126 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



Dk. C. C. Millbk, Marengo, 111. 



B. MiCKWiTZ, Borga, Finland, has sent 

 me samples of furniture nails with porcelain 

 heads which he has used with satisfaction 

 as spacers for brood-frames. I have also 

 used them, and they do good work, but not 

 so good as the heavy shingle nails. 



Dr. Wiley comes out on top — given a 

 clean bill of health and a free hand. Hoop- 

 de-dooden-doo. Good for Dr. Wiley! [Hold 

 on a little. Dr. Wiley's enemies are more 

 active than ever. Unless the i)ress of the 

 country continues to stand back of him they 

 may get him yet. — Ed.] 



Chicago papers report an Orpington 

 cockerel at the poultry show, Dec. 15, val- 

 ued at rflore than $2000. A rooster hardly 

 averages the value of a queen-bee. Yet 

 some will maintain their equilibrium at 

 mention of $2000 for a rooster and throw a 

 fit at mention of $200 for a queen. 



Two MAIN divisions of Italian bees, leath- 

 er-colored and five-banded, page 90. That 

 may be all right now. Before there were 

 any five-banded we had leather-colored and 

 light Italians. [As we have before pointed 

 out, the name "five banders" isa misnomer 

 in most cases. We do not believe there are 

 a dozen colonies showing all five banders in 

 all the United States. — Ed.] 



The editor of Gleanings gives me a lot 

 of trouble, and now^ D. M. Macdonald is 

 helping him to make life a burden for me. 

 That Scotchman quotes me as saying "Pure 

 Italians don't need even the paper to keep 

 them from fighting" (when one colony is 

 placed over another to be united) , and says, 

 British B. J., 514, ''Here there would be a 

 battle royal." I don't know of my own 

 knowledge whether Italians would fight or 

 not; but I took your word for it, Mr. Editor, 

 and now you fight it out with Mac and let 

 me out. [Most Italian stock does not re- 

 quire any paper nor any special jirecaution 

 in uniting — at least that is our experience 

 here at Medina. But there are Italians and 

 Italians. Some of the so-called five-banded 

 bees, and bees from Southern Italy, are very 

 cross. Italians from Northern Italy and 

 Southern Switzerland are usually very gen- 

 tle.— Ed.] 



An automobile is a thing I don't own, 

 and have no notion of getting; yet I'm look- 

 ing with eager interest for the automobile 

 number of Gleanings. So long as I had 

 an out-apiary the thought of the danger 

 from having a horse or horses at the out- 

 apiary or with a load of bees on the road 

 wa.3 a constant nightmare, and I could well 

 have paid a good price for a horseless con- 

 veyance to be rid of that nightmare. Espe- 

 cially do we want to know the cost for up- 

 keep as compared with horses. By the way, 

 I wonder how many bee-keepers pronounce 

 "automobile" correctly. In this locality 



it's generally pronouced au-to-mu-bile. The 

 dictionary says au-to-mo-bile is the adjec- 

 tive and au-to-mo-bile the noun. An au- 

 to-mo-bile vehicle should be called an au-to- 

 ino-bil^. Or, perhaps, better still, some 

 shorter name. [The dictionary, so far as it 

 relates to automobiles, is behind the times, 

 or, rather, this is a case where an industry 

 has made such rapid advances in nomencla- 

 ture that a dictionary four or five years old 

 is necessarily out of date. Take the word 

 "garage." It is pronounced in a dozen dif- 

 ferent w^ays; but the strong tendency is to 

 Anglicize all such French words. For in- 

 stance, "automobile," the noun or the ad- 

 jective, is pronounced automob'l, not auto- 

 mo6ee^. "Garage" is pronounced exactly 

 like " carriage " except the first letter, for 

 the simple reason that we English-speaking 

 people could not, even if we tried, give the 

 French pronunciation. After all, the gen- 

 eral present-day usage should be the guide 

 rather than a dictionary that attempts to 

 reflect such usage. — Ed.] 



Mr. Editor, I recant, I retract, I back' 

 down, I take it all back. From your private 

 letter I learn there is much honey put upon 

 the market whose imperfections at top and 

 bottom of sections are not concealed when 

 three-inch glass is used. For such honey 

 two-inch glass is better. (Please pass the 

 humble-pie.) Still, you might allow me to 

 continue three-inch glass for the sort of sec- 

 tions that grow "in this locality." [We 

 see no reason w^hy you should recant and 

 take it all back. Personally you like the 

 looks of your honey behind three-inch glass 

 because it is of high enough standard so 

 that it looks well; but a great deal of the 

 honey throw^n on the market is enough be- 

 low grade so that it looks better behind a 

 two-inch glass. Does this suggest decep- 

 tion? Not if w^e understand conditions 

 properly. A section out of the case below 

 No. 1 grade looks far better than the same 

 section put behind a three-inch glass in a 

 shipping-case with other sections of the 

 same filling. AVhen the below-grade sec- 

 tion is out of the case its defects do not 

 seem to be quite so apparent, because it is 

 easy to see that it is all filled; but when it is 

 put behind a three-inch glass it looks just 

 lean enough to make it appear under weight. 

 When placed behind a two-inch glass it 

 looks much better — that is to say, the buyer 

 will size it up at its real \ alue. 



But your honey is above No. 1 grade and 

 better— at least what we saw in the New- 

 York market was some of the prettiest comb 

 honey we had ever seen. It would look 

 well, even behind four-inch glass. So we 

 see no reason why you should recant unless 

 your original statement applied to all hon- 

 ey put up indiscriminately by producers 

 generally. — Ed.] 



