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•INTERESTS 



'ubiishedy theAI^ooY Co. 

 Ls^PERYtAR ^@ "Medina-Ohio- 



Vol. XXVI. 



OCT. I, 1898. 



No. 



19. 



Is THE COW PEA a honey -plant at Medina ? 

 [The blossoms contain honey ; but ovirs seem 

 to have a queer way of bearing many pods al- 

 most 'cvithoiit blossoms. — A. I. R.] 



It is pleasant to note the upward tendency 

 of the market, even if one has no honey to sell. 

 But what a wide variation in prices — from 10 

 to 15 for the best, in the Honey Column! 



If These Stravi^s are so late that they get 

 into the last pages of Gleanings, you may 

 know that it's because Editor Ernest stopped 

 to play with me on his way home from Oma- 

 ha. And a good play we had. 



Bee-Talk is the best thing with which to 

 fill a bee-paper, and you've gone and filled 

 two or three pages with talk about Medina 

 saloons. But, say; since you've started us on 

 it, please keep us posted how it comes out. 



To THE EXCELLENT ANSWER given, p. (3i)5, 

 Bro. Doolittle might have added that the 

 difference in yield could also be due to locali- 

 ty. Four miles often makes a big difference 

 here, and a friend twelve miles away often 

 has a big yield in the fall when I have none. 



"The normal comb is y% inch in thick- 

 ness," says W. K. Morrison, p. 684. When it's 

 filled with honey and sealed, isn't it 1^ to \% 

 thick, counting that bees naturally space 1^ 

 to 1^ from center to center? [Your figures 

 are about correct, according to my experience. 

 -Ed.] 



As A footnote to what is said, page 703, I 

 may say that, after more than 30 years being 

 dry, Marengo now has saloons. I think it a 

 moderate statement to say that I've seen more 

 drunken men on the streets in the past three 

 months than in ten years before. [Thank 

 you, doctor, for this fact. We will use it as 

 one of our bomb-shells in our temperance 

 fight.— Ed.] 



Editor Hutchinson has always loyally 

 kept the Washington rules of grading flying 

 at the head of his Honey Column, but now 

 admits that he never practiced them. He 

 puts fancy and No. 1 all together. So do 



Boardman and Koeppen. Lots and lots prob- 

 ably do the same thing. If I knew there were 

 enough of them, I'd confess too. 



You wouldn't need to send a gross of 

 cups to Mr. Wylie, friend A. I. (p. 701), if he 

 would do as they do "in this locality." A 

 tin cup at a public drinking-place has a num- 

 ber of holes punched in the bottom. You can 

 get a good drink with it, but it isn't worth 

 stealing. 



The critic of Review says, " Helpful crit- 

 icism is more than meat and drink to me." 

 I have considerable appetite " along that line " 

 myself, but it's generally agreed among doc- 

 tors that food is more nourishing, if agreeable 

 to the taste, and I wish, Bro. Taylor, you'd 

 study the art of cookery enough to give us 

 something more agreeable to the taste, and 

 less like medicine. [See editorials. — Ed.] 



I ASKED in a Straw, p. 573, whether it was 

 fair to the worker, a being perfect in its place, 

 to call it an undeveloped female. Critic Tay- 

 lor says, " It strikes me as entirely fair. The 

 fact that she is well developed in some char- 

 acteristics having no relation to sex surely 

 can not help her out as a female." You're 

 right, Bro. Taylor; she is an undeveloped fe- 

 male and a perfectly developed worker. 



I don't know for sure, but I have the im- 

 pression that sometimes the bees seal up a 

 queen-cell earlier than 8 days from the laying 

 of the egg. At any rate, I've been sometimes 

 surprised to find a very small larva on tearing 

 open a sealed cell. If Mr. Wardell is still 

 rearing queens, perhaps he could tell us how 

 long is the larval period in a strong colony. 

 [The queen-rearing season is nearly over at 

 Medina, but I will ask Mr. Wardell to take 

 some observations. — Ed.] 



" The trouble is, so many farmers keep a 

 few bees, . . . and those who make it a 

 business have to suffer for the carelessness of 

 the slipshod farmer bee-keeper — page 691. 

 Editor Abbott ought to labor with F. Boom- 

 hower. [In Boomhower's locality, it seemed 

 to me as I went through it that every farmer 

 kept bees. Sometimes he would have a dozen 

 colonies — more often thirty or forty. One 

 might travel for miles in and about our vicin- 

 ity, and see no bee-hives about the farmers' 

 homes. This is a case where locality has 

 every thing to do with the matter. — Ed.] 



