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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



April 19, 1900. 



K^^ a 



The "Old Reliable" seen thru New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. HASTY, Richards, Ohio. 



OVERSTOCKING IN COLORADO. 



So it appears that in Colorado an apiary seems disin- 

 clined to increase after the lOO-colonj- mark is reacht — and 

 this when a small apiary with the same field to itself would 

 increase rapidly. This looks like overstocking, but not 

 necessarily ruinous overstocking'. Fairly good crops may 

 be hoped for, I think, even under conditions where swarms 

 are not plenty. Also the stock may be too large for the 

 pollen supply, when it i.s not too large for the honey supply. 

 As a relief from swarms, I am not sure but some of us 

 would be glad to get into just such a location as the latter. 

 Page 134. 



Mr. Lyon, on the same page, strikes into an element of 

 the overstocking question which is usually unconsidered. 

 One colony has 30,000 bees, and 20,000 of them are field-bees. 

 Manifestly a given range could support a thousand of the 

 latter kind of colonies as well as a hundred of the former — 

 that is, so far as honey goes it could. 



THAT SNOWBOUND TBXAN APIARY. 



A Texas apiary piled with 18 inches of snow — and a 

 good-looking man standing in the midst ! Quite unique. 

 (Page 145.) Now let's have a Norwegian apiary shaded by 

 palms, and naked little darkies climbing in them picking 

 the cocoanuts. 



A SHORT SERMON ON JUSTICE. 



But, Mr. Victor, instead of congratulating you on get- 

 ting even with the thieves, I fear I must read you a sermon 

 instead. Is it right to keep five men in jail 30 daj-s when 

 only one committed the crime ? In dealing with men of 

 anothor race it's easy to say, " O they're all thieves;" but 

 mostly this is not true. It is not only possible, but more 

 than possible, that one or more of your victims disapproved 

 of the theft, and remonstrated about it. Or, some may have 

 been steadily duped by stories about wild honey from the 

 trees. One of the reasons why this nation was formed in 

 the first place was that accused persons might have a 

 prompt trial. And one of the minor reasons why we went 

 to war with Spain was that Cuban-American citizens (no 

 better a lot than your five, quite likely) were kept in jail 

 without trial. I suppose the Sheldon of it would be : How 

 would Jesus Christ have us proceed toward five men, one of 

 whom had been stealing, and the other four not anxious 

 that their friend be punisht ? 



ACTIONS OF STUNG ANIMAI.S DIFFER. 



So we are to understand, on as good authority as Prof. 

 Cook, that the standard remedy in case of an animal des- 

 perately stung, is blankets kept dripping with cold water. 

 But cow as well as man is subject to " locality." The case 

 of one who stood and writhed and died, without thinking of 

 such a thing as running away, does not prove that all would 

 do so. And, by the way, I think we have somewhere evi- 

 dence that sometimes the horse, after receiving hundreds of 

 stings, drops his violence and becomes docile and almost 

 affectionate. Page 147. 



A SCIENTIST'S VIEWS ON HONEY. 



Scientist Headden's doctrine that ripe honey is one- 

 third water, he must expect us to kick at. Is not one-fifth 

 nearer it ? And his surmise that stirring honey does not 

 make it candy any quicker is pretty surely wrong. As to 

 his statement that the relative amount of dextrose and 

 levulose is the same in all samples of honey — perhaps we 

 would better lay that upon a handy shelf, without either be- 

 lieving it or disbelieving it just now. Would rather strain 

 our " believer " to believe that the most .solid samples of 

 granulated honey are half fluid, as his statements seem to 

 imply when put together. Page 147. 



GETTING AT THE SIZE OF FOUL-BROOD SPORES. 



Thanks to Prof. Gillette for his characterization of the 

 foul-brood bacillus. Some longer, some shorter, but the 



longest ones proportioned like half a lead-pencil. I would 

 gently remonstrate about the 1,800,000 spores spread to dry 

 on the head of a pin. That kind of illustration does not 

 after all help our minds, but hinders and stupefies. Let's 

 see if we can't do better. I find that a book at hand has 384 

 thicknesses of paper to the inch. Applying this number to 

 the Professor's figures, it appears that 14 fat old bacilli end 

 to end would just reach thru a sheet of thin paper, and 

 that 31 spores would do the same. We can realize this ; but 

 few minds can realize properly two stout figures multiplied 

 together and the product squared or cubed. Page 148. 



