1892 



C.LEANIN(}S IN HEE CULTURE. 



oliaso a luiiulivd by doin;: it by the power of 

 hiVi\ and not by mitrlu or stivnjith or moiii'v. 

 If I went to woiK to stop my wifo from using 

 lobaci'o, iior alTcotion, love and t'st(>cm for me. 

 and mini' for licr. wonlii be ilicgi'i-at lever on 

 wliii'li 1 would \\oiU. In all tbese years sini't' 

 my lirst t'liristian experience, iliis iniRbty lever 

 has lieen gro\viii}i so long and strong that I am 

 SUP!' that even Satan himself with all his allie^; 

 could never break nor bend it. I should I'xpect 

 her to spring forward on the instant, wi'h ^ome- 

 ihing liUe this: "All right, dear husband. If 

 ihe loliac'o I use gives you so much p;iin I will 

 drop it this inslant. no matter what it costs 

 me:"" uud net to Lave the matter one-sided, I 

 should exc>c;. r' course, to do tiie same iu re- 

 gard tc SLi.) jLU.r hiibiiof mine that gave her 

 pain. Why. I should not be }utlf n mun if I 

 could not saci'itice simicthimi for her deai" sake. 

 And riow l)etween proprietors and their help, 

 there should be this same priuciph' of Christian 

 lovi'. When the proprietor is in a tight place, 

 with work to be done at a certain tinu;. the feel- 

 ing of good will between himself and his men 

 should be such that, just us soon as he came 

 among them and stated his wishes, there would 

 be a grand*iallying to the front, with an invita- 

 tion to him to ■■ bring on the work."' telling him 

 it would be tinished in tirst-class style at the 

 time he wanted it. Wliy. such a state of affairs, 

 compared with things as they are in that com- 

 munity in Penusylvania. would seem like a 

 heaven upon earth. Hm yet it is no myth. 

 There are various manufactories hert^ in our 

 country that come very near to it. Now. this 

 gooti will — this cheerful alacrity among men — 

 can not be purchased with //lo/ic// alone. It can 

 not be worked up in a day. The employer 

 mu>t. by personal acquaintance, gain the good 

 will of his helpers by just and considerate deal- 

 ing and acts of kindness and sympathy. He 

 must be one among them. In this way five men 

 slidll chase a hundii-d. and a hundred shall put 

 ten lli<nistni(l to tlitrlit. 



Jesus said. I am the li(fht of the world: he that fullnweth me 

 shall n"t walk in darkness, but sliiU have the light vt life. 

 — JoH.N 8. 12. 



Oil myl you just ought to see what be-auti- 

 ful combs horizontal wiring gives on medium 

 brood foundation. It is re;illy <.oo bad that bee- 

 keepers generally have never given tliis plan a 

 careful trial. Tlie combs that we are now 

 getting are like solid boards; and in many 

 cases they are already being built clear down to 

 the bottom-bar. leaving no lurking-jilace for 

 queens or bees to hide. So much for a narrow 

 bottom- bar. 



The flow from basswood has been exception- 

 ally heavy. We never saw the bees working so 

 strong as they have been during the last week. 

 On or about the first of July our colonies were 

 on the verge of starvation. '\t this date, July 

 I'i. all the hives are crammed full of honey, 

 and even nuclei have filled their combs. This 

 large, supply of nectar seems to come entirely 

 from young basswood-trees, because the old 

 ones have been cut down for sections. 



Later.— U transpires that some of this honey, 

 at least, is from white clover, which this year 

 we thought would amount to nothing. 



SoMK years ago we weri' (piite severely and 

 harshly, as we thought, criticised for ofterjug 

 to .sell laying queens at a dollar each, such 

 queens being styled worthless, etc. It is a little 

 refreshing, if not comical, to notice how those 

 Siime i)arties are now •celling unlesled queens 

 for from 7.") cts. to *1.0(). Did these critics of by- 

 gone days forget the past when the logic of 

 ■ioUars and cents convinced them of their for- 

 mer error, and that good queens could be produc- 

 ed for this money? 



We shall be v(>ry much obliged if bee-keepers 

 all over the country, just as soon as thev read 

 this, will send us a pt)stal card, answering, in 

 not more than four or live words, these two 

 questions: 1. How has the honey season been 

 with you this year? 'i. What is vour average 

 per colony up to date? .\nswer' by number. 

 We an- well aware that this will be too early 

 for many localities, on account of the lateness 

 of the season; but we want just such informa- 

 tion as you are able to give at the time; of sign- 

 ing the postal card. What we desire to do is to 

 report the condition of the honey .season, so far 

 as possible, throughout the country. 



We are receiving excellent reports from the 

 new Hoffman frame, with its V edge on one 

 side of the end-bars. Theory says the sharp 

 point will not work: but practice and experi- 

 ence say emphatically that it does. The more 

 we try and use these frames, the more pi-ide we 

 take in feeling that we called the attention of 

 bee-keepers in these latter days to something 

 which has been used successifully for the last 

 ten or twelve years. The V edge has been 

 quite severely attacked by those who have not 

 tried it. It might be well for those critics to 

 give it a trial. 



E. T. Flanagan, of Belleville, 111., says, in 

 the Bee-keepers' Review, that, after years of 

 experience, he has come to the conclusion that 

 it is far better and safer to ship bees on a frame 

 of brood and honey than to ship them in pound 

 packages with only candy: and that the slight 

 additional express charges, as a result of the 

 former method, are more than made up by the 

 better condition of the nucleus. This is exactly 

 our experiiMice. We have been testing the mat- 

 ter again this summer, with the same old result 

 that pound packages on the Good candy are a 

 VI ry unreliable method of shipping bees.' Bees 

 on combs invariably go through in good order, 

 while bees on pound packages .seldom do. 



Some weeks ago we purchased one of Doo- 

 little's queens that produce bees having abdo- 

 mens almost .solid yellow. On most of the bees 

 there is only a little ti[) of black just back of 

 the sting. They are not' old enough yet to be 

 tested for honey. La.si fall we received fi'om 

 W. H. Laws a queen whose bees are four and 

 live banded. These bec^s are also beautiful, 

 and good honey-gatherers, as well as being 

 gentle. We have had other bees of the five- 

 banded sort that were very inferior— not only 

 as to the industry of tin; bees, but as to the 

 prolificness of the queen. Three such (pieens 

 witli their colonies succumbed duiing winter, 

 while almost the whole apiary wintered nicely! 

 The Laws queen proved to be hardv. and we 

 have no doubt that the one from Doolittle will 

 do equally well. 



To test more carefully horizontal wiring we 

 have been trying frames with three, four, and 

 five horizontal wires, for the purpose of deter- 

 mining which number of wires would give the 

 best results. Three wires, such as we have 

 been advocating, do quite well; but four wires 

 are belter; but we do not yet discover that the 



