602 



AMERICAN BEE JOUkNAL. 



Sept. 20, 1900. 



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The Afterthought. ^ 



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

 By e. E. HASTY, Richards, Ohio. 



FUMIGATING WITH BISULPHIDE OF CARBON. 



That is a larg-e-sized hope which is held out in the edi- 

 torial on page SOS. Of course, nobody desires to protest 

 agrainst it — only let nobody mistake a not yet settled matter 

 for a settled one. To give an unpleasant taste or a green- 

 yellow tinge to a great heap of choice sections would hardly 

 be fun ; so be sure (irr a small way) that the bisulphide your 

 druggist furnishes you does no harm before you run large 

 risks. Desirably convenient to kill the small worms in 

 sections it doubtless is. I have a suspicion that bees, and 

 not chemicals of any kind, are really the proper agents to 

 destroy said little worm villains. 



MR. ANDERSON'S DANISH-AMERICAN APIARY. 



Mr. Anderson proves, on page 497, that a Danish- 

 American apiary looks very much like a nice straight-out 

 American apiary. The objection to regular unbroken rows, 

 which seems at first sight to lie against it, is really removed 

 for the most part by those little trees. They practically 

 divide the thing up into sections of about three hives each. 



CREATING A DEMAND FOR HONEY. 



How nobly up-to-date and scientific is C. Davenport's 

 question on page 497 ! " Why isn't the demand and con- 

 sumption greater "—of my honey? Blind scratching and 

 kicking around are not likely to remedy things like intelli- 

 gent effort along the lines of the answer to that question. 

 First find causes, then remove them, rather than wrestle 

 with the inevitable effects. Some of the strong reasons, 

 however, are not easily removable ; for instance, the multi- 

 plicity, excellence, cheapness and handiness of other dain- 

 ties on sale, especially sweets. Instead of trying to re- 

 move a cause like this sometimes one can remove self and 

 honey — to a country road, where the cause does not operate 

 so strongly. Glad he succeeds so well with local advertis- 

 ing as a means of removing the two greatest reasons, sus- 

 picion, and " out of sight out of mind." 



BOKHARA THE SAME AS SWEET CLOVER. 



Some of the readers of page 499 probably puzzled their 

 heads with the question. What is Bokhara clover? The 

 writer (using both terms in his article) omitted to state that 

 Bokhara clover and sweet clover are the same. 



If cattle (or we) ate all that the chemist finds plenty of 

 nutriment in, our respective diets would be rather queer. 

 ■On that point chemical analysis is good as far as it goes ; 

 but it must not be expected to go very far, certainly not so 

 far as to dictate to the animal stomach. 



THE CELL-CUP BUSINESS. 



Say, Mr. Pridgen, if you don'tlook out some of the out- 

 siders will be stampeded with the idea that your neat and 

 wholesale arrangements are really to dip honeycomb, to put 

 fabricated honey in. T/iey will hardly be able to see how 

 so many queen-cells should be needed. Your soakt board 

 on which to shape and cool goblet bases is further evidence 

 ■of ingenuity — if any were needed. Page 499. 



"LARGE HIVES" AND A BISCUIT HONEY-MOP. 



Mr. Davenport's hive "eight feet square " sounds as if 

 squinting toward the importation of another enormous spe- 

 cies of bee. And that stingy Texan, who used biscuit to 

 mop up the last stray drop of honey, when he (in verisimili- 

 tude) "robbed his bees " — well, a room just about the size 

 of that bee-hive, with a cross-bar window in it, seems to be 

 what he is steering for. Page SOI. 



SWARMS OF b's. 

 Many years ago some one got up a large and cunning 

 swarm of B's— and it was a good one. Unlike other bees, 

 they seemed to do the most good by emigration, and being 

 found ever and anon on a new bush. Well, when I saw the 

 "Swarm of B's" at the head of "General Items," page 506, 

 I supposed it was the same eternal, wandering swarm, and 

 came near not reading it. Lo, a new swarm, good as the 

 old one. Thanks to the nameless somebody who made all 

 these B's, notwithstanding his "Miss B Haviour." 



A HINT TO BEE-SUPPLY FOLKS. 



