Mar. 15, lyl'J 



158 



.1. E. Crank, Middlebury, Vt. 



It is interesting to read Doolittle's views 

 of the long and short haul of honey by the 

 bees. It is certainly comforting to think 

 that our bees can reach tlowers five miles 

 away; but 1 have a suspicion that not a lit- 

 tle depends on the liees. Now and then we 

 find a colony gathering \\ hen others are not 

 showing they can go further or search closer. 



I was interested in Mr. Mollett's descrip- 

 tion of wintering bees in the South. Fifty 

 to seventy-five pounds per hive! Why, it 

 almost takes away one's breath to think of 

 a colony consuming that much. But then 

 I congratulate myself that, if our bees of the 

 North are not at work during our long win- 

 ters, they are not consuming honey beyond 

 all reason. 



We are under obligations to the editor of 

 Gleanings for the careful experiments 

 which were made for the purpose of cieter- 

 raining the amount of wax used by bees in 

 drawing out a sheet of foundation into a 

 full comb, page 711, Dec. 1, 1911. Accord- 

 ing to these figures, furnishing an eight- 

 frame hive with full sheets of foundation 

 would save the bees the necessity of making 

 one pound of wax thai would doubtless take 

 twelve pounds of honey to produce. This, 

 at ten cents, would be worih $1.20, or twice 

 what the foundation costs; and yet some 

 beekeepers think they can not afford it. 



As to the que>tion whether buckwheat 

 yields honey only during the niglit or at 

 certain times uf the day, or all the time, I 

 believe that it does about as it has a mind 

 to, acting quite dilTerently sometimes from 

 other times. Where I lived in 1867 there 

 was an unusual amount of buckwheat sown 

 that spring, and not a large number of bees 

 kept; and I noticed that, at the beginning 

 of the season, the buckwheat yielded nearly 

 all of its honey in the forenoon; but later in 

 the season the flow of nectar was later in the 

 day, until at its close the flow was almost 

 entirelj' confined to the afternoon. Now, I 

 doubt not that there are some places where 

 it yields all day, and I am quite sure there 

 are some places and seasons where it doesn't 

 yield enough to be worth mentioning. 



Dr. Miller refers to me, page 36, as Saying 

 that moths do lay eggs in sections after 

 taking them from hives. Let me say here, 

 to prevent misunderstanding, that our ex- 

 perience has been that moths do not lay 

 eggs in our sections after they are taken from 

 the hives, because the sections are stored 

 where the moths can not get to them; but 

 I always find more or less larvm of the wax 

 moth developing on combs of section honey 

 after they are taken from the hive. If the 

 combs are white and clean, little harm is 

 done; but if any cells of pollen are found. 



or the combs badly soiled or "travel-stain- 

 ed," these "varmints" will develop and do 

 lots of harm unless treated to the fumes of 

 sulphur. 



The same seems to be true of extracting- 

 combs until they have been frozen so as to 

 kill all eggs or larvip of the waxmoth. Where 

 do the eggs of the wax moth come from if no 

 eggs are laid by the moths after the combs 

 are taken from the hives? Moses (^uinby 

 gave it as his opinion, after very careful ex- 

 periments, that the moths lay the eggs at 

 the entrances of the hives, and the bees car- 

 ry them in on their legs or bodies, and scat- 

 ter them over the combs. Those hatching 

 inside the hives are, as a rule, in every strong 

 colony, quickly taken care of by the bees; 

 but when the combs are removed they de- 

 velop. If I remember rightly, Mr. Quinby 

 took off boxes of honey, and watched to see 

 that no moth entered; and when every bee 

 had gone out of the box it was sealed so no 

 moth could enter; but if kept in a warm 

 place the larva of the wax moth would de- 

 velop just the same as when exposed to 

 moths. 



The recent articles by .John N. Lovell, on 

 flowers, are of more than usual value. 

 Somewhere I have seen the statement that 

 Christ, whose life and teachings have at- 

 tracted so much of the world's thought dur- 

 ing the past eighteen centuries, was the first 

 to call the attention of mankind to the 

 beauty of flowers. I can not vouch for the 

 truthfulness of the statement; but one thing 

 is certain— he was a great lover of flowers. 

 Indeed, I think we may say that he was a 

 child of nature, with the hills and valleys, 

 the fields and flowers his teachers. "Con- 

 sider the lilies, how they grow," is as much 

 a command of .Tesus as any other, and if it 

 is our duty to consider the lilies, we may 

 infer that it is also our duty to consider the 

 sweet peas and morning-glories, the apple 

 blossoms and wild asters, and a thousand 

 other objects of beauty on every side of us, 

 too numerous to mention. I have read in 

 an old book of the servant of a propliet who, 

 one morning, was frightened almost out of 

 his wits because he saw a few soldiers en- 

 camped on the outskirts of the town, and 

 his master prayed that his eyes might be 

 opened, and they were opened, and he saw- 

 more wonderful sights than he had ever 

 dreamed of; and so when our eyes are open- 

 ed to the beauties and wonders of all about 

 us we shall find more to enjoy and entertain 

 us in our leisure hours than we could ever 

 have believed in our wildest dreams. It is 

 thought a good sign that people are going 

 back from the city to the land, and I am 

 sure it is a good thing when those with lit- 

 erary ability write of nature anil all its won- 

 ders rather than myths and impossible 

 creatures. There is enough of the real and 

 true to satisfy any sound mind. 



