•AND home:- '" 



•INTE/lEST^ 



Published by A. I. I^oot, ^VLedina, O. 



Vol. XIX. 



MAY 1, 1891. 



No. 9. 



FROM DR. C. C. MILLER. 



Plant posies for your wife. 

 No NEW BEE-.iorRNAT- lias Started for a week. 

 Those reports on p. 389 are very intei'esting. 

 Dwindling in Medina makes me keep my 

 bees longer in cellar. 



EsPARCETTE, spoken of on page 279. is called 

 the honey-plant par excellence in some parts of 

 France. 



That skeleton hand on page 2.58 has one 

 joint less on its forefinger than on its little fin- 

 ger. Has it been fooling with a buzz-saw? 



Who can tell, with some show of authority, 

 which is worth moi'e for spring feeding, a dol- 

 lar's worth of granulated or brown sugar? 



Locating hives on the south side of a build- 

 ing, very properly says W. S. Ponder, in Tndl- 

 nna Farmer, "is liable to give bees the swarm- 

 ing fever.'' 



Phacelia tanacetifolia is making some 

 stir as a honey-plant in Germany. I believe it 

 comes from California. Can any one tell lis 

 about it? 



Foul brood. Chas. Dadant gives, in A. B. 

 J., convincing evidence that there is no danger 

 of foundation carrying foul brood. I've breath- 

 ed easier since reading it. 



Dr. Tinker ought not to tinker with our 

 spelling. '■ Storey " is all right in England, but 

 It looks funney here. It's too much labour. 

 The spelling of our language is horrible, any 

 way. 



Maple bloom, my former guide for taking 

 out bees, is unreliable. March 30 it was in 

 bloom here, following which was cold weather, 

 including a snowstorm which left the ground 

 covered three days. 



Winter cases, on p. 289, seem to beat chaff 

 hives. But I'd like to see them compared in a 

 hard winter, or in a colder place than Medina. 

 Still, if the proportion were changed, and 14 in 

 winter cases had died toll in chaff hives, I'd 

 take the winter cases. 



The packing-boxes of the Oatmans, refer- 

 I'ed to on page 2(57, I saw last summer. Cer- 

 tainly not all of them had bottoms, I think. 

 They were three stories high, making 12 hives 

 in a i)ile. If I am rightly informed, they lost 

 heavily during the last of their wintering. 



The NON-swARMino system met my eyes in 

 reading. I felt curious and interested. Then I 

 saw it advertised by Geo. A. Stockwell. and I 

 felt glad. I sent a quarter, got a pamphlet 

 with less than would go on three pages of 

 Gleanings. I read it and felt— humbugged. 



"Uniformity should he the rule in sections 

 and crates, and any departure from that rule 

 should be disapproved and frowned down." 

 That's what the A. B. J. says in an editorial 

 inviting a full discussion of the subject. Broth- 

 er Newman, you've struck a good note. 



Coarse wire cloth over entrances in winter 

 is approved (p. 26(5) by Bro. Potter and the ed- 

 itor. Why, bless you. don't you know that I 

 am with you, friend Root? I even go further 

 than Bro. Potter, and have my wire cloth so 

 coarse the bees can go right through it. 



John SxMitk, in Nebraska Bee-keeper, doesn't 

 believe in "fixed distances." He says: "lean 

 set my hives near or far apart, and it doesn't 

 matter to other folks either. If they don't like 

 the looks of my yard as I fix my distances, they 

 can go and fix their own distances in their own 

 yards." 



A new pro.iect is on foot in England to start 

 a bee-paper. A stock company is to be incor- 

 porated with a capital of *50,000, in 10,0(D0 shares 

 of $5 each. Among the movers are J. Hewitt 

 (a Hallamshire bee-keeper) and T. Bonner 

 Chambers, of Sheffield, where the paper is to be 

 located. 



Cooking eggs, as given on page 282, is good. 

 Here's the way our folks do. Pour boiling 

 water on the eggs, at the rate of a quart to a 

 half dozen; cover, and set on the reservoir. In 

 10 or 1.5 minutes the yelk will be done soft, and 

 longer will make it harder; but the white will 

 not get hard in all day. It doesn't need such 

 close watching as your way, Mrs. Axtell. 



Starting seeds, particularly fine seeds, in 

 boxes. Bake the soil to kill weed sepds. Fine 

 it, level in box, lay seeds on top, .sprinkle fine 

 soil over, just covering the finest seeds; lay 

 bi'own wrapping-paper fiat on it. and keep al- 

 ways a little moist. The paper holds the mois- 

 ture, and prevents the seeds washing out when 

 watered, besides the other good it does as a 

 covering. 



Robbers sometimes clean out a weak colony 

 in spring. Whatever you do, don't take a hive 

 away that the robbers are at work on. If you 

 do, they'll only attack a neighboring colony. 

 Take most of the contents out of the hive, but 

 leave at least one comb with a little honey to 

 finish. If you must take the hive away, put 

 another in its place, with something for the 

 robbers to work on. 



Piping of the queen, says Henry Alley, "is 

 made by the rapid vibration of the wings before 

 the queens leave the cells." He should have 

 added, that the sharpest piping is made by the 

 young queen at liberty. Wouldn't it be best to 

 continue the old-fashioned way of saying that 

 the queen at liberty "pipes," and the queens 

 still in the cells with the coarser voices 

 "quahk " ? Cheshire says the wings have noth- 

 ing to do with the piping. 



