March 9. 190S. 



THfi AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



183 



know where to get more. We gave away hundreds of "honey 

 cooking recipe " leaflets, but saw no increase in sales on 

 that account. They probably regarded them the same as 

 any other advertising leaflet. A part of the people do not 

 read much. Another part do not heed if they do read. But 

 the bee-keeper who retails his honey has a chance to educate 

 all classes. Finally we dropped the extra labor of putting 

 on the labels, as the honey was always sold by taste and 

 ^id not seem to need them. Now I give the leaflets only to 

 those who are interested sufficiently to use some of the 

 recipes. The honey has always made the demand for the 

 leaflets instead of the leaflets selling the honey. 



Los Angeles Co., Calif. Mrs. C. W. Dayton. 



Mrs. Dayton has given us many helpful suggestions in 

 her very excellent letter. She tells what they have actually 

 done, so she knows what she is talking about. If we all did 

 as much as she has done about using honey for cooking, 

 canning, etc., and trying to get others to use it, too, it 

 surely would help materially in increasing the sales and 

 prices of our honey. She says, " We are afraid to use 

 sugar". Perhaps more of us ought to be afraid to use it, 

 too. We might be if we were wiser. 



No doubt she is right about people having to learn to 

 like the flavor of honey in cooking. You know we have to 

 learn to like many things we eat, and afterwards become 

 very fond of. Why not the flavor of honey, especially if it 

 is so much better for our health to use it ? 



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Clftcrtl^ougl^ts 



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The " Old Reliable " seen through New and Unreliable GlasseB. 

 Bj E. E. Hastt, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



LOVELY AND LOVABLE CALIFORNIA. 



Prof. Cook is evidently not like the homesick individual who talks 

 up his locality to sell out and get away. Jlis words about California 

 are the words of a sincere lover — and not a new, love-at-flrst-sight 

 lover either. Lovable climate, inspiringly lovable scenery, deliciously 

 lovable fruits, fraternally lovable people — not so phlegmatic and uq- 

 responsive as people in other States— and once a Californian never 

 long contented anywhere else. But I have a brother who has recently 

 lived six years in California, and previous to that a number of years in 

 the Magdalena Mountains of New Mexico, and I find the fascinations 

 of the Magdalenas stick to him more persistently than those of Cali- 

 fornia do. Page 3". 



CROSSWISE FRAMES AND CLOSED ENDS. 



So Allen Latham thinks crosswise frames and closed ends are a 

 pair that should go together, or not at all. Will not be very hard to 

 agree on that — because, you see, most of us will take the second alter- 

 native. And while sitting on this contrary horn some of us would ask 

 him whether he beHeves that story he told on three generatioas of our 

 ancestors carrying stones on a horse's back to balance corn. I sup- 

 pose, he sits waiting for us to answer the question, Why not tilt our 

 ■dwellings forward to keep the rain from driving in under the front 

 door? Tolerably pert question that — even if his deductions are not 

 any more correct than his stories. Page 37. 



SHEEP IN THE APIART. 



It's quite a few years since I have had sheep within constant eye- 

 shot, but it doesn't seem to me that they are much given to rubbing. 

 So, Dr. Miller, I would suggest that their badness in moving hives 

 comes not from rubbing but from their inclination to crowd one 

 another. Whole Hock, be it little or big, makes a " Hying wedge " of 

 . itself. A sheep on one side, and toward the front, gets caught against 

 I the side of the hive, and then both sheep and hive are pushed sidewise 

 by the joint force of the flock. Even when there are but three, two 

 may get the third one fast and hold it until its struggles do mischief. 

 Page 40. 



APICCLTURE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Bad blood, cross purposes, personal ends, and queer statements— 

 hardly worth while to afterthink them a great deal, if we can only 

 leave them behind us effectively. How much apiculture has suffered 

 from them ! Mr. Benton's very valuable paper (page 41 and page 57) 

 reminds of that once more — and happily does us some much better 

 jobs, also. 



Nice that it's the " nater of things" to grow! Entomology, 

 which includes Apiculture, at Washington, not so very long ago was 

 only a chair with one sitter— and he not a cent to use in any investi- 

 gation under the sun. Entomology had the man; and Apiculture's 

 share in the business was some interest and hope the man liad toward 

 it. " And she grows, and she grows," and alter awhile we see two 

 or more men. All were at work at Entomology ; but one of them had, 



in addition to interest and hope, an excellent knowledge of bees. 

