1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



379 



describes. . . The front of the case, as Mr. D. 

 says, will be apt to have the best honey out 

 for display, and not for the purpose of de- 

 ception." Do you call that on the fence? 

 And, anyhow, what business should you have 

 on the fence ? If you get on the fence in a 

 matter of that kind you ought to be knocked 

 off with a club — knobs, too, on the club. [Oh 

 my ! doctor; 3'ou are not fair. You have tak- 

 en patches of my footnote and put them to- 

 gether in such a way that they put me clear 

 over on Doolittle's side of the fence. I am 

 now going to take two more patches — the very 

 ones you omitted — from that same footnote. 

 Read : " With regard to facing crates of hon- 

 ey or l)arrels of apples, I think it all depends 

 upon whether intentional deception is used. . 

 . Whenever we buy honey we always judge of 

 a crate by random sections picked out here 

 and there in the crate, and never by the fac- 

 ing." Notice the words ^'intentional decep- 

 tion." Put up your club with knobs on. I 

 grant that these last quoted lines do not put 

 me clear on the other side of the fence ; but 

 used in connection with those you quote, they 

 take off the curse somewhat. However, in 

 our last issue I entirely renounced Doolittle's 

 doctrine, and got on the other side of the 

 fence. — Ed.] 



D00LITT1.E SCORED again; joke depart- 

 ment IN BEE journals. 



The moving of bees to pastures new still 

 continues. We learn that J. F. Mclntyre has 

 moved 2(50 colonies to the alfalfa fields of Ba- 

 kersfield. We hope the results will be highly 

 successful. 



Mr. E. Hart, of Pasadena, on March 25th 

 reported the first swarm of the season. The 

 gentleman's bees are within the city limits of 

 Pasadena, surrounded by peach, apricot, and 

 orange orchards. Quite a fair yield is expect- 

 ed from the latter. Mr. Hart will move his 

 bees to the river bottom as soon as the orange 

 blossoms fail to give nectar. Mr. Hart is a 

 very considerate bee-keeper. Should he keep 

 his bees in their present location through the 

 whole season he would have an immense 

 amount of trouble from those who dry apri- 

 cots and peaches extensively in his vicinity. 

 By moving his bees he works in harmony with 

 his fruit-growing neighbors, and that is the 

 way all good beekeepers should do. 



I believe that Wilkin-cistern affair you set 

 going tl!e rounds of the bee-papers is a good 

 joke on you, Mr. Editor. You will find that 

 the honey is put into that fireproof concrete 

 cistern, or cellar, in five-gallon tin cans in the 

 good old orderly orthodox way. [You ought 

 to have kept still and saved me this humila- 

 tion. — Ed.] 



I saw Mr. C. A. Hatch, to-day, and said, 

 "Mr. Hatch, suppose you were dealing in 



honey, and received a quantity of comb honey 

 faced up with nice XXX white honey, and be- 

 hind the facers j-ou would find only X or dark 

 buckwheat honey; what would you think of 

 the bee keeper who put it up? " 



"Why, the man who would do that is a 

 fraud," replied Mr. Hatch. 



"That is just what Doolittle advises,"* 

 said I. 



" Doolittle? " said Mr. Hatch. 



" Yes, Doolittle." 



"Well, I can't help who said it," replied 

 Mr. Hatch; "it is a fraud; and any commis- 

 sion house receiving it would so pronounce it. " 



Mr. Searles, an apple-dealer with whom I 

 am at present staying, complains greatly when 

 he gets a box of apples that are faced up nice- 

 ly, and beneath there are all sorts, just like 

 Doolittle's honey. Said I, "Mr. Searles, 

 what do you think of a man who puts up his 

 apples that way ? " 



"He is a fraud," said Mr. S. ; "and when I 

 once find a man who is up to such tricks I 

 never patronize him again." 



" Well," said I, " suppose he tells you that 

 the box is faced up with good apples, and that 

 there are poor ones below; what would you 

 do?" 



" Well, I don't want apples unless they are 

 all one or the other. If a person puts up his 

 apples that wa}^ he is liable to sell them with- 

 out telling the fact; or if he does tell the facts, 

 the next man will not. Oh, no ! I want 

 straight goods every time, and so do my cus- 

 tomers." 



Now, I am quite sure that every straight 

 man will say the same thing. Of course, we 

 all know that Mr. Doolittle is an honest man, 

 and means well, but he has a strange way of 

 showing it sometimes. 



Just see what Doolittle says about painting 

 nives in a recent number of the Progressive. 

 Now, Bro. Doolittle could not have been giv- 

 ing that in a broad way. His advice was all 

 right for York State, but how about hot cli- 

 mates? Here we want a hive that will not 

 absorb the heat of the sun. From my obser- 

 vation a hive that is black with age is more 

 liable to have the combs melted down in our 

 hot weather than is a hive that is kept well 

 painted and white. One rule will not work 

 well for all climates. 



Well, wonders will never cease. The Re- 

 view has started a joke department. Just see 

 the column of good white paper and black 

 ink that Mr. Aspinwall wasted in the last Re- 

 view. But really the most astonishing thing 

 in the same number of the Review, under ed- 

 itorial offerings, is that the editor winds up one 

 of the offerings with a " whoop-e-e ! " Well, 

 just as sure as you live I should not be more 

 astonished should I go into a graveyard and 

 have a tombstone waltz up to me and shout 

 " Whoop e-e ! " Just think of it ! "whoop-e-e" 

 from the dignified and sedate editor of the 

 Review! I did think for a minute that I 

 would stop the paper; but I will hold on a 

 little longer. This joking business in bee- 



* Doolittle did not advise. He simply said that he 

 could see no harm in it, but doubted the wisdom of 

 doing it. — Ed. 



