766 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1. 



Doolittle's bees after he stretches 'em. Why, 

 bless you, he must have the glossometer to 

 select the ones to breed from so as to stretch 

 the tongues of the next generation. Sa}', 

 what can you furnish a good glossometer for ? 

 [I am sorry, but I really can not tell whether 

 I was in fun or ii: earnest on page 730. About 

 that glossometer — well, I do not know about 

 what it would cost — don't care much ; but we 

 "have one in the garret somewhere in a cubby- 

 hole, or on a shelf, that Doolittle can have if 

 he will simply ask for it. It was made by J. 

 H. Martin, and is illustrated on page 220 of 

 GI.EANINGS for 1882.— Ed.] 



W. P. Fayi,or lets his customers sample 

 comb honey and extracted side by side, call- 

 ing attention to the greater thickness of the 

 extracted article, and, as a result, sells ten 

 pounds of extracted to one of comb. But he 

 doesn't give the relative prices. — Am. Bee JH. 

 [Mr. Faylor is working on the right plan. 

 The majority of bee-keepers, I think, would 

 prefer, for their own table, extracted honey, 

 provided it is properly ripened; and I believe 

 the majority of consumers, if the}' could be 

 sure of the purity of the honey, would prefer 

 the extracted. While a great many, it is true, 

 prefer comb honey, the element of cheapness 

 in favor of the extracted would go a long way 

 to show that Faylor's policy is a good one. — 

 Ed.] 



This year, from 239 colonies, spring count, 

 I got 17,150 lbs. honey, all comb but 300 lbs. 

 That is the biggest yield I ever got, but not 

 the biggest yield per colony. [Doctor, that is 

 grand; and, if I mistake not, the labor of se- 

 curing this crop was all performed b}' your- 

 self and women-folks. It would be interest- 

 ing to know approximately how many days it 

 took you and your family to secure that crop. 

 What I mean is, how many days it took you, 

 counting the time of preparing sections, haul- 

 ing bees, putting on the sections, putting into 

 and taking out of the cellar — in fact, every 

 thing connected with the bee-work. With an- 

 other year or two like this you will have more 

 than made up for the poor seasons you have 

 had, and perhaps you have already. There is 

 nothing like sticking and hanging to a busi- 

 ness, even if it does not pay very well some 

 years. — Ed.] 



Something i,ike a boom seems to be start- 

 ed in Avierican Bee Journal for figwort, or 

 Simpson honey-plant. That means some peo- 

 ple are going to be disappointed. Geo. W. 

 Williams says an acre of figwort is worth ten 

 of sweet clover, and he considers figwort the 

 only plant worth cultivating for honey alone. 

 While that may be true for hi})i, it is also true 

 that, of the many who have tried it, perhaps 

 no one else would coincide with him. [Our 

 own experience, so far as I can remember, 

 would lead me to believe that G. W. Williams' 

 estimate of figwort as against sweet clover 

 would not be far from right. I feel quite sure 

 that a plant of figwort, taking about the same 

 amount of ground as an equally vigorous 

 plant of sweet clover, would 3'ield ten times as 

 much honey. Many and many a time I have 

 watched the bees on our figworts. I have 



seen single bees take from a single cup or 

 floweret of this plant about all the nectar it 

 could carry at one load. While the drop is 

 not quite so big as one from the spider-plant, 

 there are. many more of them. — Ed.] 



" Bees gather wax in dull seasons," says 

 the editor, p. 738. I think I have had some 

 evidence that not a particle of such wax is 

 ever used in comb-building, but only as a 

 substitute for or in combination \\A\X\ propolis. 

 [I think I have some evidence that a good 

 many particles of such wax at such seasons of 

 the year are used in comb-building. For 

 instance, let me refer you to Figs. 5 and 6, p. 

 640, Sept. 1. And don't you believe that 

 the bees almost invariably build combs heavier 

 — that is, with thicker walls and thicker bases 

 — in dull seasons, or when the honey-flow is 

 very moderate, than they do at other times 

 when honey is coming in at a good rate ? But 

 I suspect you are right, nevertheless — in fact, 

 I know you are — in thinking that bees use a 

 good deal of wax that they gather from old 

 combs left exposed, as a sort of filler to go 

 along with propolis. — Ed.] 



Editor York is a great believer in sweet 

 clover. He pummels Prof. Panmiel for say- 

 ing it's a weed. Better arbitrate the matter. 

 A valuable plant in one place may be a weed 

 in another. One of the worst weeds I ever 

 had to fight in a rose-bed was white clover. 

 [I can not exactly see how something could 

 be a bad weed in one place and a valuable 

 plant in another — at least, not how sweet clo- 

 ver could be a noxious weed in a7iy locality. 

 Experience everywhere, so far as I know, 

 shows it is very easily kept down, and that it 

 never bothers on cultivated land. The mere 

 fact that it grows profusely along all road- 

 sides, where it is rarely if ever molested, gives 

 a careless observer the impression that it 

 would be a serious enemy to the farmer if it 

 got started on his land. But every good thing 

 has to have its opposers until it can have time 

 to win its way and show that it is not as bad 

 as its enemies think it is. — Ed.] 



Paraffine paper over sections, F. L. 

 Thompson says in A. B.J., is too fussv; and 

 after the early part of the season the bees 

 daub propolis between sections and paper. 

 My own experience saj-s that entirely too 

 much has been claimed for paraffine. My bees 

 deliberately plaster glue right on the par- 

 affine. [It was I who, about a year ago, spoke 

 favorably of parafiine paper; but at the time, 

 I stated that Mr. Danzenbaker and Hon. Geo. 

 E. Hilton had obtained good results with it, 

 but added that we had not tried it. I am 

 sorry to have to acknowledge, however, that 

 our own experience on a limited scale has not 

 been entirely favorable — rather otherwise if 

 any thing. Mr. Danzenbaker, however, has 

 especially emphasized the fact that bees will 

 invariably gnaw through the paraffine paper 

 unless it is cushioned thickly on top — that is, 

 between the paraffine paper and the cover — 

 with folds of newspaper, quilts, or any thing 

 that will press the paraffine paper tightly 

 against the sections. But we did this, and 

 the bees gnawed into it — or, rather, we used a 



