100 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



t)ees, depend ou't ;" "'tis bad honey;" 

 ■" 'twont do;" "'twill kill every time;" 

 " 'twould be a great gain in honey if sugar 

 rsyrup were used, besides nary a bee will 

 catch the disease." 



I also see betwixt these two, another rider 

 •on his stout, short lard favorite, old Truth. 

 I think I hear the gentleman say. Well, if 

 those two friends would only meet here- 

 abouts they would find out they were both 

 right. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



"Novice." 



Mk. Manager : — Allow me to congratu- 

 late j'ou on having made arrangements 

 ^whereby you can furnish a good, patented, 

 two-story Langstroth hive in Chicago for 

 the moderate price of $3.30. We would 

 also suggest that as the preference is now 

 strongly turning in the direetion of double- 

 widtli instead of two-story hives, you make 

 arrangements, if practicable, to have them 

 made in that way when they are to be used 

 exclusively for the extractor. We believe 

 the expense of making is a little less if any- 

 thing. 



As your offer will doubtless furnish a 

 :good many with sample hives to work from, 

 we somewhat regret that the size of the 

 frame is between any of the sizes in our 

 classification of frames. As you give only 

 inside dimensions we cannot tell the exact 

 size of your frames, so much depends on the 

 thickness of the lumber used. Is it not best 

 when speaking of frames and hives to give 

 outside dimensions of the former, and inside 

 dimensions of the latter, for these must be 

 «xact ? 



While we are anxious to give Adair full 

 credit for all his suggestions, we cannot think 

 it proper to call double or treble-width hives 

 all " New Idea Hives," for the " New Idea" 

 •wa^, if it is not now, set forth as a patent 

 hive, and in some respects, it seems to us, a 

 little inconsistent. See Progressive Bee 

 ■Culture, inside of first cover, where he con- 

 demns the extractor. His price then given 

 for a Langstroth hive fitted up on the " New 

 Idea" plan, witJi right to use, is ten dollars. 

 Double-width hives were used in our county 

 before this work was published, for he had 

 mentioned in public, making hives four or 

 more feet h>ug. Such hives have an un- 

 deniable advantage over the two-story hives, 

 for the extratitor, but it certainly was not 

 Mr. A's reason for recommending them 

 thus. We at first doubted their giving an 

 equal amount of honey, but should they 

 give more, as he claims tlusy will, we cer- 

 tainly owe him a vote of thanks for his 

 labors in turning the attention of apiarists 

 in that direction. The testimony from 

 those using them is strongly -in favor of 

 them, instead of the two-slorv hives, if we 



make some few exceptions, although re- 

 ports seem to equally favor side entrances, 

 in place of only one at the end, as Adair in- 

 sists on. 



In regard to the "queen's Avings " busi- 

 ness, we are perfectly satisfied to leave the 

 matter with our readers as it is. Adair has 

 opened and closed the subject, and we have 

 had " our say " in the interim, which we 

 have no wish to change or modify since his 

 last. 'Twere no more than justice, how- 

 ever, to say that we did publish Mr. A's 

 letter in full, every icord contained in it, 

 yet he accuses us of publishing only a part. 

 If we thought that any one besides Adair, 

 understood that we were intending to take 

 upon our shoulders the task of punishing 

 " Eminent Naturalist " we might reply to 

 that. 



Agassiz's lecture on the honey-bee might 

 have passed uncontradicted twenty years 

 ago, but in the present stage of bee-culture 

 it was only the "worse for him " his per- 

 sisting in his absurd teachings. How many 

 of our readers have questioned with them- 

 selves whether he might not have committed 

 great errors in other matters as well as bees, 

 and as that would be out of our domain 

 should we not hesitate before accepting his 

 teachings as truth when we were not pre- 

 pared to discriminate ? 'Twould be a huge 

 joke indeed to think of giving the task of 

 " root"-ing out all the error in the " popu- 

 lar science world," to let alone the task of 

 punishing them for their folly, to 



Your old friend, 



Medina, O. " Novice." 



For the American Bee JournaL 



Out-Door Wintering. 



"Novice" says on page 41, February 

 number : Quite a large number of our bee- 

 keepers, with Mr. Gallup among them, con- 

 tend strongly for out-door wintering." I 

 must here make an explanation. I do not 

 advocate wintering small standard stocks 

 in ordinary standard hives on the summer 

 stands, by any means ; but large powerful 

 stocks such as I now raise and such as I 

 want for profit, I believe it would be rather 

 difficult for the most of people to winter in 

 a cellar. Then again such large hives are 

 unwieldy to carry in and out. I have them 

 so heavy that they are all that two men can 

 lift, let alone carry about etc., I have 

 stocks that liave as many bees in them as 

 four ordinary standard, strong stocks, or six 

 common stocks. Every person ought to 

 know that such stocks would be difficult to 

 keep cool enough in a cellar. I have been 

 led to experiment in the direction of large 

 hives by seeing bees in a room or small 

 house fixed on i)urpose. We have seen at 

 diftVrent times extraordinarily numerous and 

 strong stocks in sucii cases, and it occured 



