JOUR 

 • DELVoT 



•To -Be. 



•ANDHoi 

 •MDHOMEL 



•1NTE.F?EST^ 





Vol. XX. 



SEPT. 1, 1892. 



No. 17. 



Stray Straws 



FROM DR. C. C. MILLER. 



My hoxey is light, so is my crop. 



Light si-pkks make a light pocket-book, but 

 they don't hinder a light heart. 



HoxKY GKANui.ATES sooner when extracted 

 than when left in the comb. It's the shaking 

 that does it. 



Thk Revikw jv a review nowadays, and it's 

 no skim-milk affair either, (iives good cream. 

 Glad it's gone back to the " special topic " plan. 



What a season ! White clover abundant, 

 but supers have come come off nearly empty; 

 and but for the baits most of them would be 

 entirely so. 



The FEr-fXDiTY of the queen, C. Dadant 

 thinks, commences generally to diminish only 

 at the end of the third year, and sometimes not 

 till after the fourth. 



Do YOU LIKE Fux ? Just put a Larrabee es- 

 cape on top of a pile of supers taken off the 

 hives, and see what fun it is to see the bees 

 zigzag their way out. 



Swarming troubled less than usual this year 

 in the usual season, but seemed to keep up 

 straight along, and get worse in August, with 

 no promise of stopping yet. 



" I have spent three years in carefully ex- 

 perimenting with spring packing with outer 

 ca.ses. and I now declare emphatically that with 

 me it does not pay." — B. Taylor, in Revieio. 



TKAXsFEKiaxti — M. de Layens' plan. Shake 

 out the bees by bumping the hive on the ground 

 several times, mouth down, then place the new 

 hive over the cluster and let the bees run into it. 



I've got a (^rEF:N of those big Florida bees. 

 If she lives through the winter, her bees can 

 have the red clover all to themselves next year, 

 and then I'll be sure of a crop from one colony. 



Pi'Nic BEES have favorable reports from two 

 men in A. B. J. Demaree, in Guide, says the 

 little black imps are the most unmanageable he 

 ever tried to handle, and he had to break them 

 up. 



Conduite I)L' Rucher is a book you ought to 

 have if you read French. It's the book that 

 last Gleanings noticed as '-Management of 

 the Apiary." .Main part of the book gives work 

 of apiary according to season. It's good. 



A 8t.\ni)Ard as to the weight of a section is 

 being urged by some. A standard size of sec- 

 tion is desirable and possible, but a standard 

 weight— well, whoever has succeeded in getting 

 the bees to put the right weight in every sec- 

 tion, let him rise and so state. 



P'ouNDATioN- ROLLS, wheu badly stuck up 

 with wax. E. S. Brooks says, you should not 

 pick much, but just take a "cotton cloth, folded 

 to proper thickness, run it through the machine, 

 and see how nicely it does the work. 



White clover is reported by the B. B. J. as 

 in full bloom July 30, with a prospect of ten 

 days' continuance. "Moreover," it says, "the 

 bees are working on it vigorously, a thing quite 

 unprecedented in all our former experience." 



Asphalt felt for quilts is recommended by 

 C. N. Abbott, former editor of B. B. J., as a 

 preventive of foul brood. It's not the common 

 roofing felt. " has no stringy, textile fabric 

 about it, and cuts something like vulcanite." 



I've some hopes that bees may yet fill up for 

 winter. Aug. 30 they seem to be working hard- 

 er than at any previous date. Clover is still in 

 bloom, and they are doing a little on that, as 

 also on buckwheat, but their chief work is 

 probably on cucumbers. I'll be deeply grateful 

 if fall feeding can be omitted. 



Too MUCH SMOKE used on bees is thus figured 

 on by C. W. Dayton, in Rcvleio. If smoked till 

 all bees are subdued and retreat, work is stojtped 

 for at least an hour. If a hive is handled every 

 fifteen minutes, that means four colonics kept 

 idle all day — a matter of some thirty pounds of 

 honey in a good basswood flow. 



The Hill smoker is called by E. R. Root 

 "cold-blast." The Revieio gives a picture of 

 " Hill's cold-blast smoker" illustrating an ar- 

 ticle written by A. G. Hill; but the Ouide says 

 it's not a cold-blast smoker, and that "the 

 whole cold-blast principle is false and a fraud." 

 What is a cold -blast, anyway, and who got up 

 the principlf! ? 



Emma was smoking bees out of supers, and 

 every little while she emptied her smoker; and, 

 leaving a few coals, started it afresh. " What's 

 that for?" said I. " Because I don't want fire," 

 said she, " I want smoke. As soon as the wood 

 burns into coals it makes a hot fire, but it 

 doesn't make smoke like fresh wood." And 

 she did make smoke — the smokiest kind of 

 smoke. 



M. DE L.\YENs excited my envy by reporting 

 his management requiring only two visits in a 

 year to each apiary. Chas. Dadant, in the Re- 

 vwe, shows that, although he makes nine times 

 as many annual visits, yet the actual number 

 of days" work is 10 per cent less than the Layens 

 plan requires. Thtui he goes to work and 

 shows that, in a number of respects, the Layens 

 plan is nowhere a* compared with that of the 

 American Frenchman. 



T. F. Bingham, in the Review, enters a pro- 

 test, and a proper protest, against inventors 

 losing the credit of their inventions. Some lit- 

 tle change is made in an article, and the chang- 



