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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEK 



De. C. C. Miller, Marengo lU. 



Frank E. Millen, if you feed sugar to 

 fill the brood-chamber, as suggested on p. 

 316, please have the first super honey ana- 

 lyzed to see if sugar is in it. 



Nearly 4000 virgins were sent to the 36 

 mating stations in Switzerland last year, 

 and 87 per cent of them were returned 

 mated. — Schweiz. Bztg., 484. [Some of this 

 might be practiced to good advantage in 

 this country. — Ed.] 



D. M. Macdonald, British B. J., p. 103, 

 says spreading brood "is a pitfall — a 

 plunge into which is accompanied with 

 ruinous consequences when practiced by the 

 novice . . ; even the old hand, for his own 

 good, should be advised to resort to it but 

 seldom." I have some question whether 

 there is ever any gain by it. 



Bernard Rietsche, who died lately, had 

 already (in 1896) sent out into Germany 

 and other lands 10,000 comb-foundation 

 presses, and since then the number doubt- 

 less has more than doubled. Your thrifty 

 German doesn't like to buy what he can 

 make himself. More than that, German bee- 

 keepers are not blest as we are in being 

 able always to buy foundation with the se- 

 cure feeling that there is no such tiling as 

 adulterated foundation upon the market. 



All Life^ says John H. Lovell, p. 268, 

 depends upon the existence of leaf-green, 

 or chlorophyll. If 1 had known that some 

 years ago it would have saved me some 

 trouble. Madame Salleroi is a geranium 

 with ornamental foliage, some leaves green, 

 some white. I wanted a plant all white; 

 tried to root branches with all wliite leaves. 

 All died without rooting. Then I though". 

 I'd make a sure thing by taking rooted 

 plants and cutting out all green leaves. 

 Every plant died. Couldn't live without 

 the green. 



I'm glad, J. L. Byer, to see you object 

 to using "hybrid" in place of "cross-bred," 

 p. 264. I wasn't on the carpet when it came 

 into use, so had no chance to protest. But 

 I'll stop using it if you will. But you're 

 'way off in thinking I'll ever be reconciled 

 to "shook swarming." That's such a vicious 

 violation of grammar that it will always 

 cause a shudder except among those people 

 so illiterate as to say "I was took down with 

 fevernager and was nearly shook to pieces." 

 [While the use of the word "hybi'id" is not 

 scientifically accurate, because it is not a 

 crossing of species but a crossing of races, 



it has become established in all our litera- 

 ture. It would be almost impossible to 

 change it now. We say, in common lan- 

 guage, the sun rises, when we know that it 

 does not rise. As a matter of fact, we are 

 doing the rising, because our part of the 

 globe is coming to a point in its revolution 

 where all can see the sun. No, we believe 

 it is better for us to continue using the old 

 term — particularly so as it is shorter than 

 "cross-bred," which is more accurate. 



Gleanings has always held, I think, that 

 if sugar is fed in the brood-chamber there 

 is danger it might later go into supers ; but 

 I don't know that there was ever any posi- 

 tive proof. A careful experiment is report- 

 ed in Schweiz. Bztg., 149, April 6; to one 

 colony invert sugar was fed; to another, 

 cane sugar, each containing a minute quan- 

 tity of lithium chloride. April 19 the flow 

 began, and the honey-apartments were open- 

 ed. May 4 samples of surplus from each 

 showed the presence of lithium, and no 

 lithium in the surplus of a neighboring 

 colony. Clearly it is wrong to feed sugar 

 shortly before giving supers. [We have 

 based our opinion and advice in this mat- 

 ter on the testimony of a number of practi- 

 cal beekeepei's. One of the most conclusive, 

 as we now remember it, was the case of a 

 correspondent who fed very dark buck- 

 wheat honey just before the clover flow. 

 What was Ms surprise to find that the sec- 

 tions over the colonies fed with buckwheat 

 contained a good deal of dark honey ; while 

 colonies not so fed had white section honey. 

 There was so much testimony along these 

 lines, that we believe late sugar feeding 

 should be discouraged. While sugar syrup 

 in section honey would not affect the qual- 

 ity of the best section honey, yet when such 

 goods are put on the market they are likely 

 to subject the seller or producer to the pen- 

 alties for selling adulterated goods. It is 

 true a verj;- small proportion of sugar syrup 

 might not be detected by the chemist, but a 

 larger amount would. Moreover, we do 

 not believe there is any advantage in late 

 feeding except to prevent actual starvation 

 and the checking of brood-rearing. There 

 is no harm in late feeding in any case pro- 

 viding the bees are not fed too much. This 

 whole question was thrashed out when the 

 Boardman plan of feeding sugar syrup 

 clear up to the harvest was advocated some 

 years ago. There are some seasons when 

 the expert can practice such feeding with- 

 out getting sugar syrup into sections. — Ed.] 



