

yHE 01.5^^^ BEE-PAPe;, 



40di YEAR, 



CHICAGO, ILL,, SEPTEMBER 6, 1900, 



No, 36, 



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'' Editorial Comments. 



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The Great Chicago Convention is over. It exceeded 

 any former meeting' in attendance, there being at one even- 

 ing session fully 350. The following were elected as officers 

 and executive committee : 



President — Ernest R. Root, of Ohio. 

 Vice-President — R. C. Aikin, of Colorado. 

 Secretary — Dr. A. B. Mason, of Ohio. 



All being well, we fully expect to begin publishing the 

 report next week. It will likely be the fullest and best ever 

 publisht of a national convention of bee-keepers. 



Extracted vs. Comb Honey. — In browsing around for 

 good things in the bee-keeping press to dish up for the 

 readers of the Progressive Bee-Keeper, Somnambulist pre- 

 sents this item from the pen of C. A. Hatch, in the Bee- 

 Keepers' Review : 



"Of course, we might produce extracted honey, but 

 were everybody to do so there is no telling where the price 

 would go. I know by experience in selling honey that a 

 great many people won't use extracted honey at all. There 

 is an attraction about nice comb honey that appeals to the 

 eye ; and what looks pleasing, tastes good." 



Then with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, Sommy 

 places over against this statement that of another Wiscon- 

 sin bee-keeper, N. E. France, in the same periodical : 



" Our home-market consumes about 10,000 to 12,000 

 pounds of extracted honey, and 500 pounds of comb honey 

 per year." 



The Somerfield Plan of Forming Nuclei, that is, 

 shutting the bees in by stuffing green leaves in the en- 

 trance and leaving them to gnaw their own way out, is very 

 highly spoken of by some. One of its advocates, however, 

 Dr. Miller, while giving it words of praise in Gleanings in 

 Bee-Culture, allows one to read between the lines that it 

 has not been an unqualified success in his hands. He says : 



" I've tried Somerfield's plan of penning in nuclei with 

 leaves to make them stay. More dead bees than desirable 

 sometimes ; still I like the plan. It seems to work very 

 well to free them in 24 hours ; but a good feature of the 

 plan is that, if you forget to free them, they will free them- 

 selves." 



" More dead bees than desirable sometimes " suggests a 

 very variable quantity, and in some cases may mean the 

 practical annihilation of the nucleus. Suppose two or three 

 frames of brood with adhering bees are put in a full-sized 

 hive, the entrance left closed by leaves plugged in, and the 

 weather remains moderate until the bees gnaw out— the 

 mortality would probably be little, if any, greater than if 

 the bees were not confined. Suppose, however, that the 

 nucleus be partitioned off into the smallest space it can oc- 

 cupy, and the weather is very hot, practical suffocation will 



take place, and the nucleus will be worthless if the en- 

 trance is so closely plugged that the bees do not force an 

 exit for two or three days. A good deal may depend upon 

 the manner of closing the entrance. The green leaves will 

 shrink so as to close the entrance less tightly each day, and 

 yet it is possible that some entrances might be so closed as 

 to make the closing almost permanent. 



All this is said with no thought of denying the value of 

 the plan, but merely as a word of caution, and with the be- 

 lief that, rightly used, the plan is a valuable contribution 

 to practical bee-keeping. 



Tenement Hives have never come into very general 

 use, but as a rule those who use them are quite partial to 

 them. R. F. Whiteside, of Ontario, Canada, sends a de- 

 scription of his, which does not differ greatly from some 

 others, and is especially pleased with the shade for the opera- 

 tor that is afforded by the large cover when it is propt up. 



Bee-Poison and Honey.— Dr. F. W. Rich, of Cook Co., 

 111., sends us the following item from the Medical Era, 

 which we are pleased to reproduce here : 



THE POSSIBLE ANTI-TOXIC RELATION BETWEEN BEE-POISON 

 .\ND HONEY. 



A remarkable result following the sting of a honey-bee 

 is related by Dr. Stover, of Denver (Johns Hopkins' Hos- 

 pital Bulletin). The case is of a young woman who was 

 stung by a bee. The right cheek, which was the point of 

 attack, and the whole right side of the face, were immensely 

 swollen, and the patient felt some constitutional symptoms. 



After treatment for five days the woman recovered, and 

 on her final visit made the interesting statement that, while 

 in the past she had never been able to eat honey, indeed, 

 was even nauseated by the smell of it, since being 

 stung she had developt a craving for honey, and found 

 that she could eat it with complete satisfaction, and with 

 no ill results. Dr. Stover asks, " Will some of the immuni- 

 zation experimenters throw light on this occurrence ?" 



We would add the query, whether this is not, also, a 

 demonstration of the dynamic action of apis mellifica ? 



Why wouldn't it be a good idea for honey salesmen to 

 carry a few bees along with them for immediate applica- 

 tion when they meet persons who say they are are not able 

 to eat honey ? It would be a cheap " remedy," and help to 

 increase possible honey customers. Who'll be the first to 

 inaugurate this new scheme for creating a larger demand 

 for honey ? Of course, the salesman ought to be able to 

 guarantee a " cure " before applying the " remedy." 



Getting Bees to Clean Extracting-Combsand Sections. 



— This matter is discust by R. C. Aikin and G. M. Doolittle 

 in the Progressive Bee-Keeper, and the two men are far from 

 coinciding in their views. Mr. Aikin advises putting out a 

 large number of combs at once and allowing the bees the 

 freest access to them, in order to avoid having- the combs 

 torn by the bees. Mr. Doolittle says he tried the plan last 

 fall by putting in his bee-cellar the. accumulation of partly 

 filled sections from both apiaries. The bees were admitted 

 to them on a warm day, and as a result " fully one-fourth 



