THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



t77 



brief, honey has never been effectively 

 advertised, and never will be until organ- 

 izations take hold of the matter. 



Montrose, Col. May 6, 1898. 



.Tl'^ EDITORIAL 



^^ffcrings. 



Hastv's Comments were a little late 

 this month; and in order to use them I 

 would have to throw out something al- 

 ready in type. I thought be.st to leave 

 them over until next month. 



■aP^J'^m^^/'^ft^^ 



Loading A Bee with honey adds to its 

 weight a trifle more than one-half, accord- 

 ing to some experiments made by Prof. 

 C. P. Gillette of the Colorado college. A 

 pound of empty workers contains, on the 

 average, about 5,5rx) bees. 



«^»«^<m^«*»^^ 



Eight Dou.aks a dozen in.stead of six 

 dollars a dozen, is the way it ought to 

 read in the advertisement of queens by 

 J. W. K. Shaw & Co. of Loreauville, La. 

 The error was not discovered until the 

 advertising pages were printed. 



wn^*F*»^«^^ 



White Ci^over has made a good growth 

 in this locality; and is now in bloom. 

 The weather is quite dry, though, and but 

 little honey is being gathered. Bees have 

 swarmed a little; but at this writing, 

 June 7, none of them have yet commen- 

 ced to work in the supers to amount to 

 anything. 



^^rf*«^rf»«T«jr» 



The Pacific Bee Journal has sus- 

 pended publication. Its editor is con- 

 nected with the National Guards, and ex- 

 pects any day to receive orders to take 

 the field; besides this, the drouth of this 

 year is very discouraging to all apicultu- 



ral ventures in California. For these rea- 

 sons the publication of the Journal will 

 be dropped until some more fitting time. 



The Atchi^k^s of Beeville, Texas, 

 write me that they have had excellent 

 rains and prospects are very bright. 

 They have 900 colonies and are now busy 

 harvesting a crop that they expect will 

 reach 100,000 pounds; 80,000 pounds of 

 which are already sold. This sounds a 

 good deal like counting chickens before 

 they are hatched; but, as some one has 

 said, "It is only the man who counts his 

 chickens before they are are hatched that 

 sets any eggs." 



Solar Wax ICxtractors are of no 

 value in purifying wax; so says Mr. Da- 

 dant in the American Bee Journal. The 

 dirt will nni out with the wax. Neither 

 is the solar extractor suitable for use in 

 rendering old combs. They absorb too 

 much wax. Water should be used in 

 rendering them, as it should in purifying 

 wax. When wax is melted and allowed 

 to stand on water, and cool very slowly, 

 nmch of the dirt settles to the bottom 

 and may be be scraped off. Don't u.se 

 iron vessels in rendering wax. It makes 

 the wax dark. I'se tin or copper. The 

 copper must be kept clean. 



Foul Brood may possibh- be dissem- 

 inated by the queen bee traffic. Not 

 through the queen, but through the 

 workers or the food that accompanies 

 them. So long as this is possible, there 

 ought to be caution. I suppose there 

 are few if any breeders who would know- 

 ingly send out bees*or food so affected, 

 but for fear that it might be done unwit- 

 tingl}^, it is well to be cautious. I re- 

 member reading somewhere, not long 

 ago, of some one who always removed 

 the queen to a new cage and burned the 

 old cage and its contents — bees and all. 

 Such caution may seldom be necessary, 

 but it can do no harm. 



