622 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1. 



drone-cells in a piece of comb sent by R. R. 

 Murphy to the American Bee Journal. The 

 queen may control the sex of the &^^ by her 

 will ; but the case you cite is no proof of it, 

 friend Fox, for I think you will find that, 

 before the queen laid in the cells, the workers 

 laid a heavy rini of wax, making the mouth of 

 the cell as small as that of a worker-cell. 



It isn't E.A.SY to get up any rules for grad- 

 ing that will be satisfactory. Too much word- 

 ing is bad, but too little may be worse. Edi- 

 tor Hutchinson wants every thing short and 

 simple, but on the same page says he " would 

 not have any pollen in a fancy grade of honey, 

 and not more than half a dozen cells in a sec- 

 tion of the second grade." Now, how are 

 you going to have any thing of that kind 

 carried out unless it is " so nominated in the 

 bond"? [If the Buffalo convention does not 

 adopt some set of rules, I propose to adopt 

 something for Gleanings. The grading- 

 rules that we have been using till lately were, 

 as I understand, far better than nothing. But 

 I believe I can improve on them after all that 

 has been said and written, and I shall certain- 

 ly make the attempt if the Buffalo meeting 

 does nothing. — Ed.] 



Look here, Ernest; those glucose-men are 

 not fools, but sharp business men. No matter 

 how solid the trust, they're not going to put 

 the price where it will prohibit the use of 

 glucose as an adulterant. Not the greatest 

 profit per pound, but the greatest aggregate 

 profit is what they're after, and that depends 

 on the great amount sold rather than on the 

 price per pound. [Yes, I am well aware that 

 the glucose-men are shrewd ; but sometimes 

 shrewdness gives place to folly, and I was in 

 hopes they might be so very "smart" that 

 they would put the price of glucose up high 

 enough so it would not make such inroads on 

 honey. The very object of the trust is to put 

 up the price; and even if they shove the price 

 up only a little bit it will make it just that 

 much less profitable to put it into honey. 

 Extracted honey is coming down, or has been; 

 and if glucose goes up, there will be less adul- 

 teration than formerly. — Ed.] 



Wouldn't I like to have been at that pic- 

 nic of the Root employees! A number of nice 

 people among them I'd like to see again. 

 Say, Ernest, why don't you give us a picture 

 of them? [Yes, indeed, and we would have 

 counted you as one of us. We made up a 

 train of seven coaches and a baggage-car. On 

 either side of the train was a mammoth sign, 

 painted on canvas, with the wording, ' ' The 

 A. I. Root Co. Employees ; " and on the pilot 

 of the locomotive was a beautiful yellow 

 queen-bee carved out of wood, about a yard 

 long, with wings spread, ready to lead our big 

 swarm in its flight to pastures new. The 

 carving was done by IMr. Karl R. Mathey, 

 who is still in our employ. The queen was 

 richly painted, and decorated in gold. If she 

 had not been such an awkward thing to carry 

 we would have taken her to the Buffalo con- 

 vention, and had her suspended in midair in 

 the convention room. 



Well, the picnic was a grand success in every 



way. Nearly every seat in the train was filled 

 with people, the great majority of whom were 

 those who receive their bread and butter from 

 the A. I. Root Co.'s pay-roll. Just before the 

 train started I had the ever-ready Kodak; and 

 after I had taken several shots the conductor 

 called out, " All aboard ! " and the train soon 

 steained into Cleveland. Arriving there we 

 all piled into a lake steamer, and after an 

 hour's ride we found ourselves at Euclid Beach 

 Park. 



We expect to make this shop picnic an 

 annual affair. Ere another year rolls by we 

 shall hope that Dr. Miller and a good many- 

 more of our bee-keeping friends will accom- 

 pany us to some beautiful spot in fair Ohio. — 

 Ed.] 



Drawn foundation doesn't show the 

 advantage I expected over ordinary founda- 

 tion. As to eating qualities it's all right, and 

 I can't help thinking that the war that has 

 been waged against it without knowing any 

 thing about it is the maddest, blindest, silliest 

 piece of folly that has occurred in the ranks 

 of bee-keepers for some time. [There is only 

 one other besides friend Doolittle (see edito- 

 rials) who has reported the eating quality of 

 honey from drawn foundation as not being 

 equal to that of the ordinary comb honey. 

 While I do not in the least doubt Mr. Doolit- 

 tle's statement, I believe that, in the great 

 majority of instances, the eating quality of 

 the new product will be up to the required 

 standard. It certainly has been in our own 

 various tests at Medina, and with Dr. Mason. 



You and Mr. Doolittle probabh^ tried the 

 drawn foundation and common foundation in 

 alternation, as we advised. We have since 

 discovered that this is hardly a fair test. Half 

 of the supers should be filled with one kind, 

 and the other half with the other sort. When 

 the two lots are placed in alternation, the bees 

 seem to feel that the foimdation must first be 

 pulled out to equal the drawn foundation; for 

 it is contrary to their notions of hive archi- 

 tecture to have every other comb in the super 

 or hive drawn out and the others neglected. 

 They must all be drawn out in one portion of 

 the hive, at least, together. We have found 

 it to be true that, when the pieces were placed 

 in alternation, in some instances there was no 

 practical difference; but when the super was 

 divided in halves, there was a difference in 

 favor of the drawn foundation, the latter being 

 accepted and filled with honey, while the 

 conmion foundation in the other half was 

 almost neglected. For instance, before me is 

 a super that had been prepared in " halfs," as 

 above explained. The sections of one outside 

 row, having had foundation in them, show the 

 follo^ring weights after the season was closed 

 and the weight of sections when removed from 

 the hive: 1 oz., -4 oz., 7 \ oz., 1}^ oz. The sec- 

 tions in the opposite outside row had drawn 

 foundation. These are the respective weights: 

 12>^ oz., 13>^ oz., 183^ oz., Vi% oz. The other 

 sections having the drawn foundation were 

 finished sooner, and are fatter and hea\aer than 

 the corresponding sections from conunon 

 foundation. In relation to the same point, R. 

 F. Holtermann, of the Canadian Bee Journal, 