TRYING TO IMPROVE BEES. 



Yes, Mr. Hutchinson, there is a difference in bees ; but 

 the grand trouble is that when we once wake up, and try to 

 improve our stock, we throw awaj' good ones, and buy poor 

 ones at a high price. Page 152. 



"YORK'S honey" vs. " HASTY'S HONEY." 



Thanks for the editorial statement of the honey-deal- 

 er's side of the marking dissention, I see. Neither boy is to 

 blame for loving the girl; but they can't both have her. 

 And there must be some proper and Christian way to decide 

 things. 'Spects it will have to be the old familiar way — the 

 one that can get her gets her, and the other must quietly 

 behave himself like a gentleman. I say this in the sad con- 

 sciousness that the city chap will usually succeed in the 

 contest. She will be " York's ' Honey '" and not " Hasty's 

 ' Honey.' " Old Adam will tempt us to say " York's a liar ;" 

 but if his customers don't understand it to mean that York 

 produced the honey, but only that he inspects and indorses 

 it as a first-class article, veracity does not seem to be 

 broken. Page 152. 



MILK A SUBSTITUTE FOR POLLEN. 



If Dzierzon says sweetened boiled milk is better as a 

 substitute for pollen than meal, probably there is something 

 in it. As an objection, possibly milk-feeding would leave a 

 certain section of the young workers with nothing to do, 

 while meal-feeding would give all work. Page 154. 



WAX-WASTE NOT ALWAYS WORTHLESS. 



The 9>^ pounds of good wax from one pile of slumgum 

 which Co^mrade McKown realized, reminds us again that 

 "things are not always what they seem." Wax-waste 

 usually seems to be worthless ; and most of us need to be 

 prodded up often with the facts to the contrary. Page 159. 



F.\CTS ABOUT FRUIT-FERTILIZATION AND BEES. 



Mr. Crane's article on fruit-fertilization and its plate 

 (page 162) came somewhat as a surprise to me. I had rather 

 settled down in the belief that fruit (if it grew at all) would 

 be about the same in size and qualit)' self-fertilized as cross- 

 fertilized, only the seeds being affected. It is easy to see 

 that the fruit, growing for the sake of the seeds, ought to 

 be better with normal seeds than with blighted ones ; but I 

 had got tainted with the idea that the facts were the other 

 way. Facts seem to be all in our line, I'm glad to see. 



A REVERSING EXTRACTOR POINT. 



Mr. Dadant makes a good point in calling our attention 

 to the fact that an extractor without any center rod admits 

 of the combs being turned without being lifted out. Page 

 163. 



PARAFFIN CANDLES AND SQUASH-SEED BAITS. 



Paraffin candle better than a lamp for investigating a 

 bee-cellar. Sounds reasonable, Mr. Doolittle. And possi- 

 bly, too, the squash-seeds are better than hickory-nut meats 

 as baits for the mouse-trap. Not so brittle and liable to get . 

 off. Page 163. 



THAT COLOR-CARD CRITICISM. 



Mr. Muth-Rasmussen, it was you that didn't "catch 

 on " to Hasty, in reference to the color cards. He was talk- 

 ing about the eternal finalities, whether honey ought to be 

 graded by the inward color alone ; while you were talking 

 business and present usages. Page 164. 



A RETRACTED SNEEZE AT THE ASTER. 



When a fellow is too free with his gab he must either 

 have a large supply of cheek, or else be prepared to take 

 back his dicta semi-occasionall3'. Awhile ago I sneezed at 

 the aster and its honey reputation, and especially at the 

 idea that any particularly rank smell in the apiary came 

 from aster. Now comes good authority, W. H. Pridgen, of 

 North Carolina, and confirms the whole thing. Shake, Mr. 

 Schmidt ! Did you ever see such a know-it-all in your life ? 



