14 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1. 



innocent consumer often buys the inferior, 

 and in good faith that it is pure, with very 

 few exceptions perhaps. He gets the health- 

 destroyer when he supposes he is buying the 

 health-preserver or health-improver. Thus 

 one might continue in naming the wrongs 

 from which we suffer by these infamous abuses 

 committed by the adulterators of food prod- 

 ucts. 



Milledgeville, 111. 



BEE- VEILS WITH A FACING OF HORSEHAIR. 



Quotation-marks that Don't Quote ; Bamboo Canes 

 on Lake Geneva. 



BY F. L,. THOMPSON. 



Dr. Miller asks about horsehair veils. There 

 are none, I believe, that have any more than a 

 facing of horsehair. I have used one for two 

 seasons. The facing is good yet. Lately some 

 holes developed in the cotton tulle that forms 

 the body The horsehair is about equal to 

 black cotton tulle for seeing through, and has 

 the advantage that it never gathers in folds. I 

 do not know how it would compare with silk 

 tulle, hiving never used this. If the latter is 

 better, why couldn't it be kept stretched in a 

 little frame set in the veil? How about the 

 fabric called "illusion," sometimes used for 

 ordinary veils ? 



While literary infelicities are up, I want to 

 ask Dr. Miller aud his careful imitators, Glean- 

 er and B iler, why that memorandum-book 

 style of saying " in Review " instead of " in the 

 Review," This is a small matter, but they 

 are so persistent in it as to powerfully ex- 

 cite my curiosity. Surely, they don't mean 

 that the former phrase is correct, nor the lat- 

 ter incorrect. 



And the Chicago breezes fanned somebody's 

 "brow, ''they did. When I read that, my "skin" 

 experienced a creepy "feeling," something 

 like that felt when I see a "young man" 

 wearing his " hat " on one side of his " head," 

 or a "girl" chewing "gum." Verily, the 

 use of quotation-marks that don't quote has 

 become fearfully and wonderfully extended. I 

 could cite mauy such examples from the bee- 

 journals of the last few months. While ad- 

 missible in some degree, such extreme appli- 

 cations are never found in good literature. 

 Then there is the wooden and commonplace 

 use of the exclamation-point, etc. But what 

 riles me particularly is to have the proof-read- 

 er interfere with my punctuation. Beyond 

 certain general rules, the niceties of punctua- 

 tion, and particularly the use of the- comma, 

 are, according to the best authorities, matters 

 of taste. I suppose the proof-reader gets so 

 used to supplying punctuation that he does so 

 indiscriminately. But when he sees that one 

 has his own notions of punctuation he ought 

 to confine his work to the correction of real 

 errors, applying only such rules of punctua- 

 tion as are universally used in good literature. 



Here is an item for A. I. R., which I trans- 

 late from VApicoltore, which translated it 

 from some German paper. Herr Reepen, a 

 well-known bee-writer, has been visiting Ed- 



itor Bertrand, of La Revue Internationale, 

 who lives on the shore of Lake Geneva, at 

 Nyon, Switzerland. He says : 



" Great was my surprise to find in the mag- 

 nificent garden, wh'ch descends to the edge of 

 the lake, canes of bamboo of a height that I 

 have not seen equaled outside of the Indies. 

 On inquiry I learned that it was a variety of 

 bamboo that does not fear the rigors of winter, 

 indigenous in the high mountain regions of 

 Japan, and probably not existing in any part 

 of Europe. Now, thanks to the kindness of 

 M. Bertrand, a healthy shoot may be found 

 here in Oldenburg, and is prospering wonder- 

 fully. I do not doubt that it will successfully 

 pass the northern winters, as the temperature 

 at Nyon, too, often descends to — 13°R. [+3 

 F.] Nearness to running water is a condition 

 of its growth ; and when this is not lacking, 

 such a variety of bamboo will become an in- 

 comparable ornament of parks, gardens, etc. 

 The dusky-green color of its leaves is especial- 

 ly remarkable, not changing even in winter." 



Montrose, Col., Oct. 26. 



THE DOOLITTLE METHOD OF QUEEN-REARING. 

 How to Rear Giant Oueens. 



BY C. T. BONNEY. 



Since the Oregon went around Cape Horn 

 and whipped the whole Spanish fket, Oregon 

 doesn't seem as far out of the world as it did 

 before. Now that peace is declared I thought 

 a red apple from Oregon might not look bad 

 in your journal. 



I have noticed considerable in Gleanings 

 lately about the Doolittle method of queen- 

 rearing, and I should like to drop a mite in 

 that direction in hopes that some brother bee- 

 keeper will experiment along the same line. 

 I use the Doolittle method because I can raise 

 larger and better queens by that process than 

 any other; and what I have to say in regard 

 to it is only with the hope that others may 

 have the same success with it that I have had. 

 I know quite a number of the bee-keepers 

 who use this method are old-timers, and well 

 versed in bee-lore, yet I believe not all of 

 them have caught on to the greatest advan- 

 tage in the Doolittle method, which with me 

 is being able to raise the largest queens that I 

 have ever seen — larger than I ever saw issue 

 from natural swarming. When I began to 

 handle bees I was not long in learning that 

 they sometimes build small queen-cells, and 

 from small cells come small queens, and small 

 queens almost always head a small or weak 

 colony; while large queen-cells bring large 

 queens, and large queens are almost invaria- 

 bly prolific. It occurred to me one day that 

 I might raise all extra-large queens by mak- 

 ing the queen-cups larger, so I accordingly 

 made some form-sticks one-third and in some 

 instances one-half larger than an ordinary 

 queen-cell, and found to my great satisfaction 

 that the bees would draw out the length in 

 proportion to the diameter, a ad thus I have 

 raised the largest and most prolific queens 

 that I have ever seen. 



