64 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



Mrs. Kit Clover is editor of the 

 poultry department in The Beekeep- 

 ers' Advance. Sorry to lose her racy 

 letters iii the bee department. 



A good way to paint hives is said to 

 be to use two-thuxls beesvi'ax, one- 

 thu-d rosin and a " little mite " of tal- 

 low melted together and aj)piied warm 

 with a cloth. 



The symptoms and cure of foul 

 brood is the special topic of the Feb- 

 ruary Reviev). The matter is ably 

 handled, but nothmg is said as to the 

 conditions that favor its develojoment 

 in isolated localities. 



The honey bee is a regular mer- 

 chant. It "cells" combs for a living. 

 — American Ree Journal. 



Yes, and it sometimes "cells" the 

 man that bothers its combs. /Siftinr/s 

 was "sold" that way one ujDon a time. 



Hives should be painted white, if 

 painted at all, so as to avoid melting 

 down the combs. Some beekeepers, 

 Mr. Doolittle amongst them, say they 

 13refer unpainted hives, but the great 

 mass of the fraternity think otherwise. 



All men err. Even editors make 

 mistakes. The Canadian Ree Journal 

 tells a correspondent that "a bee is 

 not an animal." Well, what is it, 

 pray? Is it a mineral or a vegetable? 

 It must, of covirse, be one of the 

 three. 



Persons that are troubled with lay- 

 ing workers should notice the aiiicle 

 of Mr. Hawk in the February Api. 

 His plan seems to be a stej) in the right 

 direction. It is plain, simjjle and 

 easily aj)plied. Everlasting fussing 

 with the bees has had its day. 



In this part of the country the bees 

 are gathering pollen and are getting 

 some honey. Peach trees have been 

 blooming since January, and the wil- 

 lows and maples are now fui'nishing 



work for the bees. There will be a 

 rather heavy loss of bees to report 

 this sj^ring. 



The amount of ignorance with re- 

 gard to honey is really astounding. 



People that, in other matters, have 

 a fan- share of knowledge know al- 

 most nothmg about honey. Some 

 think that it is all adulterated and 

 that granulation proves it so. As I 

 heard remarked the other day, "the 

 human man is a curious critter." 



That cloths over the frames have 

 had theu- day is jDlainly evinced by the 

 tenor of the replies to a question in 

 Gleanings. There are eighteen an- 

 swers and fourteen of them are 

 against the use of cloths. Several 

 leading wiiters are very decided in 

 their views. The cloths must go, 

 and Mr. Koot himself says the large 

 honey-producers have pretty much 

 all discarded them. 



Mr. K. L. Taylor, tells how those 

 who use excluders may easily find 

 their queens. It is to rap on the 

 back of the hive and smoke into the 

 entrance until the bees become 

 alai-med, then turn over the excluder 

 and the queen will be found trying to 

 get through. Mr. Root sometime 

 since advised us to put a gummed la- 

 bel on the back of the queen to en- 

 able us to find her. 



The dry bones are being stu-red up 

 as to spacing frames. It is an old 

 subject but one that needs a rehears- 

 ing. Now, so far as I am concerned, 

 I never could see the use of having 

 the frames 1^- in. from centre to cen- 

 tre. For years I have used hives 

 with frames | of an inch apart. To 

 have the combs more than this dis- 

 tance from each other will cause a loss 

 of box honey. 



Thick top-bars get a great deal of 

 attention lately. It would be a good 

 thing for some one to settle the mat- 



