746 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Nov. 22, 1900. 



% * The Afterthought. * 



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

 By E. E. HASTY, Richards, Ohio. 



OATS CHAFF FOR BBK-HIVK CHICKENS. 



Stick a gfood-sized pin right here. Oats chaff is used to 

 fill the cushions with which J. G. Norton hatches bee-hive 

 chickens. Oats chaff and wheat chaff are practically very 

 different substances. Where ventilation thru the cushion 

 is desired wheat chaff is much the better ; but so long- as 

 perfectly dry (a condition rather hard to maintain) oats 

 chaff is much the warmer. Page 637. 



WAKING UP BEBS IN WINTER. 



H. D. Burrell, page 646, does not think much of pound- 

 ing on hives in winter to wake the bees up. No more do 

 the most of us. Still, there seems to be need for them to 

 arouse once in a while and readjust things ; and if we knew 

 all about their needs, and also knew in advance what the 

 weather was going to be, we might time these periods of 

 winter activity so that the expenditure of vitality would be 

 less than it is. It is quite possible that the warming up of 

 the hive is costly, even when bees do it at their own option. 



MASSING DRONES IN .A QUEENLESS COLONY. 



Anent the subject of massing drones in a queenless 

 colony for fall queen-rearing, I would like to put in a spe- 

 cial remark. Right here may lie a very important advan- 

 tage of rearing queens in the fall. In the swarming season 

 I should feel pretty sure that drones from such a drone 

 boarding-house would mate very few of the queens — more 

 normally placed drones getting the start of them in nearly 

 every instance; but (with some untoward exceptions, owing 

 to conditions one can't get at) the selected drones would in 

 the fall actually mate the queens, I presume. To go thru 

 a lot of wise fuss and fixing, and to plume ourselves with 

 the idea that we have accomplisht something, is an uncom- 

 mendable sort of bliss unless we hare accomplisht some- 

 thing. Page 648. 



BREEZY HILLS NOT ALWAYS BREEZY. 



And so Mr. Roebling thinks that on the top of a breezy 

 hill hives have less need of shade. Probablv that's so, to 

 some extent. But even breezy hills do not always have 

 breeze. The most injurious of " tan-toasters " come with a 

 dead calm, do they not ? Page 648. 



THE ANTI-OUEEN-CLIPPING SENTIMENT. 



The editor and Dr. Miller are sensible about- the dipt 

 premiums — and yet they donHyi";'/ for the agonies of one 

 class of their helpless patrons quite as much as they might. 

 I, being an anti-clipper myself, can take them right to my 

 bosom. Sentiment is quite a word to conjure with ; and, 

 seriously, do we want man to be without sentiment ? A 

 new dolly with one leg torn off; a painting for the best 

 light in the parlor with a hole puncht thru the canvas ; a 

 bicycle (style of 1901) with but half a handle on one side; 

 the present of a riding pony, and he blind in one eye ; what 

 human can feel, or ought to feel, fully enthusiastic over 

 these serviceable but provoking treasures? If we delight 

 in the enthusiasm of beginners, and we do, why step on 

 and crush even the littlest of their sentimental little toes. 

 If a subscriber is willing to say, " Send my queen without 

 clipping, and I'll never, never, never even say peep, no 

 matter what ensues," why, then, it looks as tho he might, 

 without very much expense, be granted the boon he craves. 

 Page 649. 



HONEY-FLORA AREA FOR A COLONY. 



On page 659 the editorial off-hand that 100 acres are re- 

 quired for each colony of bees is not bad ; yet some blunder- 

 ing bee-boys will go straight and forget the reason why it 

 takes so much. In the average location a great percentage 

 of its acres furnishes nothing for bees ; and another great 

 slice only a trifling amount for a few weeks. The 100 acres 

 for 150 colonies would not be wild if all the ground was 

 fully set with the proper assortment of plants. Mr. Doo- 

 little's claim that bees work 4'/, miles away from choice 

 would probably be met by a lot of practical men claiming 

 that from choice bees keep inside of a half mile. Without 

 much assurance, I rather think that the truth lies between 



these two extremes, and that the reason that bees seem 

 sometimes to prefer near-by locations is that they have 

 not/ound the more remote ones yet. The reason why a 

 long flight is sometimes more profitable than a short one is, 

 that it gives opportunity for both evaporation and ejection 

 of water from the nectar. And several kinds of forage 

 (when yielding at best) give the bees no compulsion to fly 

 while loading up, each flower or cluster holding more than 

 a load. Whitewood and yucca are notable instances of 

 this ; and probably basswood sometimes comes near it. 



