1888 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



687 



comprising- shallow combs? Sometimes the brood- 

 chamber is two inches deeper than the Lang-stroth, 

 and sometimes four inches shallower. It is as the 

 bee-keeper's needs demand, and the change is made 

 so quickly that scarcely any time is consumed, and 

 robbers can not get in their work. 



It does seem to me very strange that you yet 

 have the least suspicion that any kind of honey- 

 boards, even queen-excluding ones, have any ten- 

 dency to lessen the amount of surplus honey stor- 

 ed. If you had made the numerous experiments 

 which we have made, and on a large scale, you 

 would know that they do not. 



PROFESSOR COOK. 



The portrait you present on page 678 is a good 

 one; and, after reading brother Miller's short biog- 

 raphy, I wish to add a word regarding our mutual 

 friend and benefactor. We all know that one 

 whose life-work has been in the direction of pro- 

 fessorship comes out with a very different com- 

 prehension of things from that possessed by the 

 practitioner. Almost without exception you will 

 find this class of men, however brilliant in their 

 life-work, impractical when turning their attention 

 to practical things. Men whose works on economy 

 have become standard, did not and could not prac- 

 tice economy in their own households; and this is 

 the rule, not the exception. But Professor Cook is 

 undeniably one of the exceptions to the rule. In 

 all my acquaintance with practical apiarists, I 

 know of no one who will quicker detect the imprac- 

 tical in any device or manufacture than will Pro- 

 fessor Cook; nor do I know of any honey-producer 

 who more readily recognizes the practical and prof- 

 itable in bee-keeping. This, coupled with his ex- 

 tended scientific research, makes him a most valua- 

 ble acquisition to our ranks; and though we disa- 

 gree regarding many points in bee-keeping, I hope 

 the time will never ' come when Ingratitude, 

 and blindness to the general welfare of honey- 

 producers, will find me outside of the class who say, 

 "Long live our benefactor, Professor Cook!" 



PLEURISY-PLANT. 



Last year I said something to your readers about 

 this famous honey-plant, and always said I believed 

 it to be the best one in the world because its habits 

 are well nigh perfection, as well as its being so 

 great a honey-yielder. I have told you before how 

 fast it is multiplying in waste places, at the same 

 time not being a noxious weed, nor giving any 

 trouble to cultivators. Well, last year its seeding 

 almost entii-ely failed; but, being a perennial, it ap- 

 pears in the same places where it did last year; 

 but the rapid multiplication of past years is not to 

 be seen this time. Is it not a mystery where honey 

 comes from? From all I know concerning right 

 conditions, gathered from twenty years' experi- 

 ence, observation, and reading, I can not say 

 why white clover and basswood yielded but 

 very little this year, under apparently favorable 

 conditions, while the fall flowers have yielded well 

 under unfavorable conditions, as we would call 

 them. Then the pleurisy-plant which every year 

 previously has shown honey standing in its blos- 

 soms, did not yield so copiously this year. It 

 was only a minority of the blossoms that showed 

 honey standing in them, although the bees never 

 deserted it for basswood or any other blossoms. 

 This year has proved no exception to the rule, 

 that the pleurisy-plant is the best honey-yielder 

 of ail. It has spread until there is no dearth and 



robbing when basswood closes. We see that 

 the quality of the honey is excellent, and the 

 color about the same as white clover. It is 

 standing full of seeds this season, and we believe 

 that, in the near future, it will be the best surplus- 

 honey-producing plant we have in this locality, 

 basswood and clover not excepted. 



THE SEASON. 



I presume, taking the country over, that we have 

 passed through the most discouraging, and, in fact, 

 poorest honey-season on record. Let us not be 

 discouraged, but recollect that, following last 

 year's light crop, the markets are left cleared out, 

 honey better appreciated, and the consumers habit- 

 uated to higher prices. Our own crop has been 

 something better than the average crop of the 

 country. I have now on hand about 1000 lbs. of 

 white clover, .5000 lbs. of basswood, and 10,000 of 

 amber extracted honey. Of course, this is a very 

 small crop, or, rather, fraction of a crop, from 

 three apiaries containing the number of colonies I 

 have in each. The quality of honey in this section 

 is some better than that of last year. We shall 

 strive to winter our bees to the best of our ability, 

 believing that honey production ofl'ers more in- 

 ducements at the present time than during the past 

 few years. James Heddon. 



Dowagiac, Mich. 



Friend H., I am glad you have given us a 

 name for your new hive. It is to be called 

 the divisible-brood-chamber hive.— It seems 

 to me there is something not quite under- 

 stood in regard to this plant, pleurisy-root. 

 We had it in our garden one season, but the 

 bees did not seem to notice it very much. If 

 there has never been an engraving of it, 

 perhaps we had better have it pictured out, 

 so we may all know exactly what we are 

 talking about. 



FALSE STATEMENTS IN REGARD TO THE HON- 

 EY BUSINESS OF OUR COUNTRY. 



As a protection to our bee-keeping population, we propose in 

 this department to publish the names of newspapers that per- 

 sist in publishing false statements in regard to the purity of 

 honey which we as bee-keepers put on the market. 



BOGUS COMB honey; a man offers to show 



WHERE IT IS MADE, FOR 35 DOLLARS. 



fOUR article in last Gleanings, on bogus hon- 

 ey, is just what we need, and it is a pity that 

 it, with your otter, could not be put in every 

 person's hands in the land. You have no 

 idea what superstition prevails among the 

 laboring class of the country in regard to this mat- 

 ter. I am the first person who ever produced a 

 section of honey in this neighborhood. At first my 

 neighbors thought it was some artificial stufi" until 

 I got them to come and examine for themselves. 

 Being a miner myself, and right among this 

 class of people, we have some big arguments, even 

 with people who have bees of their own in the old- 

 fashioned box hives. The merchants here have 

 been getting some 1-lb. section honey, but they find 

 it very poor sale; but what little I obtain from my 

 bees, or what is cut out of the old box hives, that is 

 smeared around and mussed up in all shapes, sells 

 readily at a good price. They claim it is pure, and 

 tastes much better than any they get out of the 

 store. It really makes me feel cross to hear an In- 

 tel Ugrent man stand up and advocate the cause of 



