1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



J 99 



tour among the bee-keepers of Michigan. I 

 stopped in Toledo two days. In this time I 

 visited many of the groceries and commission 

 houses to learn what the season had produced 

 in honey, and to make such inquiries as might 

 occur to me in regard to it. These visits have 

 proved a valuable sonrce of information to 

 me, and the grocer has, without exception, 

 been very kind and considerate in furnishing 

 me all the information in his power. "The 

 workman is known by his chips " is not truer 

 of the mechanic than of the bee-keeper. The 

 honey found in the market is a sure index of 

 the character and methods of the beekeeper 

 who furnished it; and I have been able to 

 trace nianv progressive bee-keepers from the 

 market to the apiary by this means. I found 

 but Utile honey in Toledo, and that of very 

 inferior quality, and but little disposition on 

 the part of dealers to increase this stock at 

 present. I should have looked some time be- 

 fore being able to make a satisfactory pur- 

 chase had I wanted a section of honey for my 

 own use. 



There was more or less honey -dew in most 

 of the honey that I examined. Much of the 

 honey in the market is known as farmers' 

 honey, brought in by farmers and slipshod 

 bee-keepers — old and dark combs with untidy 

 sections discolored by propolis. This inferior 

 honey was being bought and sold mostly at 

 prices but little below that of good grades of 

 white honey. 



I had intended to visit the Tri-State Fair in 

 order to meet and make the acquaintance of 

 bee-keepers; but on learning that this institu- 

 tion had very much depreciated in value to 

 bee-keepers, and that they had pretty much 

 abandoned their interests in favor of other 

 stock, I changed my mind and went up to see 

 Dr. A. B. Mason at his home, and spent a 

 very pleasant hour chatting with him. 



I think if a stenographer had been present 

 to take our talk it would have furnished ma- 

 terial for a good sized-bee-journal, and I am 

 sure it would have taken two stenographers, 

 as we both talked at once in order to econo- 

 mize the time. When we shook hands at 

 parting we both agreed that we were always 

 better and happier for these meetings. The 

 doctor was blessed with a liberal suppl}' of 

 honey-dew this season, and he was making 

 some experiments in feeding it back, I think 

 for winter stores. 



On the morning of Aug. 25 I boarded an ex- 

 cursion train on the A. A. R. R., billed for 

 Petoskey, Frankfort, and other points in 

 Northern Michigan, and was soon flying 

 along on my way through the Wolverine 

 State. For the first hour's ride my attention 

 was attracted by an unusual amount of bee- 

 forage. There v/ere a good many swamps 

 and much swampy land, and upon all of this 

 there was a great profusion of goldenrod, 

 boueset, wild asters, and other fall bloom. 

 Plelds of buckwheat were also quite frequent. 

 I think I saw more buckwheat in this locality 

 than in any other part of Michigan. I felt 

 quite a keen disappointment in not seeing 

 more bee-hives from the car-window, for I 

 felt sure that a valuable crop of nectar was 



going to waste simply for lack of workers to 

 save it. 



The most notable feature of the day's ride 

 was through the burnt pine country. The 

 pine belt, as it is sometimes called, has been 

 devastated by fire from time to time until this 

 whole tract of country presents the most com- 

 plete scene of desolation that it is possible to 

 imagine. For miles together no signs of hu- 

 man life are to be seen — only blackened 

 stumps and logs. This is the seen* of the 

 destructive fires of which we get or used to 

 get the sensational stories not soon to be for- 

 gotten. In response to a feeble effort of nature, 

 vegetation is timidly and slowly spri*.g''ri' up 

 again to replace that destroyed by the fire. In 

 places a new growth of timber is seen sn'^ing- 

 ing up. At one place scrub-oaks appear; in 

 another, pines; poplar in another place puts 

 forth, and so on, perhaps, with many other 

 kinds, each seeming to respond in some mys- 

 terious way to the conditions favorable only 

 to its own growth. 



East Townsend, O. 



7'o he co>itiniicd. 



[Our friend Mr. Boardman called at Root- 

 ville just the night before I was to take my 

 trip east among the bee-keepers. Had it not 

 been for the rain and this projected trip the 

 trio of us would have taken a general circle 

 among the bee-keepers in and about Medina. 

 As it was we made the best of it, talking bees 

 up into the small hours of the night. I really 

 wish we had had a stenographer, as many a 

 thing was dropped that night that should 

 have been preserved in a more permanent 

 form As friend Boardman says, if all that is 

 said at a meeting of a trio of bee keepers 

 could be printed, it would fill up a bee-jour- 

 nal. If friends Boardman and Fowls will fa- 

 vor us with another visit, and give us due no- 

 tice, I will see that one of our stenographers 

 is ready to " pot-hook " every thing said. 



There is nothing, I think, that so broadens 

 the mind of a bee-keeper as to go out among 

 his fellows. I have learned more by coming 

 in contact with bee-keepers, and seeing and 

 comparing their ways and methods for a few 

 hours, than I have learned in months of time 

 among our own bees. — Ed.] 



THE IDEAL SUPER. 



T Tins vs. Supporting-slats ;, Ten-frame Hives and 

 Half-depth Supers. 



BY W. C. GATHRIGHT. 



Dr. C. C. Miller : — I have read with great 

 interest your article in Gleanings for May 

 15. regarding the Ideal super. This was espe- 

 cially interesting to me because I had been 

 thinking for some time of sending you a de- 

 scription of my super. I was glad that you 

 were so favorably impressed with the Ideal, 

 because my super is exactly the same arrange- 

 ment, only mine takes the regular \% section. 



I began bee-keeping about eight years ago, 

 with T supers and wide frames. I soon dis- 

 carded the latter, and, not being satisfied with 

 the T super, I took out the T tins and put in 

 plain slats. Later I began using section-hold- 