A BOY'S HEAD A D.^NGEROUS SWARM-CATCHER. 



That Austrian swarm-story, on page 660, is both shock- 

 ing and pestilent. It would be wicked foolishness to en- 

 courage a boy to let a swarm cluster on his head, and mur- 

 derous nonsense to begin operations by drenching the bees 

 with water. A swarm, so long as it is warm and dry, can be 

 deftly coaxt to crawl away ; but a mass of soakt bees will 

 not crawl a step. I think those kind-hearted folks who 

 always rescue drowning bees at water-tubs can testify that 

 wet bees sometimes sting if you rescue them with your 

 finger. Still, if the boy's hair was cut so short that no bee 

 could possibly crawl into it, the incident anight have been a 

 real one. " Bees do nothing invariably." 



NO POLLEN IN ORDINARY FINISHT HONEY. 



I think Mr. Taylor, page 661, to be totally wrong in in- 

 timating that bees get pollen into honey outside the combs. 

 If he will mix pollen and honey half and half, and give it 

 to bees in an open-air feeder — well, I never tried it, but I 

 if/;/«(i pretty strongly — I think he wouldn't be able to find 

 with a microscope one single grain of pollen in the result- 

 ant, after it had been carried home and placed in a new and 

 perfectly clean cell. I once bought a costly microscope on 

 purpose to be able to tell /or sure the source of my different 

 kinds of honey — and the thing was an utter failure, just be- 

 cause ordinary finisht honey has no pollen-grains in it. 



KILLING OLD BEES AND WINTERING YOUNG ONES. 



The gruesome plan of killing the old bees in the fall 

 and wintering only the young ones ought to be proved 

 profitable by a good many different experimenters before it 

 is recommended for general practice. Page 661. 



MR. ABBOTT'S FUMIGATING COMPOUND. 



Sulphur one-half, and nitrate of soda and black oxide 

 of manganese each one-quarter — Mr. Abbott's worm-killing 

 compound. Burns all up with a rush, and then puts out 

 any fire that may be left with its own fumes. This is handy 

 apparently, and presumably valuable. Scarce a corner of 

 our craft can be named which has been so scandalously in 

 need of a little invention as the burning of sulphur. Page 

 662. 



EXTRACTING-HOUSE ON WHEELS. 



The extracting-house of Mr. Mottaz, page 664, seems to 

 be one of those "other ways" to do things which we do not 

 often hear of. Have a nice extracting-house built on 

 wheels, and haul it to out-yards like a photographer's gal- 

 lery. Not a bad way. But it seems to me that some of the 

 boys will do it, and have the outfit weigh less than 3,300 

 pounds. 



FAILURES WITH CARDBOARD INTRODUCING. 



The failures of bees to tear cardboard from a cage seem 

 to be coming in freely ; and my apprehensions in that re- 

 gard seem likely to be justified (longer phrase f or " told 

 you so "). 



BLEACHING COMB HONEY BY SUNSHINE. 



The bleaching of comb honey, tho at first not consid- 

 ered practical by theorists, threatens a little to become a 

 generally adopted manipulation. L. J. Crombie's bleach- 

 ing-house, illustrated on page 668, seems very well adapted 

 to the purpose. Pleasant to be told by one who has tried it, 

 " You will find you can bleach the darkest comb." Perhaps 

 the cloth awnings and open gables would not be imperative 

 where the sun is less fierce than in California ; but it is bet- 

 ter to be on the safe side than to have a big lot of honey 

 melted. Well to remember the deceptive character of sun- 

 light which he speaks of — making one think his sections 

 are done when they are not. I would query whether it is 

 sunlight or heal that does that — warm wax looks lighter 

 than cold. Mercy on one's own lungs and health would 

 suggest one improvement. Have a sectional big box close 

 by the door, but outside the house, to do the sulphuring in. 

 It doesn't pay to save steps by knocking days off the end of 

 one's life. 



