THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



39 



C. Davenport, in American Bee Jour- 

 nal. — "During the past few years great 

 progress has been made in the science 

 of producing honey; few if any other 

 branches of agriculture have kept pace 

 with us, but in one most important 

 respect — the marketing of our product 

 — we are not much farther advanced 

 than were the bee-keepers of 50 or 

 even 100 years ago." Why is it thus? 



— o — 



The conductor of the American Bee 

 Journal's "Beedom Boiled Down" de- 

 partment dissects, sifts and in general 

 handles European bee lore of all lan- 

 guages in a manner to excite envy. But 

 Gleanings seems to have a monopoly of 

 the new Chilean bee paper's produc- 

 tions — quotes, paraphrases and com- 

 ments with apparent ease. Porque no 

 hace V. eso, Sr. B. B. D.? 

 — o — 



F. Greiner, in Gleanings, thinks the 

 bee-space rather the most important 

 part of Langstroth's invention, though 

 he charges to its influence the loss of 

 thousands of colonies in wintering. He 

 believes, however, that wintering in 

 modern hives has been reduced to a 

 science, and that it today meets with 

 greater success than the box-hives of 

 this or past ages. 



— o — 



D. L. Tracy, in the Progessive Bee- 

 Keeper, relates an experience with 

 moths that'g just a little ahead of any- 

 thing that has come our way hereto- 

 fore. He says: "In Iowa I have seen 

 moths literally eat up a swarm that 

 were like the Englishman's corpse, 

 'pretty dom'd lively.' There was no 

 sickness and no languishing. There were 

 10,000 bees to the frame, and ten 

 frames to the hive, yet the moths com- 

 pletely annihilated them." 



— o — 

 As an illustrat'onof the unaccountable 

 peculiarities sometimes encounteied in 

 the management of bees, we note an 

 instance as related in the biography of 

 George S. Wheeler, in the American 

 Bee Journal. He purchased an Italian 



queen of Kidder away back in the 

 '60's. The next season about twenty 

 queens were reared from this one and 

 introduced to as many different colo- 

 nies of blacks, and nearly every bee 

 reared from these queens showed three 

 bands, and were as well marked as the 

 old queen, though when they took their 

 flight the yard was full of black drones. 

 The season following, when nearly 

 every drone in the yard was Italian, he 

 could hardly get a queen purely mated, 

 the progeny being not only hybrid, but 

 largely black. 



— o — 

 L. A. Aspinwall, in the Bee-Keepers' 

 Review, leviews the history of the sec- 

 tion honey-box from the time of its ap- 

 pearance, some thirty years ago, to the 

 present; noting each improvement and 

 stage of its progress from the crudely 

 constructed frame to the snow-white, 

 polished section now turned out by 

 millions in the large factories especial- 

 ly equipped for the purpose. He re- 

 gards the introduction of the "new 

 style," or plain section, an advance 

 step. The following points of merit 

 are noted by comparison with the in- 

 set or projecting corner style: A sav- 

 ing of one-seventh in material, to the 

 manufacturer, should result in a cor- 

 responding reduction in price. The 

 consumer gets less wood and more 

 honey when buying by weight; yet re- 

 ceives a more beautiful and artistic 

 package for which he pays an ad- 

 vanced price. Owing to the decreased 

 width of the section, a saving of 20 per 

 cent, in shipping cases follows. The 

 thorough and rapid work of cleaning 

 by machinery is made possible and 

 practical. The expense incurred by the 

 change from the in-set to the plain 

 style is also mentioned, though the ad- 

 vantages gained will soon compensate 

 for the additional outlay, he thinks. 



Please send us a list of your bee«- 

 keeping acquaintances, that we may 

 forward sample copies to them. 



