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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15. 



willing to come out and confess it. Somehow 

 I have confidence in such a man. 



In regard to specialists, if accurate figures 

 could be gathered I believe that iJO per cent — 

 yes, 99 per cent — of all the honey that is pro- 

 duced is by the class that you have so ably 

 defended. At the Buffalo convention, made 

 up of some of the most extensive honey-pro- 

 ducers of the world, the request was made for 

 all to rise to their feet who made be:?-keeping 

 their sole means of livelihood. Scarcely one 

 arose. To my personal knowledge, there were 

 farmer bee-keepers present at that meeting 

 who produced anywhere from 40,000 to 75,000 

 pounds of honey in a single season. One 

 might almost call them specialists ; but the 

 fact remains that they are also quite exten- 

 sively engaged in, farming. In fact, when one 

 goes by their places, as I have recently done, 

 the big bank barns, broad acres of wheat and 

 corn, and flocks of sheep, are more suggestive 

 of agriculture than of apiculture. 

 ■• But Prof. Cook very properly is urging the 

 claims of the small bee-keeper who takes up 

 bee-keeping as a recreation, as well as a busi- 

 ness that will yield some revenue. Many and 

 many a professional man would be broken 

 down hy nervous prostration were it not that 

 he could rest his tired brain by turning it now 

 and then to something else entirely different 

 from his main line of work. A very large 

 number of such long for the time when they 

 will be able to go on to a farm ; but the time 

 never comes, for the very reason that they 

 must leave town and quit their professional 

 work, which they are loath to do. But bee- 

 keeping, if they only know it, is a side issue 

 that they can carry on without moving from 

 town ; and their back yards will probably give 

 them all the room they require. It is from 

 this class we find some of our brightest bee- 

 keepers. 



The question is asked a good many times, 

 " Would you advise mz to give up my busi- 

 ness and make bee-keeping my sole means of 

 livelihood?" We almo.st invariably reply 

 something after this fashion : " The bee busi- 

 ness is too uncertain. Stick to your life work, 

 and make bee-keeping a side issue ; and then 

 if you have a series of poor years for the be-is 

 you will not 1)e bankrupt. Specialties in trade 

 are all right in their place ; but specialties in 

 rural pursuits are a little risky. Where there 

 is one Terry who can make potato-growing a 

 specialty and a success, there are thousands 

 who will do better to carry on mixed farming. 

 Where there is an Ehvood or a Hetherington 

 or a Mclntyre who makes bees a sole means 

 of livelihood, and is successful at it, there are 

 thousamls who would do better to carry on 

 bee-keeping in connection with some other 

 pursuit." 



Dr. C. C. Miller comes very near being a 

 specialist ; but if one were to ask him whether 

 his bees gained for him all his board and lodg- 

 ing, he would say no. He dabbles a little in 

 farming and a good deal in literary work. His 

 pen (or, rather, his typewriter) consimies a 

 good part of his time. Whether his literary 

 work nets him as much as his bees is doubt- 

 ful.— Ed.] 



BREEDING FOR LONG TONGUES. 



Square Bottom-bars Not Satisfactory, and Why. 



BY J. O. GRIMSLEY. 



I have just finished reading Gleanings for 

 Sept. l')th — have read rz'erv rvord in it, and 

 can't help expressing luy appreciation of such 

 a valuable journal. The truth is, GlE-\nings 

 improves with each number. But I think I'd 

 better stop this " flattery," as some may con- 

 strue it, and get down to what I wanted to 

 talk about. There were two or three things I 

 was particularly interested in, as m3' mind had 

 been ' ' hungry ' ' for something on these sub- 

 jects. 



" Breeding for long tongues. " Why not? I 

 think Prof. Cook is talking just right ; and all 

 that we really need now is tho.se "tongue- 

 gauges " he mentions. But who will get them 

 up ? and what will be the cost ? Suppose all 

 our qi:een -breeders (or, say, the members of 

 the National Queen-breeders' Union, now in 

 course of organization ) were prepared to ad- 

 vertise daugliters of "A No. 1" breeders, 

 whose tongues measure, say, 4.9, 5.3, or what- 

 ever number of millimeters it is. We often 

 see advertisements of "red-clover" queens, 

 which, in my opinion, are very delusive. I 

 am confident there is a great difference in the 

 length of the tongues of bees, and now let us 

 not permit so valuable a suggestion to die in 

 the " pupa." 



I see considerable said about " bottom-bars." 

 Some say square, some say "nix." On that 

 line I want to give my experience, although it 

 may not be so extensive as that of some of the 

 veterans. The first bottom-bars I ever used 

 were square — V% — and I thought they were the 

 thing ; but the truth is, if the hive were per- 

 fectly level (as it should be) the combs were 

 never built to the bottom-bar. If one side of 

 the hive chanced to be lower than the other, 

 the bees would build the comb down past the 

 bottom-bar, and would nearly always fasten it 

 to the side; but I don't want those "whop- 

 per-jawed " combs, and I hardly think any 

 other apiarist does if he is a good one. 



My trouble did not end there. When I put 

 on extracting-supers I soon found that, be- 

 tween the bottom-bars, would always be a 

 "mess" of burr-comb; and while the bees 

 would "build down" better in the super, it 

 took a perfectly level hive (or perpendicular 

 end-bar, if you please) in order to get a decent 

 comb. Then came the job of (or, rather, the 

 experience of) changing to a bottom-bar an 

 inch wide, which has given much better satis- 

 faction. With this I find the same diflicultj' 

 in getting combs " btult down " except in the 

 super). I see that some of the readers advo- 

 cate a V-shaped bottom-bar, which may be all 

 right ; but I want to tell you that, during the 

 coming season, I am going to make a lot of 

 frames (for experiment) with an inserted 

 comb-guide, the same as is illustrated in 3-our 

 " all- wood frames " — the guide to be on top of 

 the bottom-bar, of course, and the bottom-bar 

 the same width as end-bar, which will leave 

 only a bee-space between the bottom-bars. I 



