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• DELVoTE. 



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•and honey 

 •and home: 



•INTERESTS 



Tubiishedy thea-PRooY Co. 

 sl°° ptRVtAR^'X® TIedina- Ohio • 



Vol. XXVII. 



MAR. 15, 1899. 



No. 6. 



Discrepancy between statements on pp. 

 170 and 186 as to hi^h board fences being bad 

 or good for bees. Wonder if the thing doesn't 

 vary as to locality. 



That Home talk of A. I. Root, last num- 

 ber, made me think what a reliable set in gen- 

 eral bee-keepers are. I never lost a cent by 

 one of them except once. 



DOOLITTLE says he's using foundation more 

 than two years old. Say, Doolittle, last year 

 I used lots of brood foundation six years old, 

 and I couldn't see but it was as goud as new. 



Hard maple grows fast, according to a 

 statement on p. 168. Any thing but fast, ''in 

 this locality." [Very slowly here, and yet all 

 depends on what is meant by " slowly." That 

 is a relative term'. — Ed.] 



" It is NEEDLESS to sacrifice a whole apiary 

 to any single experiment," says Doolittle, p. 

 183. Of course it is; bat why couldn't you 

 tell me of my faulis privately. Doolittle, in- 

 stead of coming out in that public manner ? 



I'm requested to tear in pieces C. P. Da- 

 dant for so strongly advocating big hives. 

 The trouble is, I can't find out whether he's 

 right or not. In the meantime I might set on 

 him my good friend D. N. Ritchie, the man 

 who gets good crops of honey with marvel- 

 ously small hives. 



" I would steal before I would go to the 

 poorhouse," A. I. Root thinks is false pride. 

 I should say so. When you simmer it down, 

 that means, " I'd rather steal $100 from a sin- 

 gle person than to take it honestly from a lot 

 of people who are willing to make me a pres- 

 ent of that amount. " 



Dzierzon offers a new kink. Clip both sides 

 of a virgin queen in the house before a window 

 till she flies with some difficulty, and she'll be 

 fertilized near home (Aspin wall's idea), and 

 then when she gets to laying she'll need no 

 other clipping. [This will be a rather delicate 

 job. In actual practice I should expect that 



either there would be too much clipped off the 

 wings, sd the queen would get lost, or not 

 enough so bnt she could fly just as far as she 

 pleased. — Ed.] 



The sum of $30,000 was lately paid for a 

 new carnation. Yesterday I stood admiring a 

 vase of the flowers in Chicago. Pulling out 

 my rule I found each measured fully 3 inches 

 across, and I thought, " When so much can 

 be done with a flower, why can't red clover 

 tongues be produced in bees, and also non- 

 swarmers ? ' ' 



Keeping hushed up the presence of foul 

 brood, as mentioned p. 176, seems about the 

 natur-d thing to do, but there may be a little 

 question whether it's the best thing. Where 

 there's a case of smallpox I've known the 

 family very anxious to have it hushed up; but 

 the public authorities insisted on having the 

 house very distinctly placarded "Smallpox ! " 



A. E. Manum doubts "that bees purposely 

 make use of foreign substances " in cappings. 

 If he will turn to Cheshire, p. 174, he can see 

 a picture of brood-capping magnified 35 times, 

 and wdl learn that the major portion of brood- 

 cappings is made up of nibblings and scraps, 

 cocoons, and pollen-grains, and from this 

 same contamination "not even the cleanest 

 super-comb is free." 



In replv to H. L., my best colonies have 

 perhaps 13 frames of brood at beginning of 

 clover harvest, the average being 8. How is 

 it at Medina? [My best comb and extracted 

 honey colonies (and you know I run for both 

 on the same hive) would have ten and twelve 

 frames of brood; but about the time honey 

 begins to come in well, if the season holds out 

 I get them on to about eight. — Ed] 



That consolidation of 18 swarms, p. 174, 

 reminds me. Years ago I visited E. D. God- 

 frey, Red Oak, Iowa, and he gave me a vivid 

 account of an experience he had had. I think 

 it was 60 colonies that were taken out of cellar 

 in spring, and about all of them swarmed out 

 at the same time ! The air was black with them, 

 and they went back into only a small number 

 of the hives. He candidly admitted that it 

 made him so sick he went straight to bed. I 

 think he afterward did something to even 

 them up. 



