714 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



8ept. 1. 



not publish the plan, as some of them did not. 

 Would it be right for some one else, who. Inter, 

 conceived the idea and published it. to have the 

 honor, and control of its use? 



We can not agree with the statement, that 

 the one who iirst publishes a discovery is the 

 one who should have the honor of an invention. 

 It belongs to the one who can prove the first 

 use. That may be by printed proof, or by reli- 

 able witnesses who are still living, either one of 

 which is recognized in the courts of law in de- 

 ciding these dithcult cases between inventors. 

 Mr. Heddon may have been the first one to use 

 the terms " handling hives instead of frames." 



Now, please understand, Bro. H.. that we are 

 not trying to detract from Mr. Heddon's right- 

 ful glory or credit as an inventoi-. We recog- 

 nize the' fact plainly that he is a practical bee- 

 keeper, and one of the few who are able to dis- 

 criminate between the useful and the useless. 

 He has contributed, by his practical articles, 

 manv a useful idea, many of them entirely orig- 

 inarwith himself: but just how many it 

 would be impossible for any one to say. Re- 

 member, this world is full of ideas and inven- 

 tions; and the man who can locate accurately 

 and unerringly to whom priority belongs, would 

 be an anomaly indeed: and therefore our posi- 

 tion may be wrong and yours right. In these 

 days, when so many minds are at work upon 

 the same problems, new ideas and new inven- 

 tions are necessarily born simultaneously, or so 

 near it that no court of equity nor any editor of 

 a bee-journal, if it be in his sphere of work, 

 can decide to whom the credit belongs. Now, 

 let us simmer this discussion down into this il- 

 lustration: Mr. A. a quiet sort of man. has 

 been using a bee- escape, say ten years. Mr. B, 

 quite independently, a prominent bee-keeper, 

 some ten yeai'S later, invents the same thing, 

 patents it.'and publishes it to the world. Is it, 

 fair or just that Mr. B should go to Mr. A and 

 say, '■ Here, you have got to stop using that. I 

 was the first one to publish that bee-escape. 

 To riic belongs the credit and royalty ■"? That 

 is the way we look at this " first publishing" 

 matter. 



Blest, too, is he who can divine 



Where real right duth lie, 

 And dares to talie the side that seems 

 .Wrong to man's blindfold eye. 



THE 53d thousand OF THE A B C OF BEE 

 CULTURE. 



When we finished the 42d thousand, about a 

 year ago, we thought we had so revised it that 

 next time we could put it in the press with but 

 few changes; but our industry has made such 

 progress during the last year. that, in order to 

 bring the work clear up to 1891 — in fact, almost 

 1892— we found we were obliged to re- write 

 much of it, besides adding some entirely new 

 subjects not before incorporated. Among the 

 latter are Fixed Frames; Frames, How to Man- 

 ipulate; Record - keeping of Hives; Spacing 

 Frames; Honey-plants; Willow. The subjects 

 that have been entirely re-written for the pres- 

 ent edition are, Hive - making; Introducing 

 Queens; Candy for Bees; Extractors. Those 

 subjects which have received very large addi- 

 tions are. Moving Bees; Reversing; Smokers; 

 Veils; Alighting-boards; Alsike; Apiary; Bass- 

 wood: Buying Bees; Out-apiaries. There is 

 scarcely a subject that has not received some 

 slight revision. 



A noticeable feature of the edition is the 

 absence of the Simplicity hive, either in Hive- 

 making or elsewhere. The comments by G. M. 

 Doolittle are entirely revised and extended. 

 Another feature is a large appendix. In this 

 are put subjects that have come up since the 

 forms where they would regularly go were 



printed. The new features that were added in 

 18t»0, such as the Picture Gallery and Biograph- 

 ical Sketches, have been retained. In short, 

 we have endeavored to make each edition a 

 complete epitome of the times; and while it 

 assumes the character of an ordinary annual, it 

 is at the same time a complete text-book. The 

 present work contains over 400 large doiihle- 

 cohunn pages of closely compacted mattei', the 

 whole being illustrated with something over 

 3(X) engravings. This number includes some 

 of the latest that have appeared within the 

 past year. 



DOES r.ENDEKING WAX WITH SULPHURIC ACID 



RENDER THE »AS1E UNFIT FOR USE 



HV THE BEES? 



Since that article from C. P. Dadant, and our 

 footnote on page 702 was ptit in print, we have 

 been making some experiments. We took about 

 1(X) lbs. of wax, rendered with sulphuric acid, 

 and placed the same in our regular melting-vat. 

 From this we dipped wax sheets the same as 

 we did for making foundation. There was ab- 

 solutely no odor to these sheets, and absolutely 

 no taste after chewing pieces of them for half 

 an hour. To go a little further and make the 

 test sure, we went to the druggist's and got 

 what is known to chemists as blue litmus pa- 

 per. This is so sensitive that it will show the 

 least trace of any acid or alkali in a substance. 

 If there is a trace of acid, the blue litmus on 

 being dipped into the solution in question will 

 turn red. Red litmus paper will turn blue in a 

 mixture having a slight trace of alkali. Well, 

 we dipped some of this litmus into melted wax 

 that had been rendered by sulphuric acid; and, 

 quite to our astonishment, it showed absolutely 

 no trace of sulphuric acid left; i. e.. the paper 

 showed no tendency to turn red. We repeated 

 the experiment in a number of different ways, 

 with the same result. We feel very sure now 

 that wax rendered by sulphuric acid, after be- 

 ing made up into foundation, can have no pos- 

 sible bad eltect. We will admit, that the cakes 

 direct from the melting-tank of the sulphuric- 

 acid mixture do have a very slight odor; but 

 on remelting for making foundation, this odor 

 seems to be all volatilized, or done away with 

 in some shape or other. 



There is another point, perhaps overlooked 

 by our friend C. P.; and that is, that sulphuric 

 acid has a specific gravity 2>.2 times tbat of 

 water: and by the methods which have been 

 described in Gleanings, after the dirt and ref- 

 use have been boiled in the sulphuric-acid mix- 

 ture, the melted mixture is allowed to stand for 

 five hours. The wax comes to the surface, and 

 is dipped off. The acid, having a specific grav- 

 ity 2>.f times that of water, settles to the bottom, 

 and leaves the wax entirely, or at least practi- 

 cally, free. This shows that there is a very 

 slight trace or practically no acid left in the 

 original cakes. These cakes, on being melted 

 up again to dip into sheets for foundation, are, 

 so far as we are able to observe, perfectly 

 wholesome, and fit for the bees. There may be 

 some missing links that we have overlooked. 

 If so, our friend C. P. will straighten us out, 

 for he is a keen observer and a bright bee-k(»ep- 

 er; but in this we think he will admit our 

 premises after he has tried the tests himself as 

 above described. 



FROM A. I. ROOT, JUTST BEFORE GOING TO PRESS. 



Well, friends, I am here in bed yet, but have 

 much cause for thanksgiving. My blood has 

 got down to only 98^— only 3 of a degree, as you 

 will notice, above the great level of all the 

 blooded universe. Bro. Newman smiled a little 

 at my "enjoying" having the grip. Well, I 

 take it all back. There was a point reached where 



