1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



877 



If your fuel is djy, and your fire goes out 

 without apparent provocation, the chances are 

 that the holes in the bottom of your fire-box 

 have become filled up. Clean them out. Even 

 then it may not burn as freely as it ought, and 

 it may be the holes are too small. Punch 

 them larger, or get a tinner to do so. 



But in case your smoker is all right and 

 your fuel is all right, you are anxious to start 

 a fire without the necessity of puffing your 

 smoker a long time, watching to see whether 

 it's going to go or go out, only to say, after 

 you have waited what seems to be a long time, 

 when you haven't any time to wait, " There ! 

 I do believe the old thing has gone out ! ' ' 

 Of course, you know that, when you start out 

 from the kitchen, if a good fire is going in the 

 cook-stove a few live coals put into the smo- 

 ker for a starter are fine. But if a gasoline- 

 stove is running you can't have coals, and 

 you may not want to light your smoker till 

 you reach the apiary. In that case it is very 

 nice to have something that will go for sure at 

 the first touch of a match. Now I'll tell 

 about the saltpeter. 



I take a two-gallon crock (of course, larger 

 or smaller would do), and throw into it a 

 pound of saltpeter, then fill half full of water. 

 Into this I put pieces of rotten wood or cotton 

 rags. The wood must be allowed to soak for 

 a day or so, but the rags may be taken out at 

 once, or they may be left a month. If j-ou 

 use rotten wood for fuel, and wish to tell the 

 saltpeter wood easily from the other, it's a 

 good plan to throw a little red aniline dye 

 into the crock. An old milk-pan with holes 

 in the bottom, or an old colander, stands in 

 the crock, and some of the rags are put into 

 that to drain and dry. Next time I come for 

 saltpeter rags I take them out of the colander, 

 put some out of the crock into the colander, 

 and put some new ones into the crock. If 

 none are dry enough I dry them in the sun or 

 stove-oven. When I want to fire my smoker 

 I take a rag, perhaps a piece of an old shirt 

 or dress, the size of my hand (I don't mean 

 the dress but the rag is the size of my hand), 

 touch a lighted match to it, roll it into a little 

 ball, and drop it into the smoker. Then, 

 without waiting to see whether it will burn or 

 not, I fill up the smoker with chips, planer- 

 shavings, or what-not, with no fear but there 

 will be a good fire with a very little puffing. 



Marengo, 111. 



[I grant that it looks as if honey affected 

 with Bacillus alvei must be boiled at least 45 

 minutes ; but in each of the experiments men- 

 tioned it was not possible for the heat to act 

 directly and promptly on the microbes. It 

 would take possibly ten minutes before the 

 gelatine in the test-tube would reach the boil- 

 ing-point, and it might take longer. Again, 

 gelatine, as its name indicates, is a thick 

 syrupy liquid, more so than honey, and would, 

 in my opinion, take longer to heat than a 

 liquid as thin as water. Honey, however, that 

 is put into a kettle, is raised from the temper- 

 ature of the room gradually to the boiling- 

 point, sterilization commencing to take place 

 at once. Now, if it were boiled ten or fifteen 



minutes, would it not receive the same steril- 

 ization as the gelatine in the test-tube plunged 

 into boiling water and kept there for 45 min- 

 utes ? But after taking all of this into consid- 

 eration, science still seems to be at variance 

 with practice. Has there ever been a case 

 recorded where infected honey brought to a 

 boil, and kept there for five or six minutes, 

 gave rise to the disease in a colony to which 

 such honey had been fed ? If there has, I do 

 not remember it. R. L. Taylor, D. A. Jones, 

 ourselves, and scores of others, have fed dis- 

 eased honey that had been brought to a little 

 more than a boil, and yet, so far as I know, 

 the disease did not appear in the colonies fed 

 with such honey. It is very possible that I am 

 mistaken ; and if I am, I wish that those bee- 

 keepers who have tried feeding honey boiled 

 not more than four or five minutes, and experi- 

 enced bad results, would hold up their hands. 



This is an important matter, and we can not 

 afford to make any mistakes. If there is just 

 otie bee-keeper who has found that five min- 

 utes' boiling is not enough, then we ought to 

 advise boiling for at least an hour to make 

 sure. 



Personally I see no need of feeding back 

 honey that comes from an infected colony. 

 There is great danger of exposing such honey 

 to the bees during the process of extracting ; 

 and my advice is, and always has been, to 

 burn the combs, brood and all, even if some 

 of the combs are nicely filled with honey. 

 But suppose there were no danger in extracting 

 the honey, there is the cost of the labor ; and 

 this, taken in connection with the fact that 

 boiled honey, especially if it be boiled an 

 hour, would be of inferior quality, the amount 

 saved per colony, after all expenses were de- 

 ducted, would be insignificant. The average 

 colony would not contain over 10 or 15 lbs. of 

 honey. The cost of extracting this honey, 

 just one colony alone, and messing up the ex- 

 tractor (not to mention smearing it over with 

 deadly microbes), could not be much less 

 than 25 cts. Then the honey that was boiled 

 for a whole hour would be dark in color and 

 off in taste. Such honey might bring 4 cts., 

 but more likely not more than 3. This honey 

 at 3 cts. would make 45 cts. Subtract from 

 this the cost of extracting the one colony, 25 

 cts. , and the cost of the package, how much 

 money would be left ? If the ivhole apiary were 

 infected with foul brood, then the case might 

 be different. 



I saw Dr. Miller light one of his saltpeter 

 rags with a match. It seemed to me it had 

 "gone out." I remarked, as he crammed the 

 rag down the smoker and more stuff on top of 

 it, "You will get no fire out of that." " Oh ! 

 that's all right," and he crammed in more 

 rotten wood and planer-shavings, and com- 

 menced to work the bellows. After about half 

 a dozen whiffs the smoke began to pour out. 

 ' ' Those saltpeter rags always light and stay 

 lit," said the doctor. 



It seems to me no bee-keeper could afford 

 not to have such smoker-lighting material on 

 hand, and plenty of it. The labor it would 

 save would more than make up for its slight 

 cost. Sometimes when I want a fire in a smo- 



