674 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1. 



Nothing is said about the hig-her grades of labor, 

 apparently, but a great deal is urged for that which 

 is comparatively crude and unintelligent. Capital 

 is denounced even when it is found in tlie honest 

 possession of the one who created it by the skill of 

 his own liands and brain; and the intelligence 

 which is capable of managing savings so that the 

 little money in hand shall help to make more money 

 is beginning to be looked upon as almost criminal. 



up; at any rate, we shall keep on hoping; for 

 " hope," says Eugene Secor, •' is the bee-keeper's 

 best bank account.'' 



They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; 

 they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and 

 not be weary; and they shall -"-" >-.»•-.--. ■«. -a •>. 



ilk and not faint — Isa. 40: 31. 



The following stanza, by E. L. Pratt, of 

 Beverly, Mass., after " How doth the busy bee," 

 etc.. is so unique that we gladly give it position 

 at the head of this column. 



Now doth the busy little moth 



Improve each shining minute 

 By liunting up your nicest comb 

 And laying millions in it. 



In the articles on the smoker question that 

 have appeared of late in the Bee-keepers' Re- 

 view, the Bingham seems to have carried off 

 the palm. 



Like ourselves, the bee-keepers of Australia 

 are preparing to grapple with the question of 

 adulteration— how it may be ferreted out, and 

 how it may be put down. 



Fixed distances are being introduced in Aus- 

 tralia by quite a number of prominent bee- 

 keepers. They have corne to about the same 

 conclusion we have in regard to self-spacing 

 frames and non-burr-comb top-bars. 



On page 633, Fr. Greiner notes, among other 

 good things in his Cobs and Kernels, the fact 

 that honey evaporated by artificial means is 

 just as good as that evaporated by the bees. I 

 agree with Dzierzon, that it seems the bees 

 must have some process of separating the hon- 

 ey from the water quicker than by the slow 

 method of evaporation. I allude to this in the 

 ABC book, in describing an experiment that I 

 made while the bees were working on figwort. 



A. I. R. 



What an excellent bee-paper the Bee-Ueeii- 

 ers' Review isl It seems to be improving month 

 by month. We have wanted to pat Bro. Hutch- 

 inson on the back several times of late, but we 

 were afraid that our readers would begin to 

 think that Gi>eanings and the Review were 

 somewhat under one management. Not a bit 

 of it. Both journals are managed and conduct- 

 ed separately; and although there may be a ri- 

 valry, it is, in the language of Bro. Hutchinson, 

 " not an unpleasant one." 



A FE"W days ago we were talking with a gen- 

 tleman who kept bees many years ago. We 

 referred to tht- poor seasons that bee-keepers 

 had been having for the last four or five years, 

 and asked whether this was to continue. Our 

 old bee-keeping friend then related that, away 

 back in the 60's, bee-keepers had four or five 

 poor honey years in succession, followed by 

 many years of good honey-flows. He also al- 

 luded to the fact that certain agricultural 

 products were subject to cycles of four or five 

 poor years, followed by good years. Well, our 

 cycle of poor years, we are in hopes, is about 



THE FOUI.-BROOD QUESTION IN AUSTRALIA. 



Mr. James Pender, of Tallarook, Australia, 

 in a well-written paper read at a bee-keepers' 

 convention in Australia, takes the ground that 

 foul brood is not necessarily a curse to the bee- 

 men of that country. He argues that, if it were 

 not for the ravages of that disease, there would 

 be thousands of box -hive bee-keepers who 

 would compete with the product from well- 

 regulated apiaries; that tjie disease does not 

 trouble greatly the expert Bee-keeper, and hence 

 there is little or no competition in the way of 

 prices cutting from box-hive men. Taking it 

 all in all, he thinks foul brood is a friendly en- 

 emy: and therefore he questions whether it is 

 desirable to have a foul-brood act. because 

 there is already law enough to compel apiarists 

 to remove such a nuisance as foul brood in the 

 vicinity of neighboring bee-keepers. There 

 may be something in Mr. Pender's position; 

 but we should feel safer with the foul-brood 

 act, so that we could '"press the button" and 

 let the foul-brood inspector with the arm of the 

 law "do the rest.'^^ 



ANOTHER BICYCLE TOUR AMONG BEE-KEEPERS. 



Just about the time that our last issue finds 

 its way into the homes of the bee-keepers all 

 over the land we shall be starting on another 

 bicycle tour. Our steed will be a Victor pneu- 

 matic, and we expect to make a tour of 300 or 

 400 miles among bee-keepei"S and friends in 

 Northern Ohio and Southern Michigan. Yes- 

 terday, Aug. 1(1. we rode .55 miles, and the same 

 distance the day before. To-morrow we are 

 going to try to cover 7.5. Oh I but it is fun to 

 come and go when you please — no horse to feed, 

 no railroad tickets to buy; no bills of any kind 

 to pay. except, perhaps, now and then for a 

 ijooci big hearty breakfast, dinner, or supper at 

 a hotel. 



But perhaps some of the friends think we 

 ought to have given them notice before this in 

 Gleanings. Well, the fact was we did not 

 know when we were going to start, nor exactly 

 our route. All depends upon the weather and 

 the roads. We disappointed, two summers ago, 

 so many of our friends by not making them the 

 expected call, that we thought this time we 

 would make no promises. We — who's we f 

 Why, don't you know? It is E. R. R. 



Oh, yes ! we will try to send home some bee- 

 notes. 



THAT NEW BEE-DISEA.SE. 



On page 504 of our last issue we referred to a 

 new bee-disease that resembled foul brood in 

 many respects. We not only had cases of it in 

 our own yards, but had reports of the same 

 from others: and we there stated that it was 

 quite probable that this disease had been mis- 

 taken for real foul brood on the part of a good 

 many. Here is a letter just at hand that is a 

 sample: 



The foul brood that I made such a fuss about last 

 spring has all disappeared. I found in all about 

 four hives affected, I destroyed two, and one of the 

 two was in a bad state, half of the brood being rot^ 

 ten. Your editorial in last Gleanings sliows that 

 you have been troubled tlie same as I. 



Worthington, \V. Va. L. H. Robey. 



While we should not put aside our usual vig- 

 ilance, we do not on the other hand want to 

 destroy colonies when they do not have the 

 contagious disease. Very recently we ran across 

 some old drone brood that had been put in a 

 hive and confined by itself with no bees. It 

 had lain, perhaps, for two or three weeks when 



