MAY 15, 1912 



J. E. Ckank, Middlebury, Vt. 



The l>epartment of Agriculture at Wash- 

 ington has issued a bulletin on sweet clover. 

 Let us see that it is well distributed among 

 the farmers of the country. 



I was not aware that the annual loss is as 

 large in California as Mr. Chadwick states 

 on page 101, Feb. l'>. More and more I am 

 led to believe that all the good things are 

 not in one place. 



<&- 



If beginners in beekeeping who intend to 

 do much business will cut out the editor's 

 footnote on page 98, Feb. 15, and paste it 

 up where they can always see it, and follow 

 its advice in marketing honey, it will prove 

 a perennial source of profit. 



Those illustrations of J. B. Case's nucleus 

 frame and top-bar, page 117, Feb. 15, are 

 true to the real thing, and the best I have 

 ever seen for their purpose. Mr. Case is a 

 modest man, but is doing some good work 

 along the line of queen-rearing. 



That is what I call a capital idea, giving 

 a whole number of Gleanings to bees and 

 fruit, or largely so, as is done in the num- 

 ber for March 15, and then on top of that 

 an ofTer to send free a copy to those fruit- 

 growers whose names beekeepers may send 

 to the ofTice. 



■4f- 



In talking with Mr. Geo. Demuth, of the 

 Department of Agriculture, Washington, 

 he said that the weather reports of the 

 Weather Bureau might be of considerable 

 value in fortelling the weather to those 

 taking bees out of winter quarters in the 

 Jellar. This is both a new and a good idea. 



I believe friend Byer is right, page 70, 

 Feb. 1, in advising the use of a wax-press, 

 [f one has much wax to extract, it will soon 

 pay for itself, although Mr. Poppleton, of 

 Florida, with whom I have been stopping 

 for some time, renders all his wax by means 

 >f the sun's rays. But the sun is about as 

 dot here in .January as in the North in .July. 



From conversations that I have held re- 

 cently with Dr. Phillii)s and Editors Root 

 »nd Tyrrell, it seems certain that not more 

 than one bee-keeper in six or eight takes a 

 oee journal of any kind. If we are to fight 

 aee diseases successfully, shall we not make 

 i strenuous campaign against the appalling 

 gnorance of the beekeepers of the land as a 

 strong force in controlling foul brood by in- 

 creasing the circulation of such publica- 

 tions as are devoted to beekeeping. 



Dr. Miller quotes, page 86, from Deutsche 

 lynker, the remarkable fact that "a mixture 

 of two honeys is darker than either kind 

 separate." Funny! We have for years 

 been mixing light honey with dark to im- 

 prove the color of the dark honey, and 

 thought it did. It must be that we are 

 color-blind not to have seen that it made 

 matters worse. 



I was with ISIr. O. O. Poppleton when he 

 read that item on page 99, Feb. 15, regard- 

 ing windbreaks. He thinks that, instead 

 of a single item, the subject is of sufficient 

 importance for a full article; for in wintering 

 bees in the North, shelter from winds is of 

 the utmost importance. We all know how 

 much more we suffer from cold when work- 

 ing or riding in the wind than in a quiet at- 

 mosphere. 



Dr. Miller, page 69, Feb. 1, says that he 

 doesn't know why moths prefer old dark 

 brood-combs rather than clean combs in 

 sections. Let me suggest that most insects 

 that lay eggs seem to know instinctively 

 the food best adapted for nourishing their 

 young, and doubtless the moths that lay 

 eggs know that old dark brood combs con- 

 taining more or less nitrogenous matter are 

 far better food for their young than white 

 section combs, for the larva' of moths can no 

 more be reared without nitrogenous food 

 than the larvse of bees. 



Mr. Wm. T. Fritz, of Canastota, N. Y., 

 writes to know if the Davis hive is like the 

 Manum. I may say it is not, and that 

 neither of them has any special point of in- 

 terest for bee-keepers at thfc present time. 

 He also desires to know if sections should 

 be graded so as to make all in a case weigh 

 the same. To this I would say it is not 

 our custom to do so, for then some cases of 

 heavy sections would weigh 25 or 26 pounds 

 to 24 sections, while other cases would not 

 weigh over 21 or 22 lbs. per case. Better 

 make the cases average 23 pounds if possi- 

 ble. 



A little boy wrote a composition on pins. 

 He said that thev are very useful. Girls 

 use them to pin up their clothes, and they 

 save a great many lives. The teacher 

 incjuired how thev saved so many lives. 

 His reply was, " By not swallowing them." 

 Stopping for some time in a section of Flor- 

 ida where a large rmmber of rattlesnakes 

 have been killed, and where several persons 

 have died as a result of being poisoned by 

 rattlesnakes, I inquired as to the value of 

 whisky, that all my life I had heard praised 

 as a sure antidote for snake poison. I was 

 told that its value for this purpose consisted 

 in not swallowing it. 



