42 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 15 



Langstroth combs full of brood, when work- 

 ing for comb honey, would such a queen be 

 entertained to her fullest capacity as to egg- 

 la) ing if confined to 6?/ frames? 



I'm afraid that, if the punctuation in 

 Gleanings were to be left to the tastes of the 

 writers, as F. L. Thompson suggests, a good 

 many things would not be very clear. Who 

 is to decide which writers have the proper 

 taste? I have some grudges against the 

 proof-reader, and should like to be indepen- 

 dent of him; but I don't know enough yet to 

 be sure whether a comma or a semicolon is 

 the right thing, so please W. P., keep sprin- 

 kling in a few commas and things wherever 

 they'll do the most good, so as to make my 

 writings intelligible — when you can. 



The idea that sections of honey will pass 

 better for genuine when daubed with propolis, 

 Editor Holtermann thinks about as reasonable 

 as to have cows' hair in butter to attest its 

 genuineness. [I quite agree with Mr. Holter- 

 mann ; and yet that idea does obtain with 

 quite a large number, but wholly, I believe, 

 on false grounds. A clean section box of 

 honey will outsell a propolis-daubed one in 

 most markets ; and yet if I can ju Ige by the 

 honey that comes here (and we buy thousands 

 of pounds every year) many bee-keepers, at 

 least, seem to think that scraping is not a 

 necessity. Whether they think so or whether 

 they are too lazy to go to the extra trouble, is 

 a question. — Ed ] 



On page 6 I made such bad use of language 

 that it might be understood that Doolittle lets 

 the young queen cut out queen-cells in his 

 plan for preventing swarming. Not so; the 

 bee-keeper cuts them out at the time of put- 

 ting in the young queen. [Yes, your Ian 

 guage was susceptible of a double meaning. 

 I might have known that no queen, young or 

 old, would cut down cells invariably, when 

 introduced to a queenless colony. I have in- 

 troduced dozens of queens that let cells go. 

 with the result that a virgin would hatch, and 

 then the old queen would be missing. We 

 have made it a rule that it is never safe to 

 attempt to introduce valuable queens without 

 first destroying cells in the hive. I can not 

 imagine why I should have fallen in with the 

 idea so readily unless it was because I thought 

 Doolittle generally right on points of this 

 kind— Ed ] 



F. L. Thompson is right, p. 14, in object- 

 ing to the use of quotation-marks that don't 

 quote. I'm going to try to do better in that 

 direction — see if I don't. But I feel like ask- 

 ing Bro. Thompson whether that veil-stuff he 

 talks about a few lines above is not illusion 

 instead of "illusion." [[ quite agree with_ 

 Mr. Thompson in believing that there has' 

 been too free a use of "quotation-marks that 

 don't quote" {these quote). Sometimes they 

 are used as a sort of apology for a word not 

 fully recognized by the dictionary; sometimes 

 for the evident purpose of introducing pleas- 

 antry. Their occasional use, however, in our 

 columns has been the choice of the writers and 

 not of the proof-reader, who has marked out 

 thousands. But as Mr. Thompson claims that 



a writer should be indulged in the exercise of 

 his own " notions " in punctuation he can not 

 very well complain if some should ride the 

 quotation hobby too freely. — Ed.] 



F. L- Thompson asks why I say " Review " 

 instead of " the Review,'" p 14. For the same 

 reason, I suppose, friend Thompson, that in 

 Review, pige 332, you say "American Bee 

 Journal' 1 '' instead of ''The American Bee Jour- 

 nal:'" it's shorter. I suppose that "The Bee- 

 keepers' Review " is its full title ; but if there 

 is no misunderstanding it's not a bad thing to 

 shorten it. If you drop out " Bee-keepers', " 

 why object to dropping the less distinctive 

 part of the name? [This is a case of hyper- 

 criticism. There are really many things that 

 s /rely need correction, without taking up 

 those that are of no consequence. It matters 

 little whether we say Review or The Review. 

 —Ed.] 



Dead brood " greatly resembles foul brood; 

 and the only distinct differences are, first, it 

 is not contagious ; and, second, very little of 

 the brood dies," says a footnote, p. 20. Isn't 

 there a distinct difference in ropiness, and per- 

 haps smell? [Yes, I have seen quite a little 

 dead brood that was ropy. Once we had con- 

 siderable of it in our apiary. It did not seem 

 to spread from one colony to another, nor was 

 there any particular odor to it that I remem- 

 ber. Indeed, there is no perceptible smell to 

 foul brood when there are only a few scatter- 

 ing diseased cells. I formerly thought tint 

 the crucial test of foul brood was ropiness ; 

 but after having seen these dead or pickled 

 brood cases I have had to conclude that it is 

 not necessarily a decisive symptom. I think 

 we may say this, however : That dead or 

 pickled brood is so rare that, when larvae 

 assume a brown color, and are somewhat 

 shrunken, lie on the sides of the cells, and are 

 ropy, it indicates foul brood. In speaking 

 about the odor of this disease it does not seem 

 to be very pronounced — to me at least — unless 

 the brood- combs are rotten with it, and then 

 there will be that pronounced cabinet-maker's 

 glue-pot smell. — Ed.] 



TRAVEL-STAIN; WHAT IS IT? 



Conditions Under which Travel-stain, so called, 

 May be Avoided ; a Valuable Article. 



BY j. E. CRANE. 



Whiteness appears to be largely the standard 

 of excellence in comb honey in the United 

 States. Given finished combs that are fairly 

 well built in the sections, and the honey will 

 grade according to its whiteness. Indeed, so 

 true is this that it has become one of the most 

 important questions the apiarist can ask: How 

 may the whitest combs be secured? Some 



