406 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1. 



The new Union, since it has turned out 

 there are to be two, needs another name so the 

 old and new Union will not get mixed. "Alli- 

 ance" has been suggested, also "League." 

 The latter has the advantage of brevity. [I do 

 not like either name. What is the matter with 

 "Association" — the name we formerly had? 

 " The United States Bee-keepers' Association " 

 — that sounds well. — Ed.J 



R. A. Tobey, p. 375, gives a fair showing of 

 the variation in the weight of section*. While 

 the average of all was 14% oz., that of the 

 heaviest case was 16.6 oz., and that of me light- 

 est 13.2 oz. Of course, single sections in the 

 heaviest were more than 16.6, and in the light- 

 est less than 13.2. Is it just the thing to sell 

 such sections by the piece, charging as much 

 for the lightest as the heaviest? 



Wm. McEvoy, Canada's Foul-brood Inspector, 

 says the Wisconsin foul-brood law is the most 

 perfect one in the world, and one that every 

 State and province should copy after.— Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal. [McEvoy's opinion of the 

 Wisconsin law is worth much, for certainly he 

 ougnt to know. Perhaps it would be well for 

 bee-journals to hold up this law as the ideal 

 law fo. other States to enact.— Ed.] 



R. Wilkin thinks we ought to have a word 

 to express the contents of a hive exclusive of 

 the box containing the bees. Seems to me there 

 are several new words needed. Who'll furnish 

 them? [Supply-dealers, in referring to that 

 which goes to make the inside of the hive, with- 

 out the bees, speak of it as " inside furniture," 

 as " fixtures," as "frames and sections." To my 

 notion, the first name is the best.— Ed.] 



Supers ought to have been put on my hives 

 the first week in May, according to the ortho- 

 dox rule, that they should be put on as soon as 

 white wax is seen along the top-bars. Possibly 

 some of them might store dandelion honey in 

 sections, but I'd rather have the honey worked 

 up into bees for the clover crop. [The season 

 is considerably later this year, and we shall 

 have to make our calculations accordingly.— 

 Ed.] 



Pkof. a. J. Cook, in American Bee Journal, 

 says, "We used to hear a good deal about di- 

 viding bees, or artificial swarming: but in 

 these latter days I think very few attempt any 

 increase except by natural swarming." Tut, 

 tut, professor! don't think that, because we 

 don't talk as much about it as when it was new, 

 we don't practice it— lots of us. Last year I 

 increased 121, only two of which were natural 

 swarms, and one of them ran away before it 

 was hived. 



That good-looking Australian presents a 

 strong argument in favor of queen cells in 

 drone-comb, p. 365. [Photography always tells 

 the truth, and a half-tone reproduction is the 

 same thing in printers' ink. If friend Jones 



had told us what he could do, may be we might 

 have disbelieved him; but when he gave us a 

 peep of ihe thing itself, so that we could actu- 

 ally see it, then there was no room for doubt. 

 I hope many of our readers will try the method 

 there described.— Ed.] 



So magic cereal is ahead of postum cereal, 

 Is it? First I've heard of it. Can't you send 

 me a sample, Ernest? [Just ask your grocer 

 for it and he will have to get it. It is made, I 

 think, by the Akron Cereal Co., Akron, O.; and 

 while you are about it, ask him to give you a 

 sample of "Gran-o." This is another substi- 

 tute for coffee, and it is said to go twice as far 

 as any other for the money. We are just trying 

 it at our house, and have not come to any defi- 

 nite conclusion.— Ed.] 



Bees stinging each other are generally sup- 

 posed not to lose the sting. R. Wilkin rescued 

 a queen from hostile bees, but one of them had 

 stung her below the eye; and when pulled 

 apart the sting and poison-sac remained firm 

 with the queen, killing her. [It seems to me 

 that, when I was working with the bees in 

 queeu rearing, whenever a queen was stung in 

 a ball she was more apt to hold in her body the 

 sting she received than not. I remember very 

 distinctly of drawing the stings from several 

 queens, hoping thereby it would not be too late; 

 but they were all fatal.— Ed.] 



Prof. Bruner, so favorably known by those 

 who attended the Lincoln convention, has been 

 employed by the Argentine Republic to study 

 the grasshopper plague they've had for ten 

 years. He sailed April 24 from New York, hav- 

 ing a year's leave of absence from the Univer- 

 sity of Nebraska. Success to him. [The selec- 

 tion of Prof. Bruner from the number of very 

 able men in this country, by the Argentine 

 Republic, is indeed a compliment. The bee- 

 keepers who attended the Lincoln convention 

 will not soon forget his very interesting lecture 

 on the " Wild Bees of Nebraska," and the kind- 

 ly way in which the many questions which 

 were plied to him, right and left, were answer- 

 ed. If I mistake not, his selection was due to 

 the fact that he is a real student of nature. 

 He does not go to other authorities so much as 

 he goes to Nature herself, and from her gleans 

 the actual facts. From a boy up he has been a 

 bug-hunter.— Ed.J 



" It would have a tendency to keep others 

 from making the same mistakes if we would be 

 a little more frank in reporting ours," is a 

 truth G. C. Greiner puts on page 367 that will 

 bear repeating. If a department, " Mistakes 

 and Blunders," is published in Gleanings, I'll 

 promise not to skip it in my reading. [" Mis- 

 takes and Blunders" as a department in 

 Gleanings— a capital idea! and for fear that I 

 may forget to carry it out, I will ask you right 

 now, doctor, to give us the first batch. They 



