172 



GLEANINGS IN BEK CULTURE 



Stray Straws 



Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 



I LIKE that March 1 number. Seems 

 more homelike with so many women-folk 

 around. 



The man with an out-apiary has the 

 special advantage that he can take a colony 

 from one apiary to the other and break it 

 up into several nuclei without any precau- 

 tionary measures to make the nuclei stay 

 where they are put. [Right you are. — Ed.] 

 Womenfolk do all the work in the hive, 

 while the male members are dead-beats. 

 That would make it seem the appropriate 

 thing that beekeepers should be women; 

 whereas they're nearly all men. Is this 

 another of the cases in which women have 

 been denied their rights all these years? 



A CITY daily advises boiling three pounds 

 of sugar syrup with one of honey, and says 

 a great many people like it better than hon- 

 ey " because of the absence of honeycomb, 

 which is dissolved." Now, there's a hint for 

 the United States government, which is 

 having a lot of trouble trying to dissolve 

 certain trusts. Just boil the trusts in three 

 parts sugar and one part honey, and they 

 will be " dissolved." 



" Under the Colorado rules, the sections 

 m.ust not weigh more than a certain mini- 

 mum nor more than a certain maximum," 

 p. 140. I suspect you mean less than a cer- 

 tain minimum, but where do you get any 

 thing about a maximum? [Yes, certainly, 

 we accept your correction. Where do we 

 get maximum? From the Colorado rules. 

 Later. Just looked it up. There is no maxi- 

 mum. The joke is on us. — Ed.] 



The women of several of the large cities 

 took in hand the egg-market, with the re- 

 sult that eggs were bought at 24 cents a 

 dozen by people too poor to pay the pre- 

 vious high prices. Now Chicago women 

 have hammered down the price of apples 

 from 6 cents to 2^/2 cents a pound. When 

 they get around to it, it would be a glorious 

 thing if they would hammer down the price 

 of honey so that ill-nourished little kids 

 who never taste honey might get an occa- 

 sional meal of it. " that would lower the 

 price to the beekeeper?" Not a bit of it. 

 Tt Avould, if any thing, work the other way 

 by increasing the consumption. The farm- 

 ers didn't get any less for their eggs and 

 apples because the women butted in. Even 

 if it should bring the beekeeper less, the 

 honeyless kids outnumber the beekeepers. 

 I'm glad to see that Byer-Root scrap 

 started about feeding honey or sugar syrup, 

 pp. 138 and 141. I hope it will be fought 



out to a finish, and that, when the finish 

 comes, we'll know more than we do now. 

 But when you're talking about syrup, are 

 you both talking about syrup of the same 

 strength? and do you mean one part sugar 

 to one part water, or 21/2 parts sugar to 

 one part water? That's right — make that 

 Kanuck show the proof for Avhat he 

 " knows." It's none of my funeral, but I'm 

 here to remark in a cautious way that I 

 suspect that a pound of good honey is 

 worth more for bee food than a pound of 

 the best sugar in the world. [Do you mean 

 for brood-rearing or wintering? You do 

 not say. If for the former, we would agxee 

 witli you; but if for the latter, we shouW 

 have considerable doubt. In talking about 

 the relative values of food for bees, we must 

 not fail to specify the conditions. — Ed.] 



Elias Fox^ you think the pain is just as 

 great when the sting is promptly removed 

 as when the sting is left in the wound, p. 

 116. You're right that a sting between the 

 shoulders is something fierce; but might it 

 not be still worse if not removed? When 

 the sting is left, does not the poison-sac 

 remain with it, and does not the poison 

 continue to be pumped in for some time? 

 You ask if any one was ever stung by a 

 queen. I never was; but just once in my 

 life I saw a queen sting a worker. [Our 

 experience is that a sting is much more se- 

 vere if left in the wound than if removed 

 immediately. In the case of a novice or a 

 person w'ho is not accustomed to the effect 

 of the bee-sting poison, the swelling and 

 local fever are, we should say, ten or twen- 

 ty times more severe. A few years ago, we 

 received what proved to be nearly a 

 " knock-out blow." A bee stung us on the 

 eyelid, under our glasses. The eyes were 

 so suffused with tears that it was impossi- 

 ble to get the sting out. Although there 

 was no swelling, we never received a sting- 

 that was more painful. We have been 

 stung many and many a time on the eye- 

 lids, -without very much discomfort where 

 the sting was I'emoved immediately. As 

 Dr. Miller says, when the whole contents 

 of the poison-sac are allowed to get into 

 the wound, the effect is in proportion to 

 the amount of poison that gets into that 

 wound. The yellowjaeket or hornet, if we 

 are correct, does not leave its sting in the 

 wound, and this sting is a mere prick; but 

 the sting from the bee is, in most cases, 

 left in its victim, and so the sting keeps 

 on doing its work, even though the bee 

 itself is smashed. — Ed.] 



