()S0 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



of the conventions in the State of Michigan. 

 There used to be some folks in Michigan who 

 did not like me very v^ell, as somejjf you 

 may remember. When I mentioned it to 

 friend Cook he said that was the very reason 

 why he wanted me to go. By tlie way, I 

 have been many times puzzled to know why 

 this good friend of ours should take so much 

 pains with one so undeserving as I. Did 

 any of the rest of you ever have cause to feel 

 tliis same thing? Well, I attende'd tliese 

 conventions, and I have told you about them. 

 I got acquainted with the friends I did not 

 like, and. with a little help from our mutual 

 friend, all differences and disagreements 

 vanished away. 



Prof. Cook has a wonderful faculty for 

 making any kind of public meeting a success. 

 I have often wondered how it is possible 

 that he could have such an inexhaustible 

 fund of energy, good humor, and unfailing 

 interest as to make even the most commoii- 

 place surroundiugs bright and joyous. At 

 our farmers' institute here in Medina he 

 won the lasting friendship of our boys and 

 girls, men and women, and even old farmers 

 who did not believe in " book farming ; '' and 

 his accounts of his battles and victories with 

 the farmers' insect-enemies held his audience 

 as if he were reading to them a wonderful 

 piece of fiction. There are people around in 

 Medina County, and I am afraid almost 

 everywhere else, who get into the habit of 

 saying that farming does not pay. They tell 

 about the unseasonable frosts, and of the 

 drought, the weevil, the potato-bug, and the 

 low prices. The same people say that the 

 poor man has no chance at all ; and some of 

 them say that an honest man has no chance 

 to cope with unscrupulous men who get into 

 office. Prof. Cook meets all these state- 

 ments, and by his cheery good nature disarms 

 those who utter them. After hearing him 

 talk, you go home concluding that the world 

 is not so bad after all, and with a firmer faith 

 in your heart than you have had before, that 

 there is indeed a God above, who. in loving 

 kindness, has planned this beautiful world 

 of ours with special regard to our happiness, 

 comfort, and enjoyment. 



BEE-VEILS, CONTRACTING, ETC. 



ALSO SOMETHING ABOUT PLACING 8UKPLUS-BOXES 

 OVER THE BROOD AND NOT OVER THE BROOD. 



"Up FTER reading- brother Doolittle's article on 

 gfrn page 59", I desire to say that I second all he 

 ^Sk says regarding bee-veils, and have for six or 

 "^^ eig-ht years used just such a veil in just such 

 a manner as he describes. Back of that date, 

 as long as twenty years ago, when I tirst began the 

 business, I used just such a veil, only it was gather- 

 ed at one end with a rubber cord and drawn over 

 the crown of the hat, with one end of the veil sew- 

 ed thereto, just as described by hina. The hat was 

 always light-colored and light weight, but not so 

 broad-brim mod as our latter-day hat. 



CONTRACTION. 



Reading what brother Doolittle says about con- 

 traction, I shall have to partly agree and partly 

 disagree with him. We, too, do not contract our 

 brood-chambers until the time comes when, to 



produce larger quantities of young bees, will result 

 in a greater expense than income, just as explained 

 in his article, and also in an article of my own, pub- 

 lished in the American Bee Journal for 1S8.5, page 437, 

 and reproduced on pages 82 and 83 of my book. \ 

 shall have to disagree with our brother in his state- 

 ment that he has practiced this contraction as long, 

 if not longer, than any other person in our pursuit. 

 It will be remembered that Mr. D. and myself held 

 a public controversy with regard to who had first 

 published to the world the system and its advan- 

 tages, and that, as a result, I antedated him several 

 months. Right here I will repeat what I said in 

 that controversy; viz., that the system was not 

 first practiced by me; that I used it privately three 

 or four years before 1 published it, because T was 

 not prior in its use; and the friend who did use it 

 several years before I did, did not, nor did he care 

 to publish it to the world. Certainly it is not as ad- 

 vantageous a practice in the production of extract- 

 ed as comb honey, yet it is in either case advanta- 

 geous to prevent the production of bees that will 

 cost more than they come to. My experience in 

 this location has taught me to disagree with broth- 

 er D., that honey is as good to winter bees on as 

 properly prepared sugar syrup: further, that 

 young bees are not as good for wintering as older 

 ones. Again, it may be that brother D.'s Italian 

 bees will crowd even his contracted brood-chamber 

 with honey, but mine never do. So, if I wish to 

 practice late contraction for the purpose of ridding 

 the iirood-chamber of natural stores, and feeding 

 sugar syrup, I can do so. The great objections I 

 found to the contraction system with the Lang- 

 stroth hives were the loose parts— the dummies and 

 the removed combs. Of course, it took some little 

 time and sometimes exposures to robbers in mak- 

 ing the changes, but this was not the worst — bees 

 will not work quite as well in the outside as in the 

 inside rows of sections of the surplus case. Now, 

 when these outside rows rest over dummies, rather 

 than combs of honey, or, better still, combs of 

 brood, they will be neglected worse than ever. To 

 prevent these difficulties occurring with this most 

 valuable system of contraction, was partly what 

 led me to the invention of the horizontally divisible 

 brood-chamber. With three apiaries, each contain- 

 ing- a large number of colonies, what we do we 

 must do quickly. 



QUERY NUMBER 68 



Bears upon the subject in question. It seems to 

 me that some of those who answered, especially 

 Prof. Cook and Dr. Miller, must have somewhat 

 misunderstood the query. You will remember how 

 long it took me lo convert yourself and a great 

 many others to the value of the honey-board, and 

 how, almost alone, I pleaded for its use. You 

 know, now, that I was right. Now, again, 1 wish to 

 go on record as saying that no bee-keeper who has 

 had experience in that direction would think of 

 raising: extracted honey without a honey-board be- 

 tween the surplus and brood apartments. It is best 

 to have it queen-excluding if you are watching for 

 swarms, and don't have combs in excess of your 

 colonies. It is pleasanter to have no brood in the 

 extracting apartment. Especially with suspended 

 frames is the annoyance from brace-combs terrible 

 where no honey-board is used. If you reinoxe your 

 surplus honey from the supers by eonibs, think 

 how they topple around, refusing to rest on their 

 rabbets, whea you replace them empty, and the 



