GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15. 



straight, then bend them after driving. No 

 tricli at all. See the sample I sent you some 

 time ago But I'm going to try the staples, 

 and shall be glad if they prove better than 

 nails. LYes, it is true that a nail can be bent 

 over; but on account of the spring of the wire 

 the point of the nail generally fails to imbed 

 itself into the end -bar; but staples, if you will 

 try them, you will find to be very much better 

 than nails. With the former the frames will 

 hold their end-spaced position nearly % inch 

 above the tin rabbet.— Ed.] 



Of ten colonies wintered outdoors, 80 

 per cent came through alive. Of the remain- 

 ing 90 of the same apiary, wintered in cellar, 100 

 per cent came through alive. Those outdoors 

 were well packed overhead with an extra story 

 beneath, but no packing at sides. The winter 

 was unusually mild. The other two apiaries 

 were wintered in cellar, and all lived except 

 three queenless, and one that (say, Mr. Printer, 

 couldn't you print the next word smaller so it 

 wouldn't be noticed?) starved. [I am surprised 

 that you obtained as good results as you did 

 with your ten colonies outdoors. If they had 

 had packing all around I think you would 

 have saved the other colonies, and the other 

 eight would have been stronger. Packed space 

 above is good, but not enough— at least for our 

 locality; and, if I am any judge, the winters 

 are much colder in Marengo than here in Me- 

 dina. But your results in the cellar were good 

 —very good.— Ed.] 



Probably T. F. Bingham and B. Walker are 

 both right. Honey to be called '• fancy " should 

 be fancy, and our fancy grade is so worded as 

 to admit scarcely any honey. One trouble is, 

 that the designation of grades is not strictly 

 honest. When you stop to think carefully 

 about it, you'll not consider the names " fancy " 

 and " No. 1 " a very strong testimony to the 

 truthfulness of bee-keepers. [I have been con- 

 sulting with a number of prominent bee-keep- 

 ers in regard to the present rules for grading, 

 and it is very evident that they need some 

 slight modification. I believe it is useless to 

 try to get a convention of bee-keepers to fix up 

 a set of rules that will be generally acceptable; 

 and if Bros. York and Hutchinson will go in 

 with me we will take our present rules and 

 make them more nearly what they ought to be. 

 After all, it is the bee-journals that give cur- 

 rency and value to any system of rules that 

 may be adopted. — Ed.] 



Paper between sheets of foundation is a 

 nuisance /or this loenlity. It takes an hour to 

 pick the paper out of a 25-pound box, and it 

 must takesome time to put it there, and I don't 

 know of any possible good it does. This year I 

 had one box come without paper, and it came 

 just as nicely as the papered. What's it paper- 

 ed for, anyway ? [Our brood foundation is pa- 



pered by machinery, and a little later on our 

 thin and extra thin will also be papered in the 

 same way. I am rather of the opinion, how- 

 ever, that there is no very good reason why pa- 

 per should be used; and why we do is because 

 we are afraid to try tbe experiment of leaving 

 paper out. While the expense to us is but tri- 

 fling, we should be very glad to leave it out en- 

 tirely, if the trade would not object. We should 

 be glad to hear from our readers on this point; 

 and when authorized to do so we will willingly 

 send out shipments without paper, but hardly 

 dare to do it otherwise.— Ed.] 



One reason why the Rietsche press is so 

 popular in Europe is the amount of adultera- 

 tion in the foundation that is sold. I'm heart- 

 ily thankful that we can order foundation, and 

 feel just as certain of its purity as of the water 

 in our wells — perhaps more so. [The founda- 

 tion-makers of this country know that the 

 adulteration of beeswax for foundation pur- 

 poses would be bad policy, both financially and 

 morally; and very fortunately, as I have ex- 

 plained, the new Weed automatic sheeting-ma- 

 chine will not handle paraf3Qne or ceresino, even 

 when mixed with beeswax. There is a dental 

 trade that calls for mixtures of beeswax and 

 earth waxes; and in endeavoring to make the 

 Weed sheeter handle such products we found it 

 was worse than a balky horse. Even ten per 

 cent of paraffine with pure beeswax would show 

 itself in the sheets. Bee-keepers can, there- 

 fore, aepend upon it that the new-process found- 

 ation musi necessarily be pure, for it can not 

 be new process and be adulterated. — Ed.] 



Emphatically, I believe friends Abbott and 

 Thompson are right, on p. 321, in thinking that 

 well-ripened honey, honey with a "body," is 

 slowest to granulate. Also, friend Abbott is 

 correct in placing alfalfa as the honey that in- 

 terferes least with the flavor of whatever it 

 sweetens. It has the least flavoring of any 

 honey I know of, and I like it best in tea or cof- 

 fee — or, rather, postum cereal. [We have been 

 using postum cereal at our house for months 

 back, and personally I very much prefer it to 

 the best grades of Java or Mocha cofl'ee. Late- 

 ly we have been using what is known as magic 

 cereal, and are inclined to prefer it, because 

 there is no sweetening in it as is the case with 

 postum cereal; and from a health standpoint, 

 as a substitute for coffee it is very much better; 

 and I believe the time is coming when many 

 will say that it is not only better but very much 

 cheaper. Cereal drinks are nutritious, while 

 coffee is a narcotic, and decidedly an enemy to 

 good digestion, if the word of our best physi- 

 cians means any thing. Magic cereal, having 

 no sweetening, would be more acceptable to the 

 beekeeper, as he could sweeten it with alfalfa 

 honey just to his liking. Hurrah for magic 

 cereal and alfalfa honey!— Ed.] 



