748 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1.5. 



published after a considorable time had elapsed 

 with no reply. W(> ti'iist, however, he has not 

 succeeded in getting any thing from other bee- 

 keepers meanwhile. 



Friend Root:— Will you please advertise Mahlon 

 Taylor, of Columbus, Ohio, as a swindler y You 

 may give our name as autliority. He buys honey 

 and does not pay for it. He is so much more to be 

 feared, becavisi- lie i-efers, sis you will see by his let- 

 ter-licads. " to any liousi' in tlie city," and lias been 

 coinifctfd with s'onu' lionoral)le men in the same 

 place. We ue tlie losers of aboiit $.oO,UO on his ac- 

 count, owing' to his former connections. 



Hamilton, III., Mai'. 31, 1891. -Dadant & Son. 



INSURE YOUR HONEY AND HONEY-HOUSE. 



A FEW days ago we received an appeal in be- 

 half of a bee-keeper who had lost his honey- 

 house, and its contents of several thousand 

 pounds of honey, by lire. The building was 

 not insured; and the friend of the one wlio lost 

 the property desired us to put in a notice, re- 

 questing bee-keepers to help our brother in 

 trouble by contributions, the same to be depos- 

 ited at the Home of the Honey-bees, and by us 

 forwarded to the party direct. We wrote to 

 the friend that this would be impossible, and 

 that, when a bee-keeper was so improvident as 

 not to have his property insured, he would have 

 to stand the loss. A honey-house and contents 

 can be insured for a trifling sum; and even if 

 you never suffer loss by tire, you can. perhaps, 

 go to bed and sleep a little easier. A house 

 does not need shingling when it does not rain, 

 and a building does not need to be insured if 

 there is to be no tire; but we do have rains, 

 and we do have tires, and it is wise to be on the 

 safe side. 



bee-pai:ai>ysis and the sai/f cuke. 

 Mn. Aij.ey says, in the Apiridturist. that 

 bee-paralysis ilxiclllus depUin) can not be cured 

 by changing the queen, and wonders how much 

 longer this sort of advice will be given. He 

 pronounces the salt cure to be sure, and that 

 many readers of the Apicrdturixt have reported 

 success with it. Salt is known to be a mild 

 antiseptic, and it is possible that salt water, or 

 syrup strong of salt, might have the desired 

 effect. We shall test it at our earliest oppor- 

 tunity, and in the meantime we should like to 

 have reports from those who have tried it. We 

 do know that the removal of the queen has, 

 in all cas6s that have appeared in our apiary, 

 cured the disease, thus showing that the trou- 

 ble in our case is an inherited one. Cheshire, 

 we believe, found the bacilli in the ovaries of 

 the queen. By the way. something more ought 

 to be known concerning this disease. There- 

 ports of its appearance in various apiaiies all 

 over the country rather go to show that it is 

 on the increase; and altliough it is a mild dis- 

 ease compared with foul brood, it should receive 

 our careful attention. 



GOOD OK BAD PROI'OI.IZEKS— WHICH ? 



Dr. Mii.i.ek. in Stray Straws, pokes fun at us 

 in one or two places. First, he can not quite 

 reconcile the statement we made editorially, 

 that the Punic bees are /jad propolizers, while 

 the introducer of the same bees quotes them as 

 f/ootZ propolizers. Why, doctor, we both mean 

 the same thing. When bees deposit propolis to 

 an excess, it is disagreeable and bad for the 

 bee-keeper; therefore we said they are bud 

 propolizers. just as we would say they are bad 

 stingers, although "a Hallamshii'e Bee-keeper" 

 might call such good stingers. The English 

 language is unfortiuiate in having so much 

 elasticity. You may remember the story of the 

 Frenchman who. while on a tour through this 

 country, was told to "look out" while he had 



his head sticking out of the window, meaning 

 that he should pull it in; and on aiiother occa- 

 sion he was told to "look out," meaning that 

 he was to put his head through the window 

 and view some sight. It is said that he com- 

 plained, after getting his head severely bumped, 

 because of the ambiguity of our language. 

 Doctor, we didn't think that of you. You are 

 bad for poking fun, even if the Hallamshire 

 chap should insist that you are good at it. 



DEATH FROM A SINGLE BEE-STING. 



A CASE of fatal stinging is going the rounds 

 of the Eastern press. It seems that a young 

 man, Wm. H. Danley, was stung on the finger. 

 He complained of excruciating pain, and his 

 hand commenced swelling. In a few minutes 

 his whole system was affected. The report goes 

 on to say. that, "only ten minutes after being 

 stung, he fell into a comatose condition; and 

 before aid could be summoned he was dead, 

 only fifteen minutes having elapsed from the 

 time he was stung. The physicians expressed 

 a belief that the sting entered a nerve or blood- 

 ves.'^eKand the poison was carried to the vital 

 organs, causing almost instant paralysis." It 

 is no doubt true, that the young man was very 

 susceptible to the influence of bee-poison, other- 

 wise the sting could not have killed him, even 

 if it )Kid entered a nerve or blood-vessel. We 

 can not deny the fact that, in rare cases, there 

 are persons whose death is liable to occur in a 

 few minutes after being stung, unless medical 

 aid is at once .summoned; but these cases are so 

 very rare that they give no reason for alarm. 

 Alrnost every one who has to do with horses is 

 liable to be kicked or run away with, and yet 

 this liability does not cause any fear in han- 

 dling them. 



HO^V TO KEEP BEES AWAY FROM THE CANDY- 

 STANDS AT COUNTY FAIRS AND 

 OTHER PLACES. 



Almost every fall we have trouble by our 

 bees visiting the candy and popcorn stands dur- 

 ing the days of our county fair. As the grounds 

 are right in sight of our home yard, the bees, 

 especially during a dearth of honey, are quite 

 apt to makti themselves disagreeably free at 

 these stands. Several times we have been 

 threatened with a suit for damages, although 

 we have done all we could to keep the bees at 

 home, and have offered to make good all dam- 

 ages. This yeai' we pi'ovided several wire- 

 cloth paddles. (( Ut Doolittle. These paddles, 

 as made by Mr. Doolittle, are small enough to 

 go into a hip pocket; the center is cut out. and 

 covered with wii'e cloth. The object of the 

 wire cloth is to permit the air to pass through 

 the paddle, so as not to fan the bees away. 

 Doolittle's wei-e made of wood, but oui's are 

 made entirely of metal, the wire cloth being 

 supported and held in position by one wire loop, 

 and the hole around the edges securely bound 

 with tin. Well, we supplied each one of these 

 candy-stands with the aforesaid paddles, and 

 requested the proprietors to kill the very first 

 bee that hovered around his goods, adding that, 

 if they allowed a single bee to get away with a 

 single load, she wotild bring back a dozen 

 others; and these dozen others, if still allowed 

 to escape, would increase the number of visit- 

 ing bees proportionally. We impressed this 

 latter fact upon their minds, and then told 

 them that, if they hadn't time to kill the bees 

 themselves, we would employ small boys to do 

 it for them. They thanked us for the informa- 

 tion, and told us they thought they could man- 

 age the thing themselves, and they did. When- 

 ever a stray bee appeared, either they or their 

 clerks killed it promptly; and the result was, 

 that all the candy-stands were free from the 



