712 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Skpt. 1. 



When the delegates passed out of the hall, and 

 when they came In. they were singing. On the 

 crowded electric cars and on the crowded streets 

 they sang — singing everywhere. 



This is my stoi'j', this is my song-. 

 Praising' my Savior all the day long'. 



The climax was reached in tlie closing conse- 

 cration meeting, in which fully 10,000 took part. 

 Whole State delegations rose in a body, offer- 

 ing their consecration in a word or song, in 

 concert. Almost every one at the meeting 

 pledged himsejf to try, during the coming year, 

 to lead one soul to Christ. How many of you, 

 my readers, will join in the pledge? 





They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength: 

 they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and 

 not be weary; and they shall walk, ana not faint.— Isa. 40: 31. 



We should be glad to furnish sample copies 

 of Gleanings for distribution at fairs. Re- 

 member, we allow you 35 per cent commission 

 on all subscriptions you take persimally. 



Among the new bee-journals for 1891. the 

 Missouri Bee-heeper promises to stay. It is 

 well printed, and the editorials snap with ex- 

 perience and good humor. Success to you, 

 Bro. Quigley. 



The Missdiiri Bee-keeper says that thick top- 

 bars are a great improvement; and although 

 there were a few brace-combs — or, as we now 

 distinguish them, burr-combs — there were not 

 enough to justify the use of a honey-board. 



Some of our agricultural exchanges, in theii' 

 bee departments, are calling extracted honey 

 "strained honey." The fact is, there is little 

 or no strained honey on the market — at least, 

 in any quantity. Strained honey is a very poor 

 article in comparison with that taken by the 

 extractor; and wciioiiethe apiarian editors of 

 our agricultural exchanges will se:' that the 

 V right word is usech 



A coKHESPONDENT writcs! "Only a small 

 portion of the California bee-keepers are happy 

 this year, as the honey crop is almost an entire 

 failure. San Diego Co.," he adds, "sends in the 

 best report; but there is only one-fourth of a 

 crop for other sections." While this is discour- 

 aging for California bee-keepers, it means a 

 stiftening of prices on eastern honey — a fact 

 that our producers should bear in mind as well 

 as commission merchants. 



We learn from our Spanish bee-journal, Bc- 

 vista Apieola, that Prof. Heer, of Zurich, has 

 discovered 844 species of fossil insects which 

 date back to the tertiary period. Among these 

 is found a bee, well preserved, which has been 

 added to that museum. Its size is half that of 

 the present bee. Its tongue, wings, and abdo- 

 men are well defined, and also its composite 

 eyes and two simi)le ones. Prof. Herr has 

 named it A.pis Adamitica (bee of Adam) and 

 he considers it the progenitor of the present 

 bees. 



William Little, of Marissa, 111., says that, 

 while some 40 colonies gathered very dark and 

 unpalatable honey-dew, he had some ten others 



that gathered only white honey, leaving the 

 ■' nasty stuff " entirely alone. We hope our 

 friend will tell us more about those ten colonies. 

 Were the 40 hybrids and blacks, and the 10 

 pure Italians? It is a fact often observed, that 

 Italians will gather white honey while the 

 blacks and hybrids are busy at work on buck- 

 wheat and darker grades of honey. If we are 

 going to be bothered with honey-dew from 

 year to year, it might be well to single out 

 those races that leave the " nasty stuff " alone. 



It has sometimes been questioned whether 

 there is any use of importing queens from Italy 

 — at least for some time to come — the argument 

 being that home-bred American Italians are 

 just as good or even better. In our Shane yard 

 there has been for several years nothing 

 but the latter kind of iDees. The most of them 

 were nicely mai']<ed. and were good honey- 

 gatherers; but, oh my! they are cross. In re- 

 markable contrast to these are the bees from 

 imported queens that were introduced a couple 

 of months ago. While they are just as good 

 and in many cases better honey-gatherers, they 

 are very quiet. Tlie gentlest bees we ever had 

 were from imported stock. 



Since we have begun to paralfine the candy- 

 holes of the Benton cages, ot the hundreds of 

 queens we are sending out. the number to be 

 replaced amounts to practlcnlly none. As these 

 results began to be noticeable immedUttely aft- 

 er pai'affining the candy-holes, it is something 

 significant. By the way, S. W. Morrison, 

 formerly of Oxford, Pa., now of Colorado' 

 Springs. Col., writes that he has used for many 

 years, paraffine in the candy-holes of his cages, 

 and that it worked well with him. As we 

 stated editorially when we first announced the 

 matter of paraffine for cages, the idea is old; 

 but it is one of the old things that is worth re- 

 viving. 



Mr. Andkeu, editor of the Revista Apieola^ 

 a Spanish bee-journal published at Port Ma- 

 hon. island of Minorca, near Spain, is anxious 

 to know about that Minorcan queen he sent us 

 in 1888: and he asks us, by printing in his jour- 

 nal, in the English language, in big plain let- 

 ters, what we thought of them. Our last report 

 in reference to them was given on page 7.5.5. 1889. 

 Since then, the bees proved to be I'ather vindic- 

 tive; and although they differed a good deal 

 from the common blacks of this country, they 

 were somewhat nervous, and unpleasant to 

 handle. The queen was enormously prolific; 

 but somehow this spring she turned up miss- 

 ing, and we have had none since. By the way, 

 Minorcans look a great deal like the samples of 

 Punic bees we have seen. 



Sweet clover seems to be growing very pro- 

 fusely along the roadsides in the vicinity of 

 Medina. We do not discover it anywhej-e else. 

 It is doubtless scattered during tlu^ muddy sea- 

 son by th.e seed clinging to the wheels of 

 wagons. By the way, someone was unginierous 

 enough to report that A. I. Root had been sow- 

 ing the plant all over Medina. Nothing could 

 be further from the truth. We had a little 

 patch of it on our honey- farm years ago, but we 

 could hardly hire it to grow.' But along the 

 roadsides, on the hardest kind of soil, where 

 nothing else will take root, it will start spon- 

 taneously and thrive wonderfully. It can 

 not very well be a pest to farmers, at least in 

 this vicinity. While it looks unsightly to the 

 average person along the roadsides, to "the bee- 

 keeper it looks very pretty when it is dotted 

 with the little toilers as it usually is during the 

 day when they can fly. 



