1897 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



335 



So far this soasoii I have received 14 queens 

 from yon. of which (i have come alive. From 

 othordtnilers I have received 11, out of wliich 

 number only one has come alive. How does 

 this speak for the superiority of your style of 

 cage? You are on the right track, and practi- 

 cal perfection is not far ofT. H. L. Jones. 



Cioodna. Queensland. Aus., Nov. 20. 



[I can't agree with vou in thinking that the 

 honey docs not conduce to sued ss. In two 

 other shipments sent about the same time as 

 yours, ((?/ the honey was used, and but a part 

 of the candy. If you tear up the capping I 

 think you will find that the honey was used. 

 We found, owine lo the lack of room and the 

 coating of paralline, that the bees tunnel under 

 the capping. At first sight the honey appears 

 untouched.— Ed.] 



LUCKRXE OK ALFALFA HONEY INJU.STLY AS- 

 SAILED; QUALITIES OF OTHER HONEYS. 



Some months ago there appeared in your col- 

 umns a letter from Mr E. Lipper. editor of the 

 A}ist. D. DuUetin, in which he referred in most 

 disparaging terms to the quality of lucerne 

 honey. Surely you, Mr. Editor, and the many 

 bee-keepers of your land who have given such 

 high opinions of the quality of alfalfa honey, 

 can not have recognized that it was your old 

 friend who was thus, though under another 

 name, being abused. Neither a footnote, nor 

 any article that I have noticed since in your 

 paper, makes any defense of alfalfa honey. 



At a recent meeting of the Hunter River Bee- 

 keepers' Asso., Mr. Munday, the pioneer of 

 modern bee-keeping in this district, drew at- 

 tention to this particular portion of Mr. Lip- 

 per's letter, and elicited the fact that the expe- 

 rience of every bee-keeper present directly dif- 

 fered from that given by Mr. Lipper. A few 

 years ago, when, after the great flood of 1S93, 

 there was none but young lucerne- fields, the 

 yield was light, and the quality nearer like that 

 described by Mr. Lipper; but now that the 

 plants have become strong and deep-rooted, the 

 yield is good, and the quality in color, density, 

 flavor, and aroma, such as to suit the most fas- 

 tidious taste, pleasing eye, palate, and nose. 



At the last Maitland show it was an exhibit 

 of lucerne honey that carried ofif first honors, 

 and the same was the case at Singleton. 



Surely Mr. Lipper has made a mistake in 

 slandering the quality of this honey, gathered 

 from the only source yielding much honey, near 

 the town where he resided for many years. 



Trusting you will find room for the insertion 

 of this letter, written by instruction of the II. 

 R. B K. A., as an expression of the unanimous 

 opinion of those present at that meeting, I re- 

 main, etc., 



Mich. Scobie. Hon. Sec. H. R. B-K. A. 



West Maitland, New South Wales. 



[The matter to which you refer appeared on 

 page .570 of last year. I have again read over 

 the paragraph, and I do not see that the char- 



acter of alfalfa is assailed, for I could hardly al- 

 low that without a protest. Mr. Lipper simply 

 says the honey is very thin— almosi sweetened 

 water— and that he has not bi en able to get it 

 thicker. I simply supposed that the climate 

 had soiTiething to do with it. for the same honey 

 in this country is beautifully thick, and of the 

 very finest quality. You probably have not 

 seen what has appeared in our columns in favor 

 of alfalfa. A couple of years ago it was extolled 

 by quite a number (among them the writer) as 

 the richest and finest honey in the world, and to 

 this day I have not tasted the equal of It, al- 

 though the ordinary northern clover approaches 

 it very closely. Next, according to my notion, 

 would come sweet clover, basswood, mountain 

 sage, and thistle. Among southern honeys, pal- 

 metto, mangrove, and Texas horsemint stand 

 high.-ED.j 



END- SPACING OF FRAMES. 



Your sketches of end-spacing devices are 

 timely. End-spacing, to a large degree, does 

 away with one of the principal objections to 

 Hoflman frames. I have found that propoliz- 

 ing ends of frames makes them harder to move 

 than the little they may stick on end-bars. I 

 am afraid, though, that the staples will cause 

 some annoyance to bee-keepers who, being un- 

 accustomed to them, and being used to full- 

 length top bars, will, in replacing frames, get 

 the end in line with hive, and bring down the 

 frame with a jar on the tin rabbet. Why not 

 bend wires like enclosed cut? You see the 



lower end is left rough to go a natural distance 

 into the end -bar, using the templet as guide to 

 driving, as suggested in Gleanings. 



B. F. Onderdonk. 

 Mountain View, N. J. 



[This same idea was submitted to us, I think 

 by F. Boomhower, of Gallupviile, N. Y.; and 

 our Mr. Calvert, before his samples came to 

 hand, had bent some wire nails and attached 

 them to the frames. But the more we consid- 

 ered it, the more we bncame convincel that 

 the staple, which we have since adopted, is 

 the better. An objection to the bent nails 

 above shown is the diflicuky of driving them 

 into position. I can not explain it; but one 

 will discover it when he comes to drive very 

 many of them. Moreover, the lower projection 

 can do very little more than prick into the 

 wood; and this end would not be as stable for 

 that reason as it ought to be. But the most 

 serious objection is. the moment the frame is 

 raised a little there is too much end play. We 

 tried frames stapled and frames as above, and 

 we very soon discovered that the stapled 



