124 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 15. 



honey at 6 cts. a pound. And yet with honey having 

 more than one third the advantage over sections, Bro. 

 Shepherd has the gall to hint high prices of sections 

 as the reason for the low prices of honey, or " hard 

 times." 



Mr. Doolittle says the average price of hon- 

 ey in the 1870's was 25 cts. per lb., and 1-lb. 

 sections $12.50. Comb honey now averages 

 10 cents, while the sections have fallen to 

 §3.00, and are greatly superior in quality and 

 workmanship to those made in the '70's. 

 These figures are certainly suggestive. 

 i*/ 



An interesting article on Japanese bees is 

 contributed by K. Aoyanagi. He says their 

 history informs them that bees came to Japan 

 from Corea about 1250 years ago. Their main 

 bee is grayish-yellow, and when it gets older 

 it becomes darker. Its queen has a good tem- 

 per, and they "have no trouble in managing 

 her." Japanese bees never suspend their 

 work and stop brood-rearing during the sum- 

 mer. The writer of the article says he never 

 uses smoke or veil. He says their bees are 

 better tempered than the Italians, but they 

 are sensitive and easily frightened. They are 

 readily robbed by the Italians. The comb 

 made by the Japanese bee is so thin that it 

 will not well stand shipment. The Japanese 

 bees have a better sense of smell than the Ital- 

 ians, as they were first to find stray drops of 

 honey dropped on the ground. For rainy 

 countries like Japan the native bees are better 

 than the Italians, as they do not stop work 

 during a rain Some Japanese bees were sent 

 to Australia, and the people spoke very highly 

 of them. 



vJ/ 

 BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



Mr. Taylor says, "There is nothing more 

 valuable about a book or journal than a good 

 index." I'm glad to see my old department 

 appreciated by Mr. Taylor; but it is a fine job 

 to make an index that will enable one to put 

 his finger on a certain item the first time try- 

 ing. 



xfc 



L. Kreutzinger has a new entrance-closer. 

 He uses two sheets of perforated zinc, one in 

 front of the other. By moving one strip a 

 little to one side the perforations in the zinc 

 can be made smaller or larger, or closed alto- 

 gether. Sixty hives an hour can be opened in 

 this way. Mr. Hutchinson calls it " handy 

 and effective." 



m 



E. A. Daggitt is pleased with Taylor's criti- 

 cisms, and calls for a high literary standard 

 in our journals. Mr. Daggitt says he suffers 

 from " the strange fatality of the compositor 

 making mistakes in putting his writings into 

 print." I see he does. He seldom has an ar- 

 ticle printed without one mistake. Mr. Dag- 

 gitt says be has never favored open separators, 

 and fears they are not going to be the panacea 

 for that ill in bee-keeping they were claimed 

 to cure. He says if an opening is good, a sep- 

 arator of wire cloth would be the thing, and 

 yet the latter has been discarded. He seems 

 to favor the non-use of separators, saying : 



It stands to reason that, if closed separators dis- 

 courage the bees from properly attaching the combs 



to the sections, the less of them we have the better; 

 and if we have none at all, still better. 



It seems as if his fears were founded more 

 on theoretical grounds than practical ; for cer- 

 tainly much praise has come from those who 

 have tried the open separators, and their in- 

 creased sale is phenomenal. 

 \i> 



To get all of the wax out of slumgum, I. 

 W. Beckwith, of Wyoming, uses what might 

 be called a very large lemon-squeezer One 

 of the levers is laid horizontally over a tub, 

 its smaller end resting on a sawhorse. A hole, 

 2x3, is cut in the wide part of the horizontal 

 handle, and this hole is covered with six or 

 eight wires. The melted wax is put into a 

 thick cloth sack, allowing it to drip into the 

 tub as long as it will. The sack is then laid 

 between the jaws, the upper lever is pulled 

 down, and the rest of the wax runs between 

 the wires into the tub. The sack is turned 

 and pressed several times. Mr. B. says the 

 residue shakes out like meal. The bag used 

 is made of a grain-sack. 

 »»/ 



C. Davenport begins a series of articles on 

 brood-chambers, covers, and even box hives 

 that he prefers. The hive he prefers as a sin- 

 gle-story brood hive is a plain eight-frame one. 

 He make the assertion that " Dovetailed cor- 

 ners add nothing to the convenience or utility 

 of a hive," al: hough he admits that it makes 

 the strongest joint possible. He strongly ad- 

 vises painting hives. Mr. Hutchinson erro- 

 neously prints "Southern, Minn.," as Mr. 

 Davenport's address. There is no such post- 

 office as that. It should be Southern Minne- 

 sota — that is, the southern part of that State. 

 I mention this so our readers will not waste 

 time by writing to Mr. Davenport. Besides, 

 there is no person of that name. 

 \i< 



E. E. Hasty, who for so long a time bas been 

 the bright evening star of the Reviezv, has 

 sunk beneath the horizon of Michigan. He 

 gives his reasons as follows: 



I can't read up my journals evenings — have lost hope 

 of being able to do'f-o. The result of this is that when- 

 ever a " View " has to be made out, the reading first has 

 to be done, all in a pile, and the time for it taken out 

 of the few hours each day when I am at mv best. The 

 net result is that the number of days it takes to make 

 out a "View" is unreasonably great, and has come to 

 be unendurable. 



Mr. Hasty is right. Nothing is more trying 

 to the nerves than selection. I have known 

 women to be unstrung by the labor of select- 

 ing a dress pattern. The ones they are com- 

 pelled to leave cast a shade of regret on the 

 one selected. So in telling what people write 

 about in the journals, a condenser is constant- 

 ly regretting what he can not reproduce. Aft- 

 er a Hasty submergence, however, that star is 

 now seen in the morning, in the constellation 

 Gleanings, shining with its old-time glow. 



vt< 

 THE MODERN FARMER AND BUSY BEE. 



Mrs. Lizzie Ireland, of Norway, Kan., seems 

 to have put a quietus on any further discus- 

 sion of sweet clover being of value for honey 

 and for fodder for stock. She savs theirs was 