 '* And she grows, and she grows,'' and after awhile one man experi- 

 ments, in a clandestine sort of way. He didn't do this with U.S. 

 bees, for there were none, but with his own bees. " And she grows, 

 and she grows," and at length (in a sporadic, " now you see it, and 

 now you don't " sort of way) a modest appropriation comes just for 

 once. " And she grows, and she grows,'' andas a finality Apiculture 

 is now expected to have some money to work with every year. The 

 chair has grown a Bureau ; and the set of notions in the sitter's head 

 has grown a Division of the Bureau. 



CAUCASIAN RACE OF BEES. 



And so the Caucasian bees are to have the first place on the stage 

 in Uncle Sam's own apiary. Soon we shall have official knowledge of 

 what their wonderful disinclination to sting amounts to, and whether 

 their troublesome forwardness to swarm makes them undesirable when 

 in the hands of a competent man. Page 5S. 



GIANT BEES AND THE PHILIPPINES. 



When Mr. Benton went after the giant bees he didn't quite fetch 

 'em. But, that memorable first of May, Dewey, he fetched 'em. Now 

 it's our duty, don't you see, to benevolently assimilate our new mil- 

 lions into the comforts and sweetnesses of Apiculture. So, when 

 things grow a little more, it will be one of the simplest outcomes to 

 have a U. S. branch apiary on Mindanao or Palawan, or some other 

 island, and learn a heap of things about wax-culture with the giant 

 bees. And then we must induct the much enduring Filipino into a 

 new and profitable business — a business hopefully suitable for lazy 

 folks like he'uns and we'uns. Page h9. 



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Doctor miller's 

 Question '- Box 



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Sena Questions either to the office of the American Bee Journal, 

 or to Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 



Difficulties In Answering Questions. 



In attempting to make reply to questions coming from so many 

 different sources, and covering almost the whole ground of bee-cul- 

 ture, one can not but feel the limitation of one's knowledge, and en- 

 tertain some degree of fear lest harm be done by giving wrong replies. 

 So it is a comfort to know that sharp eyes are upon this department, 

 and that little error is likely to appear without being brought to light 

 by some good friend. 



It is not entirely clear to me, however, that there is anything in- 

 correct in the reply on page 40, to which Allen Latham takes excep- 

 tion, page 126. Mr. Latham says; 



" If it were late in the fall it would, indeed, be best to give the 

 full comb of honey; but the question reads otherwise." 



The question does not definitely state that fall or winter feeding 

 is meant, but the question coming in January, and referring to no 

 earlier period of feeding than " late summer ", when bees were rob- 

 bing, I felt warranted in understanding it to mean when brood-rearing 

 had ceased. It hardly seemed necessary to give the caution not to 

 destroy brood. Even if brood were present, it would be all right to 

 give a comb of honey, and if it were desired to aid the nucleus with 

 brood a comb of honey containing brood could be given. Candy is 

 npt advised to keep up brood-rearing, nor was it so intended. 



Mr. Latham expects his nuclei to be ahead of his full colonies in 

 swarming. Probably few can succeed so well with one-frame obser- 

 vatory hives. C. C. Miller. 

 *-*-♦ 



Higlibarger's Record of Queens. 



Referring to the sample given from record-book, page 131, L. 

 Highbarger writes me his plan of keeping record. He says: 



" A lath-nail driven in slightly at the entrance of the hive at the 

 left hand side shows that there is present an undipped queen. Driven 

 in at the center it shows a clipped queen one year old. At the right, 

 with another nail added, it shows that the queen is clipped and two 

 years old, and that is as old as I care to keep queens. 



" If you should come into my yard, I can give you the age of 

 every queen, and tell whether clipped or not, merely by glancing at 

 the nails. So when I go to clipping I don't need to open any hive ex- 

 cept those with the one nail at the left. Of course, I have to look out 

 for superseding." 



A reference to page 121 will show that the nails would save the 

 entry " 03 " in one place and " q cl " iu another, but that is all. The 

 remainder of the record would still be needed, and needed not at the 

 hive, but in a book where I can look it up while lying on a lounge in 

 the house or on the way to an out-apiary, or even ten years afterward. 

 Neither would the nails aid me at the spring clipping (the one time in 

 the year when a business of clipping is made), for without looking in 

 the hive there's no way of telling whether the queen has been super- 

 seded or not. 



For those, however, who do not care for other records, and want a 

 quick way of knowing something about the queen in each hive, Mr. 



