■ DELVoTL 

 •To-'E.E.E.^ 



•andHoNEY-,. 

 •AHDHOMEL- -n' 



l\^ \§) f^EDINAOHlO 



Vol. XX. 



DEC. 1, 1892. 



No. 23. 



Stray Straws 



FROM DR. C. C. MILLER. 



FixisHKi) cp;li.aiun«; my bees Nov. in. 



That sugak-hoxkv discussion, I'm a little 

 afra id, will be easier started than stopped. 



Wii.\T -V COMFORT to know the bees are all 

 snug and warm when the wind howls freezing 

 cold! 



Ii,i,ixoi.-< HKR-KKEPERS have asked the State 

 for at least SIOOO to make a display at the big 

 show next year. 



Dox't brkei) from a queen whose colony 

 died in wintering, is advice I lately received. I 

 don't believe I would. 



Naxcv Hanks" owner thinks it quite impor- 

 tant that horses should have earth to eat. in 

 order to have good dig>stion. 



That Iowa max at Atlantic has a scheme 

 that he is quietly pushing by which he may 

 come in a length ahead of government in in- 

 troducing Apis dfjrsntn. Success to him ! 



The ix)Xgestevexixgs are now here, and it's 

 a good time for the younger members of the 

 fraternity to do a lot of reading-up. No danger 

 but the veterans will read all they can get hold 

 of. 



Mv WIFE SAYS I must hereafter label all my 

 "Straws" thus: ''This is a joke," or, "This is 

 sober earnest." since; one man understands as 

 " sarcasm " what I meant as honest commenda- 

 tion. 



~I Hoi'E Doolittle will not be discouraged 

 from telling of his downfalls because so many 

 are ready to tell him how to introduce queens. 

 I always like to see him down, as it's such fun 

 to see him get up again. 



Allex Prixgi.e has been appointed Super- 

 intendent of the Canadian Apiarian Depart- 

 ment at the World's Fair. lie's the kind of 

 man tliat rolls up his sleeves and goes to work 

 when he has any thing to do. 



SquASHRS are u-ually kept in cellars. Amer- 

 icnn Gardeninrj says that is the vei'y worst 

 place. Keep them in a dry place where the 

 thermometer never goes below .50°. As well try 

 to keep a cracked egg as a squash that is crack- 

 ed or bruised. 



To PRESERVE COMB.S from the ravages of 

 worms, it is quite important to keep them 

 spread well apart through the summer, and it 

 is also important in winter where th(!re are 

 mice. Leave an inch or two of space between 

 them and they are not so convenient for nest- 

 ing, neither will the midril) be so lik(?ly to be 

 dug through. 



Following the bad example of the A. B. J.. 

 the C. B. J. hns been calling me names too. 

 After being lashed into a fury by reading 

 "stray-sawing, sway-stawing. stay-strawing, 

 straw-swaying," rtiy jaws cramped sol couldn't 

 read the rest. 



That young man that's steering the good 

 old A. B. J. is trying to start a quarrel between 

 Mrs. Atchley and me by saying one can use a 

 typewriter better than the other. But he can't 

 make a break between two such old cronies as 

 we are, can he, Jennie? 



Illinois has set a good example to other 

 States. The Illinois State Association resolved 

 to ask that some of the $15,000 appropriated to 

 each State by the Hatch Act should be u.sed 

 for the benefit of bee-keepers, with J. A. Green 

 to look out for their interests. A good move 

 and a good man. 



Why do bees •' rake " ? is thus answered by 

 I. W. Wykoff: "They are getting wood to make 

 a kind of paper to seal their brood. They work 

 mostly on the inside of the hive. The cocoons 

 in the cells are made the same way." I think a 

 hive would be moth-proof if the inside were all 

 metal, so they could get no wood to weave a 

 cocoon. 



Whiteavash for HIVES.— Dr. Tufts, in Amer- 

 ican Bee-keeper, says he prefers whitewash to 

 paint for hives. Eighty cents buys material 

 for 130 hives, preserves the wood, and in Louisi- 

 ana, where it is important to keep hives daz- 

 zling white on account of the hot sun, he finds 

 he can do it better and easier with whittnvash 

 than with paint. 



Fooled A<iAiN! My bees were in good shape 

 to go into the cellar the last of October, but I 

 thought nice weather would last awhile. In- 

 stead of that the thermometer went down to 19, 

 then to 15, and. as soon as a day came when a 

 few bees flew, I got them in cellar. It looks 

 now like settled cold weather, and I don't know 

 of any thing gained by their being out since the 

 last of October. 



Keep up with the times by taking a good 

 bee-paper. Gleanings for instance. But you 

 can't keep up unless you first catch ujj. and 

 you'll make rather limping work trying to catch 

 up by means of periodicals. The way to catch 

 up is to get a good text-book like the ABC, 

 mastei' it, and then with a good bee-paper you 

 can keep up with the procession without being 

 all out of wind. 



A novel method of introducing queens is 

 given by John Poindexter, in A.B.J. When 

 he has a troublesome colony that kills every 

 queen given, he gives them a good smoking, 

 raps on the hive a few minutes, smokes the 

 queen in at the entrance, closes up the hive, 

 loads quickly on the wagon, and drives seven 



