• DELVOTE. 



•ANDHoNEy-'- 



'AND HOME.- -f-i' 



•lNTIi.f^EST6 



i^speryeai^ \§j ^^EDl^lAOHlO 



Vol. XX. 



AUG. 1, 1892. 



No. 15. 



STRAr Straws 



FROM DR. C. C. MILLER. 



A STAKT. at least, making in supers. 

 Whoopee ! 



Whitk ci.ovkk is not a Hood, but I'm thank- 

 ful for even a moderate yield. 



I KKCEivED one of Allej^'s self-hivers. and 

 not a swarm has gone off since. 



L00K.S as if Prof. Wiley and the bee-keepers 

 would yet be the best of friends. 



Do LAYING WORKERS ever exist in a hive 

 where you tind si'aled worker brood? 



Your lindens at Medina are smarter than 

 they are at Marengo. July 16 showed the first 

 bloom here. 



Up in Canada there has been much opposi- 

 tion to wired traines. but there are some signs 

 of weakening on the part of the opposition. 



Do BEES IN.JURE crops bv working on the blos- 

 soms? is a question still asked sometimes. 

 Change just one letter, and you have it: Bees 

 do not injure but in.sure crops. 



York, of the ^4. B. J., won't dare comjnit any 

 crime, for his picture is getting into "all the 

 journals so much that he'd be detected and 

 identified wherever he sought safety in flight. 



Losing bees so heavily has given me time to 

 hoe a little in the garden and rose-beds; and if 

 I had a little more time I'm afraid I'd get as 

 crazy about working in the dirt as A. I. Root. 



A .STEEi, TR.\p is what I'm going to set in my 

 straw-patch for Rambler. Just look at him oil 

 page .54(51 He's lugged off a lot of my best 

 straws, and then labeled them '"California 

 Straws." 



" Somehow the bees have decided notions of 

 their own." says C. H. Dibbern. "and will often 

 persistently refuse to do the very thing wh think 

 they ought to do'" — the very same trouble; I 

 have with my bees. 



DoE.s "raking'" presage swarming? Now 

 is till' time to watch and report. It seems to 

 me I have seen bens " raking "" at the entranci- 

 after the harvest and all swarming was over, 

 but I may be mistaken. 



Bee-keei'ers who have out-apiaries are spe- 

 cially interested in the agitation arising over 

 the subject of good roads. They >.ay that, as a 

 nation, we"re away behind in the' matter of 

 roads. It's a coming topic. 



Italians swarm sometimes, we are told, 

 without having queen-cells stalled. Now, do 

 they, really? Did you ever know of a case 

 where the colony had not been meddled with? 

 Hadn"t cells been previously removed? And 



might not blacks swarm without queen-cells 

 if you kept cutting them out? 



Mrs. Woodman thinks her cure for sour 

 stomach beats mine. She was cured. '• not by 

 taking medicines of any kind, but bv not taking 

 tea or coffee, simply hot water and milk, half 

 and half." and th(! change in health was such a 

 blessing she wants others to know of it. 



Black bees, some claim, are as good as Ital- 

 ians, if they have the same care and attention 

 in developing a good strain. S. E. Miller, in 

 .A. B. J., makes a good point asHinst such by 

 asking why they don't give the proper care and 

 attention, and produce a superior strain of 

 blacks. 



Milkweed. L. Posey reports in A. B. J., is 

 avoided by black bees, while the Italians do a 

 big business on it. Prof. T. J. Burrill says Ital- 

 ians seem strong enough to escape, while the 

 bla'"ks would be caught, and raises the question 

 whether the blacks may not have learned to 

 avoid the plant on that account. 



To-DAY, July 20. honey shook out of the 

 combs very plentifully: and yet a comb with a 

 little honey in it standing unprotected a few 

 minutes started the robbers fiercely— something 

 I think I never saw before. Was it because, 

 not many days ago, the same bees were fed by 

 allowing them to rob out sections standing out? 



An Oregon woman thinks the horses in Cal- 

 ifornia have a queer way of moving their feet 

 when they walk, as she thinks that horse of 

 Rambler's is doing on page .507. Why, bless 

 your heart. Mrs. W.. you don't suppose Rambler 

 would think of poking along at a walk on a 

 bit of road no rougher than that? That horse 

 is a fast pacer. 



Editor Alley says he tried my plan of rais- 

 ing queen-cells in a lower story, having queen 

 above and quilt between. He failed, and now 

 he wants some mie to report success so as to 

 save iny credit. i)on't worry about my credit. 

 Henry. It's good for what flour and bacon I'll 

 need for a year, and may be I'll get a crop next 

 year. 



Pouring feed into the entrance of hives 

 with tight bottoms is practiced by.some,.and 

 highly commended. I formerly fed many pounds 

 in that way. and liked it much. But I began 

 to notice, that, after a colony was thus fed, a 

 good many dead bees would be found carried 

 out, and I gave up the plan. Whether the bees 

 were drowned, or what caused their death, I 

 could not determine. 



New comb is often built that is quite dark. 

 A writer in B. B. .J. thinks his bees found some 

 old comb in an attic, and carried it into the 

 hive to make this brown comb. I doubt it. 

 When not storing rapidly I think they often 

 take old comb where it is in extra quantity in 

 their own hive, and build afresh where they 



