise the hive an inch or 

 so. That keeps the bottom-board dry, mak- 

 ing it last longer. My stands are mostly of 

 fence boards lying flat. I can hardly think 

 of any thing worse unless to have wider 

 boards. The bottom-boards soon rot, and 

 there is a fine shelter for the big black ants 

 that honeycomb and ruin them. 



A HIGHLY APPRECIATIVE notice of the 

 French edition of the A B C of Bee Culture, 

 Schweiz. Bztg., 439, ends by saying, "And we 

 are surprised to see the American authors 

 so well informed concerning European con- 

 ditions." As this is said by no less an au- 

 thority than Dr. Kramer, said authors ought 

 to feel much complimented. [This notice 

 coming from Dr. Kramer is certainly appre- 

 ciated by the authors. We have continually 

 sought to pick out the best man we could 

 find to write special articles. For example, 

 the edition for 1910, now in the press, will 

 have no less an authority than Dr. A. Hugh 

 Bryan, of the Bureau of Chemistry, Washing- 

 ton, D. C, to write up all articles like "Glu- 

 cose," "Adulteration," "Nectar," "Sugar," 

 and the like. W. K. Morrison, now at San 

 Diego, California, wrote the article on 

 "Hives; Evolution of." He also made vari- 

 ous additions to certain articles, so that they 

 would conform to the best practices in Eu- 

 rope. It is fair to give credit to Mr. Morri- 

 son for this. — Ed.] 



Editor Hutchinson is after you slack- 

 wirers with a sharp stick. He says: "Put 

 in wires to keep the foundation from sag- 

 ging; then leave them slack so it can sag! 

 Why use the wires at all? " He wants the 

 wires taut, taut. [Something over twenty 

 years ago, when horizontal wiring first came 

 to the front, we suggested as a remedy for 

 buckling of the foundation between the hor- 

 izontal wires, not drawing the v/ires quite so 

 taut as had been done. This cured the diffi- 

 culty, but allowed the foundation to stretch 

 slightly, and at the same time the individual 

 cells to elongate on a vertical line. For the 

 last nineteen years (see Gleanings, March, 

 1890) we have advocated drawing the wires 

 taut. Referring to the method of how to 

 string the wires in a frame our directions 

 that have stood without modification for 

 years say: "Taking up the slack is accom- 

 plished in the manner as shown in the cut. 

 Hold the frame between the table and the 

 body, and with the left hand bear gently on 

 each wire until the slack is all in the last 

 wire. This is, of course, now taken up by 

 the pliers in the right hand. When the wire 

 is taut the end is twisted around the tack 

 head and secured." Our esteemed contem- 

 porary says the " directions " to leave the 

 wires slack "riles" him. If there are any 

 printed "directions" going out with the 

 frames or wire fr6m any dealer or manufac- 

 turers advising slack wiring we have not run 

 across them. Possibly Mr. Hutchinson had 

 in mind the article by E. D. Townsend in our 

 issue for May 1, page 281, of current volume. 

 —Ed.] 



