THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



25 



ter by the mere presence among them of 

 a new queen of gentle stock. Gleanings, 

 730. May it not be that all bees immedi- 

 ately after requeening haul in their 

 horns a bit, and feel as if home were hard- 

 ly worth fighting for? Experiments 

 with a cannibal queen given to gentle 

 bees would solve that question. 



"I have often worked in my study until the 

 weariness was overpowering, and went fortli to 

 Work in the apiary, when shortly I had forgot- 

 ten that I was weary, and went back to my 

 study able to do what wiuld have been other- 

 wise quite impossible except for the restful 

 pleasure received in the apiary.'' A. J. Cook, 

 Gleaning, 7318. 



T. S. Ford, in Gleanings, 733, says he 

 has caught the southern whip-poor-will at 

 the regular business of gormandizing on 

 his bees in the evening. Big fellow whose 

 opened mouth measured iV inches wide 

 and 2% inches gape. By the way, is not 

 the southern species of whip-poor-will 

 more properly called the chuck-wills-wid- 

 ow? Let us " beware of the widders, " of 

 course ; but I don't want a crusade again.st 

 our cheery little northern whip-poor-will 

 inaugurated. Let us wait for at least 

 .some evidence that he is in it. Probably 

 the other only occasionally learns the IkuI 

 trick, and therefore the few individual 

 culprits, and not the whole species indis- 

 criminately should be shot. 



In Gleanings, 734, I'. L. Thompson 

 thinks that paraffine paper on the sections 

 wastes too much time, and makes too 

 large demands on the bee-man's patience 

 ( with a sample of how near he came to 

 being betrayed into " cuss words. " ) 



In Gleanings, 738, W. H. Eagerty calls 

 for a machine that will shave a cake of 

 wax into scales the size bees secrete them- 

 selves. These artificial scales are to be 

 put on the bottom of the brood-chamber, 

 a place bees are accustomed to run to for 

 thrown-away scales, and other odds and 

 ends of wax. The editor blows cold on 

 the idea. I should say, may be there's 

 something in it. He that first gives 

 thorough trial to fiu-nishing wax in this 

 form, and re]wrts, doeth well. For one 

 experiment, blacken some wax, and pre- 



sent it to them in the super, in a, wax- 

 feeder sized and shaped like a section, 

 and see if they use any of it for comb- 

 building in the sections adjacent. Of 

 course, if they wdll use it freely the whitest 

 virgin wax should be used there. 



In Gleanings, 73S, A. E. Trussler reports 

 house-apiar}^ bees from a portion painted 

 white returning in considerable numbers 

 to another white portion which was emp- 

 ty and 24 feet away. Other colors ex- 

 isted, both in empty and occupied parts 

 of the house, but no other color drew the 

 bees astray nearly as badly as white. Pos- 

 sibly it is worth while to remember here 

 that white and greenish-white flowers 

 are a little more apt to be honey-bearing 

 than yellows, reds, and blues. And were 

 not these bees working on white flowers 

 at the time, so that the habit of steering 

 for white influenced them somewhat? 

 When bees are working strong on golden 

 rod or dandelion, somebody observe if 

 yellow empty spaces in house-apiaries do 

 not excel in the number of stray bess. 



John Craycraft thinks slightly damp 

 corn-husks the best fuel for smokers. 

 Gleanings, 739. If this is so, many of us 

 can get them readily enough. 



In the .\merican Bee Journal, 419, I. W. 

 Beckwith gets a just whack at Mr. Doo- 

 little for his assertion that bees learn 

 nothing. Wild bees learn where the 

 l)ee-hunter has his bait, and where to 

 look for it when he moves it. He put a 

 long bee-escape on his honey-house, which 

 worked at first, but bees learned to get in. 

 He plugged it temporarily, hoping that 

 it would serve the purpose again after 

 awhile; but, no, they rememliered as well 

 as learned. I would add that it is a mat- 

 ter of common notoriety that bees learn 

 to follow us about when we open many 

 hives in times of honey famine. And if 

 we work very early in the morning or 

 very late at night they are apt learners to 

 gradually get on to our tricks and be on 

 hand. 



In A. B. J., 657, Chas. F. Muth calmly 

 admits that he w.^nt into importation from 

 Cuba, with a first shipment of 87,000 



