]84 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 15. 



Glalow, in the Centralverein of Gormany. I 

 think it has been noticeable that, in every body 

 of tx'o-keepers I have ever seen, they were an 

 exceptionally clean set of men. Mr. Glatow 

 thinks bee-keeping helps to make them so. 



The laying of qitep;ns. the German writer 

 Gerstung contends, is not continuous, but peri- 

 odic, about 7 periods of 22 days each in a 

 season; 10 or 17 days of laying, followed by 5 to 

 7 days of rest, makes the period of 2:3 days. I 

 should have said eggs can be found any day in 

 my hives: but if Gerstung is right, there ought 

 to be a day or two every three weeks when 

 there is not an egg in the hive. Let's watch, 

 this summer. 



Thin sections, not more than l^-i thick, have 

 the following strong points claimed in their fa- 

 vor by the C. B. J.: Capped sooner than thick 

 ones: whiter, because less time in hive: looks 

 clearer when you lookthrongh the sections; hon- 

 ey thicker; ships better; sells better. All right, 

 friend Jones. I'll change to any thickness you 

 say. if you get the rest to agree; but don't, 

 please don't ask us to change from 4^4 for the 



Revicii\ says. "'In this age. grab-games of one 

 kind and another get away with more than 

 half of all we earn." But according to the 

 three per.sons named above, it is not "' grab- 

 games" which is doing this, but '" net profit" is 

 to take nearly the whole. I wish it distinctly 

 understood, that Doolittle believes that the 

 labor of liands and brdins is just as much cost 

 in producing honey as is the money spent in 

 buying hives, crates, sections, or any of the 

 other cash outlays; also that the labor of hands 

 and brains is just as much cost in overseeing 

 the apiary as it is cost in producing manufac- 

 tured articles or in running anv other business 

 of the country, where $1000, ISOOO, $10,000, or 

 J!20.000 is often paid an efficient overseer. Yet, 

 with Mr. Hilton all of this overseeing, and with 

 Mr. Root all of his "supervising or superin- 

 tending," is to go in as protit. When I was a 

 boy at school, a classmate and myself were 

 called the dullest scholars in the whole school. 

 Doolittle finally went at bee-keeping, and the 

 classmate as a salesman on the road. The 

 classmate receives S2000 a year salary; but. ac- 

 cording to Taylor, Doolittle should cost only 



other dimensions, jnst as we've settled on that ^45 f^f^^^ ^^^eks in the year (and that right at 



for a standard. ^ ^l^g time when the agricultural world pays the 



A COKKESPONDENT, referring to the editor's highest wages), that he may count all that he 



statement that he can get bee-work done for receives more than that as protit. If this is 



*1.50 to ?<2.00 per day. thinks emphasis should right, this classmate should call all he receives 



be placed on the qualifying clause, " providing over $1.07 a day. i)rotit. In a recent paper I see 



uie supervise or superihtoid the work." I don't that a certain company had employed a cer- 



see that there's anything particularly out of tain person to superintend their business at a 



balance in that correspondent's head. If you salary of >!18.(XX) a yeai'. Now. shall this man. 



had a number of hands and hired a superinten- 

 dent, wouldn't you charge up the superinten- 

 dent's time in expenses? And shouldn't you 

 charge for your own superintending? 



Chemicai, analysis made by the U. S. Gov- 

 ernment chemists, has in some cases decided 

 that honey was adulterated, or " aijparently 

 adulterated," which was known to be pure. 

 Perhaps this is the explanation, which I get 

 from the German: In polarization, honey turns 

 to the left, cane sugar to the right. But honey- 

 dew turns to the right also: and as even the 

 finest samples of honey are likely to have just a 

 little honey-dew in them, polarization would 

 show "apparent" adulteration where there 

 was none. 



Honey fok grip is going the rounds of the 

 German dailies. Take daily a teaspoonful of 

 honey and let it dissolve slowly on the tongue, 

 as a prevcMitive. the formic acid killing the ba- 

 cillus that attacks the mucus membrane of the 

 throat. Honey dissolved in water and drawn 

 into the nostrils hastens a cure. The Deutsche 

 Imker adds that, besides being pure, the honey 

 must not have been heated, for that dispels the 

 formic acid. That's all right for a German ba- 

 cillus; but do you suppose a wide-awake Illi- 

 nois bacillus would give in for a little thing 

 like that? 



COST OF COMB HONEY. AGAIN. 



DOOLITTLi: ItEPMES. 



The main part of my mission in this world is 

 to stand for (rod, for the right, and for liuimtii- 

 ity. Feeling this to be the case, and feeling 

 tliat you, Mr. Editor, and Messrs. Taylor and 

 Hilton, are wrong on this matter of the cost of 

 comb honey, I crave the privilege of being 

 heard again on this subject in Gi-eanings. 

 The position you three take savors much of the 

 ideas advocated by the hard-tisted and hard- 

 hearU^d of this world, that a few should receive 

 a Uirge shares of this world's goods, while the 

 average person should work for a^aere pittiince. 

 B. Taylor, in his noble article in the Febnuiry 



according to Hilton. Root, and Taylor, count 

 all he receives above *].07 to S:.'.0O per day as 

 profit? He cost the firm that amount (*18,(XX)). 

 Would it have been any less cost had the pro- 

 prietor taken that place and received thei=18.000 

 himself? No! 110! noI Let us be reasonable. 

 If Mr. Hilton oversees his workmen and his 

 apiary he is entitled to the worth of his intelli- 

 g(mt brains, and that worth is cost, just as 

 nuich as any part of the matter, and he is just 

 as much entitled to good pay as is my classmate 

 or the overseer mentioned above. These things 

 are not profit, and it is not right to have it put 

 before the world in that light. Again, when 

 we speak about how much it costs to produce 

 comb honey, we mean the cost with the (tver- 

 (ige bee-keeper, if we would be fair, and not the 

 cost with those who have exceptionally good 

 facilities for its production cheaply. A man 

 and his son once cut a bee-tree. They were 

 gone fi'oni home two hours, and obtained 150 

 pounds of honey. This lioni'v cost only about 

 ':; of a cent, a pound. Would it be right for me 

 to say. "Tills is what it costs to produce a 

 pound of comb honey"? I fancy I hear a tit- 

 tering all along the line; and yet this is only on 

 a level with Bro. Hilton's figures. What "has 

 been done by one, others can do. In looking 

 over "beedom," we find the average man keej)- 

 ing one yard of bees, and this, in the majority 

 of cases, gives the best results. To the care of 

 these bees he devotes all of his energies, except 

 the work usually done in the garden and his 

 small i)1ace. If he were a belter nuin he could 

 do more, but he can not be changed: besides, it 

 takes a pretty fair sort of num to do tliis. This 

 man could get. in some manufacturing town, 

 from two to three dollars a day, and board him- 

 self. Say he could get $(100 a year; then, as a 

 bee-keeper, he is a six-hundred-dollai' man. and 

 that is a part of the cost of producing his crop 

 of honey. To claim otherwise is unworthy of 

 the intelligence of an American citizen. If my 

 classmate had gone into bee-keeping he would 

 be a two-thousand-dollar man. and if he could 

 not get that out of the bees he would go on the 

 road again: and I see no logic that can make 

 any net profit to him out of his bees till they 



