768 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15. 



might have made more travel-stain. It could 

 easily have been caused by darker combs in 

 brood-chamber. Take very white honey, and 

 press cappings down until they touch the 

 honey, and it will have the darker appear- 

 ance of that made by colonies which fill their 

 cells too full of equally white nectar. Every 

 once in a while I get a super that has to go 

 one grade lower because the cappings are 

 tight against the honey. G. K. Hubbard. 

 Riverside, Cal., Sept. 26. 



Editorial 



THE BEST WAY TO UNITE WEAK COLONIES 

 FOR WINTER. 

 A GOOD way to double up weak colonies in the 

 fall is to unite them with stocks brought from 

 the out-yard. It often does little or no good to 

 imite nuclei both from the same yard; but 

 results are very different when the two lots of 

 bees come from separate yards, for then there 

 is no going back of one lot of bees to their 

 old homes. We are about to practice this 

 plan at our home apiary when we bring in the 

 out bees. 



THE NAUGHTY JUTTY CORNERS IN THE ORDI- 

 NARY ONE-PIECE SECTION. 



Byron Walker, when visiting us, drew 

 my attention to the fact that the ordinary old- 

 style scored-out one-piece sections filled with 

 honey are much more liable to gouge into the 

 face of the combs in ordinary handling, such 

 as, for instance, putting in and removing 

 from the shipping-case, than the ordinary 

 four-piece section. The latter has no jutty 

 corner — nothing but the widened ends. Mr. 

 Walker says he greatly prefers the one-piece 

 section with its openings at top and bottom 

 reaching clear out to the sides, the same as in 

 the four-piece box. 



A correspondent just calls my attention to 

 the fact that the plain section is better than 

 either of the two above mentioned, for there 

 are no corners or edges that project beyond the 

 other parts of the box. For that reason the 

 section can be slid in and out of the shipping- 

 cases and hive supers without marring the face 

 o^ the comb. 



HIVES SHORT OF STORES FOR WINTER. 



There is every reason to believe that, owing 

 to the poor honey crop this year, there will be 

 a scarcity of stores in the hives for winter. 

 Many bee-keepers, whenever a failure of 

 honey occurs, will philosophize something 

 after this fashion: "Them bees didn't get me 

 no honey this year. If they can not pay for 

 theirselves, I guess I'll let 'em go Gallagher." 

 And they do. Another class, also forgetting 

 the big crop of last season, and being too busy 

 with their other work on the farm, will just 

 simply neglect the bees. It did no harm to 

 let them go last season, because there was 



plenty of honey in the hives ; so in a half- 

 hearted way they " guess " there is enough in 

 them this fall. At all events, they are too 

 busy; and if the bees die — well, perhaps they 

 will buy more next season. 



The careful, provident bee-keeper knows 

 perfectly well that it is very unwise to let bees 

 shift for themselves at any time; and there is 

 scarcely one who looks back over the past 

 who will begrudge sugar fed that the bees did 

 not earn that season, but perhaps may earn 

 next year or some time in the future. 



Editor Holtermann, of the Canadian Bee 

 Journal, sounds a similar note of warning, 

 and I am sure it is needed. 



A GOOD HONEY YEAR IN CANADA, AND A 



POOR ONE IN THE UNITED STATES ; 



WHY THIS DIFFERENCE? 



Mr. R. F. Holtermann, who made us a 

 short visit on the 7th inst., reports that the 

 bee-keepers of Canada have had a most excel- 

 lent season. The year throughout the United 

 States, excepting Colorado, Florida, Vermont, 

 Michigan, and Northern California, has been 

 a most signal failure. Now, why should 

 Canada, so near us, have a good honey-flow, 

 when we here in the United States have had 

 almost the opposite ? I remember last sum- 

 mer, when clover ought to begin to yield, we 

 had been having quite a spell of dry weather. 

 Day after day went by, but no rain. Finally 

 when it did come, and copiously too, we hop- 

 ed, but hoped in vain, that the long-expected 

 nectar would come. While these copious 

 rains seemed to be general over the United 

 States, and while they came in time to stimu- 

 late general farm crops, it was evident they 

 were too late to have any decided effect on 

 the honey crop of the United States — too late, 

 perhaps, by two weeks. Now, why did the 

 bee-keepers of Canada enjoy a good season ? 

 This strikes me as a possible explanation: 

 The honey-flows in Canada are anywhere 

 from ten days to two weeks later than in the 

 United States. Assuming that our friends 

 who are north of the line enjoyed those same 

 rains that we did, and at the sanie time, then 

 those same rains came just in time to stimulate 

 nectar secretion in the blossom, but just too 

 late for the United States. 



BYRON WALKER, AND HIS TEN APIARIES IN 

 NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 



Following closely upon the visit of Editor 

 Holtermann, Mr. Byron Walker, of Evart, 

 Mich., stopped off at Medina e>i route for 

 Pittsburg, whither he was going to buy or sell 

 honey. Mr. Walker is not only an extensive 

 producer, but a large buyer of both comb and 

 extracted. Diiring the summer he runs a 

 series of out-yards, and at the present time he 

 has something like ten apiaries. He has 

 known scarcely a failure of honey in all his 

 years of experience. And why ? Because he 

 has a good locality near the regions of the 

 willow-herb, and because he is an intelligent 

 and progressive hustler. Indeed, I'm almost 

 afraid he is working himself to death. 



After he has harvested his crops, and pre- 