That was an extra-good talk that Mr. DeBusk gave the 

 bee-supply folks on page 506. His strong sentence. " The 

 beginning of every transaction is in part wrong," ought to 

 settle into their minds and souls. We can not see what we 

 are getting. Because we are at their mercy thej' ought to 

 be merciful — supposing, of course, they really want to do 

 the fair thing, which most of them do. Considerable im- 

 provement would result, I imagine, should each dealer 

 soberly ask himself, Would my customer buy this if he could 

 see it before he bought ? 



CHUNK HONEY IN THE SOUTH. 



Did you ever? So prominent a man as E. J. Atchley 

 producing and advocating chunk honey ! Still, if the South- 

 ern market calls for it, and will have it, perhaps Mr. A. is 

 all right. That it can be shipt in cans with no such smash- 

 age and leakage as sections often incur, is a strong point in 

 its favor. It seems it does not mash itself up so badly if 

 extracted honey enough to fill up all the crevices is put in — 

 and thus 20 percent or so of extracted is workt off at the 

 same price. Wonder how they open and close their cans. 

 Page 516. 



KEEPING VIRGIN QUEENS. 



So Mr Doolittle finds that virgin queens can be kept 

 nearly four weeks unmated, and yet become fertile even- 

 tually ; but such have always been very poor queens. Prob- 

 ably he is right as to the reason. A queen put alone will 

 worry herself to death in a few hours ; and it is very rea- 

 sonable to suppose that worrying about captivity when she 

 greatly desires to go out, altho it does not kill her, damages 

 her constitutionally and vitally. Page 514. 



TWO COMB-FOUNDATION ITEMS. 



From the editorial review of Prof. Gillette on comb 

 foundation, I cull two items to hold up one more time : 

 Natural midrib at some times is almost twice as heavy as 

 at other times. No foundation midribs are thinned down 

 quite as thin as natural ones. Page 520. 



BEES AND THE KORAN. 



Were it not for the general reliability of the British Bee 

 Journal, I should almost be tempted to think it had been 

 taken in by an interpolated copy of the Koran. Even if the 

 quotations on page 521 do come from a standard copy, I 

 still don't get quite rid of the idea that some writer later 

 than Mohammed (and less shrewd) has been interjecting 

 his own notions as he copied. Take these words as a test : 

 " European bee-keepers call them drones." Just think once 

 what Europe was early in the seventh century. How should 

 an Arab know what European bee-keepers thought — or care 

 to mention opinions from such a sunken barbarian hole, in 

 case he accidentally knew ? (I'm clearing the road, don't 

 you see, to believe the book in case I want to believe ?) 

 Granting authenticity both ancient and modern, we have 

 here a strong example of an able man going out of his field, 

 the religious field, quite needlessly, and getting into the 

 mire — like all who do their trades forsake. What fatal spell 

 is it about bees which has made all men take leave of their 

 senses when writing of them? Why do even wise men 

 claim, practically, that they know all about them when they 

 know almost nothing ? It does look a little imposter-ish 

 and shrewd to tell that bees all come home at night on the 

 eve before the Mohammedan Sabbath, but not on other 

 eves. Every once in awhile some one would watch to see 

 if a lot of bees came in before any went out on Friday 

 morn, and not seeing them (naturally he would not. as it is 

 rather rare) he would be much strengthened in the true 

 faith — and most likely would not test the other mornings of 

 the week. Even should he see lots of early bees Friday 

 morn it would be easily said, Satan moved somebody to cap- 

 ture a lot of your bees, and let them loose at an hour to mis- 

 lead you. 



PREVENTING THE TEARING OF CAPPINGS. 



On page 527 I wonder if Mr. Hairston is right, that bees 

 in famine-time leave a super of honey with less waste of 

 time if a little honey is poured on the escape-board intro- 

 duced. If so, why ? I'll guess that the honey gives them 

 the impression and feeling of business and prosperity, and 

 thus causes them to act more as they would in prosperous 

 times. In robbing times naturally the normal feeling is 

 "hold the fort" and fight. That the fluid honey below 

 would save some tearing of cappings, one almost knows 

 without trying. 



