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'uBii^Heo BY (j^' r r\0 P 



ErYeai^ \^ fAEDINAOHlO 



Vol. XX. 



FEBRUARY 1, 1892. 



No. 3. 



Stray Straws 



FROM DR. C. C. MILLER. 



DooLiTTLE is to talk b(^es in tiio N('\v Yoik 

 Voice. Ho'll have a big audience. They'll have 

 a good man. 



TiiK British Bee Journal thinks Messrs. Alley 

 and Pratt are somewhat changeable in their 

 views about Carniolans. 



Wn.L FHiKXi) Dhapek please tell us wlnj 

 '"comb-honey production doesn't need it." if 

 e.xtracted honey needs a two-cent bounty ? 

 La Gkii'I'kI La Grippe! 

 You old rip. 

 How you sip 

 The very life out of a body I 



AiroMATic swARMiNG-DEViCEs (p. 58) Were 

 discussed at the Michigan convention. I don't 

 need any swarming-device. My bees swarm too 

 much now. 



DooijTTLE, bees do hibernate. I know yours 

 don't, neither do mine; but the kind that work 

 wax with their stings as ti'owels hibernate any 

 cold night. 



R.AMBLEH takes the "■ we" and '' I" business 

 hard. Even in his dreams it troubles him. 

 Wonder if ifs a bad conscience, or if they fed 

 him something wrong at Dowagiac. 



The Revicio has struck out in a new line by 

 giving at the head of each article a picture of 

 the writer. Some of the likenesses are excel- 

 lent: but mine was taken when I was bad with 

 the smallpox. 



Tell A. L Root that they are sending around 

 some of that lumber he saw in Oregon where it 

 will do most good. My house was covered last 

 fall with red-cedar shingles from Oregon. They 

 cost, but they last. 



SoMEBODV must have read my paper crooked 

 at Albany to make me object to 43^x43^xl>< 

 sections. Why. I'd rather have all 43^ sections 

 so thin that no one could be cheated into buy- 

 ing one for a full pound. 



The big New Yoijk bee-men, wc are told 

 on page 21, are shy of reporting their crops, for 

 fear of some one crowding in on their territory. 

 Wonder if they would object to having legal 

 control of their terriUjry. 



Naphth.\line is reported in B. B. J. as a 

 cure for asthma, and also for whooping-cough. 

 For asthma, a sm(!il of the drng before going to 

 bed, and for whooping-cough the room to be 

 filled with the fumes from % of an ounce placed 

 on a hot metal dish. 



Exactness is important in all bee-fixtures, 

 as a general rule. Now, there is one thing that 

 often nulHKes all efforts at exactness — warping. 

 Before me is a piece of beautiful workmanship; 



one piec(>. however. iV, thick, has warped ^^^ out 

 of true, and a piece an inch thick shows warp 

 I)lainly. Can Mr. Warni^r or any one else tell 

 US the secret of selecting lumber that will not 

 warp ? 



A. I. Root better couk; home and see to those 

 boys. They'v(! gone and painted th(i cover of 

 my la-it GEEANiN(is another color, so I didn't 

 recognize it when I took it out of the postofifice. 

 I like the change, though. May be they'll give 

 us a different color each year, so we can tell at 

 a glance to what year any number belongs. 



George W^ashington "couldn't tell a lie." 

 I'm different— I can. But I won't. And the 

 plain truth is. that the installment of Stray 

 Straws for the Jan. 1.5th number of Gleanings 

 was not lost in the mail, but was gently repos- 

 ing in the pocket of my second-best coat, where 

 I had forgotten them. Moral— Don't have more 

 than one coat. 



Adam GRUnr showed me a cellar that he had 

 just built, with a cement bottom, with which 

 he was pleased, but on trial he found it a fail- 

 ure. I had a cement bottom purposely made 

 for bees, but don't use it. Bees winter better in 

 the part not cemented. Before building a new 

 cellar. "A'' (see p. 26) might try tearing out his 

 cement floor. 



The honey faihre is laid to the weather 

 by Hon. R. L. Taylor, in Review. He proposes 

 to remedy the matter by dosing the weather 

 with condition powders. I have no faith in 

 such a thing, and warn all bee-keepers not to 

 buy of him. He is a good law-maker and a 

 good bee-keeper, but has no regular medical 

 education. If your weather is out of order, 

 send $1.00. with description of weather, to Dr. 

 Tinker or me. 



The space below frames, two or three inches 

 deep, for winter, is a "pet notion" with the B. 

 B. J. That shows that the B. B. J. is wise in 

 its selection of pets. As proof of the benefits 

 other than prevention of clogging, the editor 

 says, "What bee-keeper of experience has fail- 

 ed to notice how well second swarms, which 

 have only half filled their hives with combs, 

 will winter, and how healthy and vigorous they 

 will be in spring?" 



Feeding sugar to produce honey, in the 

 shape of the Wiley lie, has kept us fighting for 

 years; and now comes a correspondent of the 

 Revieiv and gravely raises the question wheth- 

 er, in bad seasons, we may not have good comb 

 honey made by feeding sugar in the right way 

 and at the right distance. The W'iley affair 

 was an attempt at murder; the present effort, 

 coming from one of our best men, in one of our 

 best journals, is an attempt at suicide. 



I'm beginning to get mad. There's so much 

 said nowadays about "handling hives more 

 and frames less," and now Hutchinson says 

 that the use of frames is to have us learn the 



