1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



36 "Pages7v:10 

 doo PEBY£APj 



I know. O Lord, that thy juilgrnients are riprht. and that thou 

 in faithfulness hast afflicted me.— Psalm 119: 7.i. 



How about those bees'? Have they been 

 united and fed ? 



The very warm weather spoken of in our 

 last issue lasted until the morning of Oct. ,5. 

 We are having at this date (12th) a beautiful 

 October frost. 



Repokts are beginning to come in, showing 

 that salt is a good remedy for curing the bee- 

 paralysis (nameless bee-disease). We have not 

 yet had a case in our yard since the salt was 

 suggested to us; but that the fact may be es- 

 tablished in the mouths of many witnesses, we 

 should be glad to have many more reports from 

 those who have tried it. The remedy is so sim- 

 ple, and so easy of application, that, if there is 

 any virtue in it, we do not want to pass it by. 



Dr. Miller says he will be at the Albany 

 convention of the N. A. B. K. A. Good! If we 

 can have him and that other doctor. A. B. 

 Mason, present, there will be no lack of fun 

 and enthusiasm. How is it. Dr. Mason ? If 

 you expect to be present, the fact should be 

 known in advance, to help "'draw."' you know. 

 By the way, Dr. Miller wants to know whether 

 we will be present at the Illinois State conven- 

 tion at Chicago. We are inclined to say we 

 will. We will try to go, any way. 



We have just been advised of the safe arrival 

 of a select tested queen by H. L. Jones, Goodna, 

 Queensland. Australia. It begins to look now 

 as though the mailing of queens to Australia 

 and to the distant islands of the sea had not 

 only passed beyond the point of possibility, but 

 had entered the realm of practicability. Our 

 success has been such during the past summer 

 that we mailed to-day a dozen queens to differ- 

 ent parties in Australia. The air. when we put 

 them up. was quite cool, and no bees were fly- 

 ing. \A e are afraid we may not have as good 

 results with this lot; for if the present cool 

 weather continues, the bees will have a week 

 of cool weather overland through the United 

 States before they will get to a warmer climate. 

 However, we await the result. In about three 

 months from now we shall be able to notify our 

 readers of the results. Oh, yes! G. M. Doolittle 

 sends two queens to Australia in our cages. 



One of our customers expresses a fear that 

 the green wire cloth that is used in shipping- 

 boxes would be poisonous to bees, and therefore 

 dangerous. We have used this green wire cloth 

 for years: and while we know there is arsenic 

 in Paris green, we do not think it'has ever done 

 any harm. By looking on our books we find 

 that, out of 363 nuclei that we sent out from 

 May 1 till Sept. 1.5, current year, we had to re- 

 place only two: and out of these, one was mis- 

 directed, and was some two or three weeks in 

 arriving at its destination, and the bees starved. 

 The other one was broken open in transit 

 through the express company, and the bees es- 

 caped. All the rest of the 361 were reported to 

 have arrived in excellent condition. Almost 

 every customer wrote that scarcely a bee was 

 dead. When the fact is known that every one 

 of these nuclei was screened with green wii-e 

 cloth, it would seem conclusive thai there is no 



danger from its use. In our fy)(et;?i-cages we 

 use blrtcfc cloth, not because the other may be 

 poisonous, but because we can see the queens 

 easier.- 



Quite frequently we receive articles, ma- 

 chines, devices, and what not. by express, sent 

 from all parts of the country, without the 

 sender first writing us to ascertain whether 

 such articles would be acceptable. While we 

 appreciate the kind motive on the part of our 

 friends in sending us these things with a desire 

 to contribute toward the advancement of api- 

 culture, it will save them and us a good deal in 

 the way of express charges, besides some dis- 

 appointment, if they will first describe the ar- 

 ticles they wish to send to us. We can then 

 write them whether we should be glad to see 

 the articles themselves or not. We have a 

 repository, or sort of museum, where these 

 traps are kept, and this repository is now filled 

 to overflowing. The result is, we have a good 

 many traps on oui' hands that we hardly know 

 what to do with. We hesitate about destroy- 

 ing them, because the owners have given us no 

 orders for their disposition. We do not wish 

 to discourage in the least any worthy efforts in 

 the line of improvements; butif you will write 

 us, telling us what you have, we can tell you 

 very soon whether the thing has been ante- 

 dated, is useful, or otherwise; and if valuable, 

 whether we want it sent, and whether by .ex- 

 press or freight. 



CLOSE-FITTING FRAMES IN A DEEP HIVE, 

 AGAIN. 



We see we are misunderstood again in regard 

 to the impracticability of the closed-end close-fit- 

 ting frame in a deep hive. One correspondent in 

 the Rcvlev: can not see how E. R. can argue that 

 a deep frame of this description will work more 

 with hitches than the shallow one. We will 

 explain. In practice you will scarcely ever find 

 a frame of any description that is perfectly 

 square — that is. it will have a tendency to be 

 diamond-shaped. The deeper the frame, its 

 other dimension being in proportion, the fur- 

 ther will the diagonally opposite corners pro- 

 ject from the true sfjuare of the frame. Let us 

 take an illustration: A frame, for instance, a 

 foot square, is a little diamond-shaped. Plac- 

 ing the same on the side of a steel square you 

 will find, for instance, that itis an ■' eighth out."" 

 Suppose we reduce this fran^e to one inch 

 square, the angles of variation being just ex- 

 actly the same as those of the larger square. 

 Now place this inside of the steel square, and 

 the departure from the true rectangle will be 

 imperceptible. Again, suppose our friend mea- 

 sure a good many of the L. hives in use; he will 

 find that the length inside near the top of the 

 hive won't always tally with the length near 

 the bottom-board. Now, then, taking into con- 

 sideration that frames in practice are not ab- 

 solutely square, that hives are not always 

 square if there is only an eighth-inch end play 

 in close-fitting frames, you can .*ee that the 

 diagonally opposite corners are pretty apt to 

 hit at the top or bottom: and the effect of 

 withdrawing them is the hitch that I spoke of. 

 Perhaps we have been misunderstood: butif the 

 Heddon shallow frames and the shallow Hed- 

 don hive are made as Mr. Hutchinson described 

 on page 699 we do not think there would be any 

 trouble from hitching. This is substantially 

 what we said at the time. But let the depth of 

 the hive be increased 10 or 12 inches, and there 

 would be. This is not theory, friend Taylor, 

 but actual practice and observation on a num- 

 ber of hives. But, Mr. Heddon. we understand, 

 is .selling a deep hive with close-fitting frames, 

 and he says they are a working success. We 

 could not understand how that could be till we 



