1894 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



iM 



State Lf^gislature the Importance of such en- 

 actment^i; and thl>» duty will he performed. I 

 can assure you. Already, the committee are 

 formulating a plan, and no lime will be lost in 

 preparing for a winning battle. 



1 would urge every Stale in the country, 

 where the produclioti of honey is at all impor- 

 tant, to join us in this fight. Congress moves 

 with great— often provokingly grem— delibera- 

 tion in »iich matters. The " F^addocl< Pure-food 

 i;jll " wa«i an excellent one, and almost became 

 a law. Let us all join hands in urging that it 

 or anoth< r bill like it be speedily introduced 

 into Congress, and pre.ssed to passage. Each 

 State should see that its Congres^men are Mood- 

 fKl with p'-ti lion?. I^t us give ihern no peat-e 

 till this action is secured. 



Claremont, Cal. 



THE GLUCOSE QUESTION AT THE ILLINOIS 

 CONVENTION. 



SHADE FOB BEES. 



Tlfp; KFFKCT OF ^IIAL»K ON THK TK.MIKi: 

 BKKS IX CAMFOI'.MA. 



Ily H>>n. J. M llamhauyh. 



Ed. Gleaninrjfi:—! think I can speak in be- 

 half of the Illinois bee-keepers, as regards your 

 Slopping that " hue and cry " against adultera- 

 tion spoken of on page 10.5. I consider Mr. 

 Heddon an enemy to the cause by his course 

 through this whole adulteration controversy, 

 and we want to see that • hue and cry " hurled 

 at him until he will be ashamed to acknowledge 

 he is father to such outrageous wrongs against 

 the pursuit. At our last meeting of the Illinois 

 State Bee-keepers" Association, the following 

 motion was adopted relative to the petition 

 following it: 



"That each member be requested to send a 

 copy of the petition to their various representa- 

 tives in Congress, with the solicitation of their 

 assistance in having it enacud into law." 



TO THE HONOKABI.K THE SENATE AND HOUSE OE 

 REPKESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES: 



The Illinois State Be*^keepers' As-sorintion, in 

 meeting HSscmbled, by unanimous vote, petition 

 your liononible bodi s to make and enfon-e laws 

 "forb ddinsr the sale of any article under tlie name 

 ot'Mioney" unless it be tde natural product of 

 fl.jwers and p'anus. naturally jratliered Ity the bees 

 from the plants themselves, and marked with the 

 name and address of the bef-keeper. 



Your petitioners further beg- leave to state, that 

 the "Cong-er Pure-food Bill." as pr-«**nted at the 

 last sessiori of Congress, is in accord with the wishes 

 of the association. 



Now. Bro. Root, we believe this will meet an 

 approval with every bee-keeper in the land; 

 and if so, why not urge each and every one to 

 solicit personally, and by correspondence, their 

 various representatives in the halls of Congress, 

 to the end that something may be accomplished 

 in that direction? If we are in earnest in our 

 appeals against that hydra-hefided monster 

 adulterfitifjii. let us send up an appeal to the 

 throne that will cause our law-makers to re- 

 spect our interests, and do something to relieve 

 us from the gross wrongs and impositions heap- 

 ed upon us. 



[See editorials.— Ed.] 



Uy Wm. Mulh-Rnj-rnuniten. 



Rambler has recently, on more than one oc- 

 casion, spoken about the viciousness of Califor- 

 nia bees. I beg todiffer with him. I have kept 

 and handled bees in this Slate for 24 years, un- 

 der varying circumstances, and I know that 

 bees are vicious only as the owner makes them 

 so. In Los Angeles Co. I kept my bees shaded 

 with sycamore branches, laid on poles supported 

 by f)OSt.s set in the ground. The shed was high 

 enough for a person to walk underneath. It 

 not only gave shade, but free circulation of the 

 air. When first put on. the shade was very 

 dense: but in a few days the leaves wilted 

 and admitted more daylight. Every fall the 

 branches were taken down and burned up. At 

 one of my apiaries, where Baldridge. Wilkin, 

 Corey, and many others visited me. I had only 

 one vicious colony out of ].'>0. and I changed 

 the disposition of that by changing the queen. 

 Visitors often expressed their surprise at seeing 

 me working with the bees without any protec- 

 tion over my head, and with my shirtsleeve^ 

 rolled up to the elbows. I atiribnled the gen- 

 tleness of my bees mainly to the good shade, 

 which kept them comfortable, and partly to 

 their proximity to the house, so that they be- 

 came accustomed to seeing people and animals, 

 without fear of being molested by them. 



When I settled in my present location I plant- 

 ed I.tO grape-cuttings, intending, in course of 

 time, to have a hive standing at the north side 

 of each vine. The first year I kept the ground 

 nice and clean, and the hives were exposed to 

 the hot sun all summer. This made the bees so 

 ugly that I could not go outdoors, during the 

 heat of the day. without having a number of 

 bees trying to sting me. The next year I allow- 

 ed the weeds to grow up all around the hives, 

 trampling them down only at the back of each 

 hive, where I had to stand when at work. The 

 consequence was. that the bees at the entrances 

 of the hives could not see what was going on 

 outside, and I had comparative peace. I found, 

 however, that the grapevines were not going to 

 amount to any thing for shade (where the sun, 

 as here, shines on all four sides of a house or 

 hive during the day) unless trained overhead, 

 and that would lake too long a time, and be 

 quite expensive. I then planted locust-trees in 

 the apiary, and since these have grown up I 

 have had no trouble with vicious bees. The 

 ground under the trees is kept clean, as the 

 hives are standing on low blocks, and I keep my 

 queens clipped. But where the ground is cover- 

 ed with vegetation, and at the same time shad- 

 ed, it tends to make the bees still more gentle, 

 because no heat rises or is reflected from the 

 ground. My neighbor, Mr. Baxter, has his bees 

 in an apple and peach orchard, and the ground 



