680 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



essay read at the Washington convention 

 of the North American Bee-Keepers' Asso- 

 ciation, on " What the Department of Ag- 

 riculture Has Done and Can Do for Apicul- 

 ture." If such be the case, we , think Mr. 

 Benton is deserving of considerable credit, 

 for the pret)aration of that esSay must have 

 required considerable labor, involving not 

 a little investigation of past records of the 

 Department. We believe in giving "honor 

 to whom honor is due," wherever it is at 

 all possible to do so. 



Somnambulist — the "sleep-walking" 



contributor to the Progressive Bee- Keeper — 

 asks whether the " Advance " wouldn't be 

 a more appropriate name for the Rcviciu. 

 We hardly think it would. What's the 

 matter with " Review ?" The lieview — " is— 

 all — right!" 



Proclticiiift" Comb Honey. — The 



American Bee-Keeper enumerates the follow- 

 ing essential requirements in producing 

 comb honey that will bring a good price : 

 Great care in the way it is put up ; clean, 

 white, well-made sections, completely filled, 

 and the cells all capped. 



I^ost Numbers. —Very frequently we 

 receive requests for a missing copy of the 

 Bee Journal several months after the 

 date of the particular copy wanted. Often 

 we have not a single copy left then, while 

 if requested not longer than a month after 

 its issue, we would be able to supply it. 

 Please remember this, all ye who should 

 fail at any time to receive your copy of the 

 Bee Journal. We are always careful to 

 mail them all, promptly, but occasionally a 

 few are lost in the post-ofiice somewhere. 

 Such we are very glad to replace, if notified 

 in time. 



Wintered *» Unnsuailly ^Vell."— 



In Gleanings for May 15th we find these 

 editorial paragraphs about how the bees 

 have wintered, and also as to the prospects: 



There seems to be no special need this 

 spring of going to the expense and trouble 

 of gathering statistics as to how the bees 

 have wintered; for reports, with hardly an 

 exception, show that they have come out 

 unusually well. Not only is there no loss 

 worth speaking of, but the colonies are un- 

 usally strong. Never before do we remem- 

 ber a more favorable spring for bees. In 

 our own locality hives are filled with honey 



from fruit-blossoms and dandelions, aad in 

 our own apiary we have had to give more 

 room and divide. Our neighbors have had 

 swarming, and yet fruit-bloom seems to be 

 only fairly out. By the flood of orders, we 

 should judge that a similar state of things 

 prevails throughout the North. It should 

 be said that, in certain parts of the South, 

 frosts have done some damage. 



Prospects for a fine honey crop this sea- 

 son were never more flattering. If we are 

 not sure of a good flow from clover and 

 basswood, we are sure, from the heavy 

 brood-rearing now going on, of a large 

 force of bees that will be ready for business 

 if the honey does come. 



We don't remember the spring when so 

 many favorable reports came in as to the 

 almost universally successful wintering of 

 bees. Nearly every letter has said that 

 they have wintered well, and also that the 

 prospects were very flattering for a good 

 crop of honey — outside of California. 



In this region the spring is now (May 

 21st) about two weeks ahead of its usual 

 time, and although the past few days the 

 weather has been cold and rainy, still it 

 may not damage the prospects much, as 

 the bees had just put in about two weeks 

 of good, solid work on early blossoms. 

 After settled warm weather comes again, 

 probably in a week or two, we may find 

 that, after all, the results may be as good as 

 if bee-keepers had managed the weather 

 themselves. 



Bro. Ilutcliinson is making quite a 

 reputation for himself in the line of origi- 

 nal short, pithy sentences in recent num- 

 bers of the Rexnew. Here is a good sample, 

 which appeared in the last number of his 

 paper : 



" Silence is the wit of fools." 



'Flie Heddon Section-Case, — A 



subscriber to the Bee Journal in South 

 Africa, writes as follows about the Heddon 

 section-case : 



Mr. Heddon says, on page 93 of his " Suc- 

 cess in Bee-Culture," that he gets 38 sec- 

 tions, 7 to the foot, in each of his surplus 

 cases — that means 7 rows of 4 to the row 

 (as his frames only hold 4). He also uses 

 tin separators — this would make the frames 

 and tin together good 1 foot and 3s inch. 

 His cases (he tells us on page 90, bottom 

 paragraph) are only 13 inches wide, outside 

 measurement, and the sides of the surplus 

 cases are made of % lumber ; this leaves 

 11^^ inches inside measurement, and yet 

 into this space, he tells us, he puts 7 frames 

 measuring 1 foot, and separators measur- 



