124 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 15. 



thorough home-body Mrs. Root is, and how 

 utterl)' devoted to the interests of her famih-, 

 the idea of her needing to hear a ' ' plea for 

 the sacredness and sanctity of the home " is 

 too funny. 



Hasty, in Revieu\ referring to the possi- 

 biHt}' that the mere presence of a new queen 

 of gentle stock may soften cross bees, says: 

 " May it not be that all bees immediate])' af- 

 ter requeening haul in their horns a bit, and 

 feel as if home were hardly worth fighting 

 for? Experiments with a cannibal queen giv- 

 en to gentle bees would solve that question." 



The Review's Reviewer half way thinks 

 Eagerty's plan of spreading sections on grass 

 in shade instead of wetting them "would be 

 a handy and winning scheme sometimes." 

 But say, Hasly, I'd dreadfully hate to wait till 

 grass grows before making sections ; and, be- 

 sides, I can wet a box of 500 or 1000 in less 

 time than you'd spread and gather up a hun- 

 dred. 



I RUBBED MY GLASSES, and read several 

 times that California deliverance, p. itU, ''Re- 

 solved, That the new Union should absorb the 

 old." And it was from California that the 

 strongest — yes, the bitterest — opposition to 

 amalgamation came. They wouldn't hear to a 

 wedding, and now they want to make a canni- 

 bal feast of- the old Union ? Wonderful climate 

 that \ [What is the odds, if " Barkis is will- 

 in' ? " on both sides ? — Ed.] 



Stachelhausen says bees can't thin sep- 

 tum of foundation. L. L. Skaggs says he has 

 100 combs in which the bees have thinned the 

 septum. — Soiiihland Queen. [Our experience 

 is emphatically that of Mr. Skaggs. I won- 

 der if Mr. Stachelhau.sen has realh' tested this 

 matter thoroughly bv means of a micrometer 

 measuring thousandths of an inch. If he has 

 not, then I shall be forced to the conclusion 

 that he has not gone into this matter as deep- 

 ly as he might. — Ed. J 



What's all this rumpus about needing 

 separators to come to the tops of sections so 

 the sections won't beVjulged? My separators 

 have always fallen '4 iiich below upper sur- 

 face of sections; and if there has been an}- 

 bulging I never noticed it. [Do not overlook, 

 doctor, the difference between plain sections 

 and the old style. A slight bulging at the top, 

 tolerable in one, would be intolerable in the 

 other; that is, it seems to me it is safer to err 

 on the safe side in the use of plain sections 

 than to err on the other. — Ed.] 



C. P. Dadant has been doing some figuring 

 in A. B. y. , and says his average net pay at 

 producing extracted honey is S7,00 per da}'. 

 The trouble is to make a man understand 3'ou 

 are consistent when you tell him that, and 

 then advise him not to give up a steady job at 

 $2.00 a day and go into bee-keeping exclusive- 

 ly. [If prospective bee-keepers could read 

 what you and Dadant have done, our ranks 

 might be flooded. I suspect the only way we 

 can reconcile the .S2.00 a-day steady job and 

 the ft5.00 and !^7.00 a day is simply on the 

 ground that the $5.00 and !?7.00 averages are 

 few and far between. — Ed.] 



Plain section honey has been .sold by the 

 ton by J. E. Crane; but he uses slotted sec- 

 tions, then saws off the edge after they're 

 filled. He has two saws just 1 /'^ in. apart, 

 coming y% in. above saw table, runs the four 

 sides of section through, leaving edges clean 

 and white, much neater than they could be 

 made by hand scraping. He 5335 honey is 

 more attractive put up in this way, and sells 

 more promptl}', the "more promptly" in 

 italics. 



How IS IT, Mr. Editor, that you'll encour- 

 age that man Niver to say things about the 

 T super to hurt my feelings, when you know 

 how sensitive I am ? Allee samee, those T 

 supers have helped me to a nice little "feum. 

 [Admitted; but how do you know, doctor, 

 that some other surplus arrangement might 

 not have produced just as much hone)', with 

 less labcT ? Understand, I am not condemn- 

 ing the T super; but I " smoled " a big smile 

 of satisfaction, even if Niver did " whack " at 

 you over my shoulders. — Ed.] 



I INVENTED the smoker-hook, as nearly as 

 I remember. So did several others. It's a 

 thing that one thinks of as Jiaturally as mak- 

 ing something to hang up a broom. But it's 

 very likely to be dropped after being tried, so 

 it will continue to be invented by others in 

 the future. [I wish, doctor, we could have a 

 sort of picture - gallery, nicely indexed, of 

 every thing under the sun that has been in- 

 vented or thought of in beedom; then if by 

 some means this gallery could find a lodgment 

 in the head of every beginner, and old begin- 

 ners, for that matter, why, there would be less 

 inventing over again. — Ed.] 



You're mistaken, Mr. Editor. I extract- 

 ed enough honey for home use and to supply 

 friends, and a good share of it was from new 

 frames with nail spacers. The nail-heads pro- 

 jecting only % inch, ami being flat, they 

 didn't catch in the wire cloth at all, somewhat 

 to my surprise. A good many things that we 

 know all about in theory turn out quite differ- 

 ent in practice. [It was not my theory, but 

 the ipse dixit of some one else who used them 

 who rai^ed the objection with regard to nails 

 catching in the wire cloth of extractor-baskets. 

 I will confess I never thought of the objec- 

 tiod until it was put into my head. I hope it 

 is no real objection. — Ed.] 



How IS IT about that matter of peep-holes, 

 anyway? Don't magnify the difference so 

 much that statements will have to be pruned 

 down afterward. It doesn't seem that my in- 

 set sections are as " peepy " as painted; and 

 my Danzy sections, with half the separators 

 fences, are hardly better. [I do not think I 

 have magnified the difference, doctor. In 

 one place, page 817, I spoke with a degree of 

 hesitation, as you may remember. Since that 

 time I will admit I have spoken on this same 

 question more hopefully; but it was only be- 

 cause those who have been using the two 

 kinds have given me encouragement to do so. 

 The few Danzy sections you produced would 

 hardly give you a fair opportunity for com- 

 parison. After all, the best illustration of the 

 difference is shown in the half-tone that is 



