GLEANINGvS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15. 





Stirring hone}' very much unnecessarily is 

 :apt to make honey candy prematurely, said 

 J. F. Mclntyre, of Fillmore. Cal., on the floor 

 oi the Buffalo convention. 



E. A. Wander, of Hartford, Conn., at Buf- 

 falo, gave the result of an experiment of his 

 with 8, 10, and 13 frame hives. As I remem- 

 ber it, his 8-frame colonies gave him an aver- 

 age surplus of 37 lbs. of honey ; his 10-frame 

 colonies 56 lbs., and his 13-frame colonies 113 

 lbs. Perhaps in another locality the result 

 might be very different. 



Mr. E. T. Abbott, of St. Joseph, Mo., at 

 the Buffalo nieetiug, said that, in his opinion, 

 it was a wrong notion that the small bee-keep- 

 er and the farmer and the amateur bee-keeper 

 were the enemies of the specialist honey-pro- 

 ducer. "Why," said he, " they are our best 

 friends." The product that they put on the 

 market could not compare with what he 

 could produce and sell, and he thotight they 

 actually helped him to make sales at a much 

 higher price for his honey. 



A NEW IDEA. 



In a paper that R. C. Aikin sent to the Buf- 

 falo convention, he put forth the rather start- 

 ling idea that, in his opinion, it might be more 

 profitable to take extracting-comb, cut out the 

 honey and all, " sqush " the honey out of the 

 combs by passing them between rollers, and 

 then melting the wax. His point was that ex- 

 tracted honev was going down in price, and 

 wax going up ; that wax and honey, sold sep- 

 arately, would bring more money than if the 

 combs were extracted in the ordinary way, and 

 preserved. This met a protest on every side, 

 and it was mainly to the effect that wax in 

 combs is much more valuable to the bee-keep- 

 er than the same wax in cakes. 



A SAD AFFLICTION AT THE HOME OF W. Z. 

 HUTCHINSON. 



When we saw our friend W. Z. H. at the 

 Buffalo convention, looking brighter and hap- 

 pier than usual, little did any of us imagine 

 the sad blow that he was so soon to be called 

 upon to endure. We have been aware for 

 some time past that both his good wife and 

 daughter Ivy have been suffering from a pe- 

 culiar mental affliction ; and we knew, too, 

 they had been sent to a sort of asylum for 

 treatment. On the Saturday afternoon after 

 the convention, Aug. 28, the mother, it seems, 

 had a sudden stroke of her old trouble ; and 

 before friends could interfere she had chloro- 

 formed little Fern, only five years old, and al- 

 most succeeded in taking the life of the af- 

 flicted older daughter. Of course, she is now 

 in charge again of the asylum, where she 



is supposed to be in safe keeping. This is one 

 of those very sad affairs for which we can 

 hardly call anybody to blame. Mrs. Hutch- 

 inson was supposed to be much better, and 

 had been at home some time, if I am correctly 

 informed. May God help our afflicted broth- 

 er through this his great and terrible ordeal. — 

 A.I. R.] __ _ 



DEATH OF DR. JESSE OREN. 



About the time I first turned my attention 

 to apiculture (August, 1865), Dr. Jesse Oren 

 also became interested in introducing the 

 Italian bees in his locality, Laporte City, la. 

 He soon became, with myself, a frequent con- 

 tributor to the American Bee Journal, then 

 newly started, and for many years his name 

 was almost a household word among bee- 

 keepers. Some of you will remember that, 

 during my visit to Florida, I was most pleas- 

 antly entertained at his residence in Daytona. 

 When I offered some apology for going to a 

 private home when I was obliged to be partic- 

 ular, and, as it might seem to some, fastidious, 

 about my diet, he and the family hastened to 

 inform me that it would make them no extra 

 trouble at all, for the doctor had been obliged 

 for years to abstain from everv' thing contain- 

 ing the least particle of starch or sugar. His 

 trouble was diabetes. When I asked him in 

 regard to the matter, he told me he should 

 live but a short time unless he were thus par- 

 ticular in regard to his diet. Of course, they 

 gave him all the variety the}- could without 

 overstepping the line that through years of 

 suffering had been mapped out by himself and 

 by the advice of other physicians. He was a 

 devoted Christian, and was ready to go when 

 the Father called, for he had been many long 

 years living a life of "thy will, not mine, be 

 done." His death occurred Aug. 26, in the 

 73d year of his age, in Laporte Cit}', la. From 

 a local paper we quote : 



Examination shows death to have been cau.sed by 

 suppuration of the gall-bladder, due to the presence of 

 a large gall-stone, and an abscess of the upper portion 

 of the left lung, the result of pneumonia. 



Dr. Oren was a man of considerable wealth, 

 and I think he told me in conversation that 

 the greater part of it had come either directly 

 or indirectly from bee culture. He produced 

 large crops of honey year after year for so 

 long a period without failure that he has been 

 quoted largel}' as an example of what per- 

 sistent care and attention may do in our in- 

 dustry. For many years past, on account of 

 his health, he has been passing his winters in 

 his beautiful home at Daytona, Fla. — A. I. R. 



THE EFFECT OF PREMATURE PREDICTIONS 

 OF THE HONEY-FLOW. 



Mr. p. H. Elwood, at the Buffalo conven- 

 tion, expressed regret that the editors of the 

 bee-joul-nals had predicted a remarkable honey 

 j^ear when subsequent reports seemed to show 

 that the season was not as good as had been 

 expected. The effect of this advance talk he 

 thought had been to lower unnecessarily the 

 price of honey. 



There is truth in what he said, and I am will- 

 ing, so far as GLEANINGS is concerned, to 



