1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



459 



as Mr. Dadant says, too shallow. Concerning 

 starters in sections, he says it is a well-known 

 fact that full sheets of foundation in sections 

 do not of themselves secure a crop of honey. 

 v»/ 

 Mr. H. Clute, of Wisconsin, says farmers 

 are just beginning to raise alsike clover there. 

 The bees work on it well. As the land gets 

 cleared up more, so the ground will be warmer, 

 he thinks farmers will get to raising more clo- 

 ver, and then the honey-harvests will get larg- 

 er each year. Some years ago it was feared 

 by at least a few that apiculture would cease 

 as farming did away with woods and unculti- 

 vated fields; but perhaps the contrary is the 

 truth. 



Mr. York congratulates Mr. Aikin on his 

 election to office on a temperance issue. He 

 says he himself has not for 15 years lived in a 

 place where laws are enforced, and adds : 

 " Here in Chicago it is almost true to say that 

 only the laws that suit the politicians are en- 

 forced. No attempt whatever is made to close 

 on Sunday the front entrances to hell ( saloons ) ; 

 . and it makes no difference which party 

 is in power." Mr. York has struck a " spell " 

 here that I warmly indorse. 

 \ii 



Dr. Peiro, after demolishing the old-fash- 

 ioned " bussing-bee," now attacks the prac- 

 tice of hand shaking. The complainant avers: 

 "Here comes a man with whom you shake 

 hands. In a week or two your hands begin 

 to tingle, and soon you find you have caught 

 the itch. This you generously give to your 

 family and friends, to keep them busy scratch- 

 ing. Eczema is often contracted in this way." 

 The doctor certainly deserve* a vote of thanks 

 for his timely warning. Shake, doctor. 

 \i/ 



A grocer in Clark Co., Wis., lets honey can- 

 dy in the barrel; then he sets the barrel on a 

 table in the front part of the j-tore, cuts off 

 the hoops, and then pulls the staves off. Thus 

 a solid mass of honev is left exposed. Cus- 

 tomers ii quire what that chunk of honev is 

 When informed that it is honey in a candied 

 state they buy liberally. The grocer slices it 

 off the top like cheese. One grocer sold one 

 barrel of it in a week at a profit of 4 cents a 

 pound. Others grocers sold, in the old way, 

 only a barrel or two all winter. 

 \ii 



Mr. C. A. Montague, writing from Northern 

 Michigan, says crimson clover fills the blank 

 between fruit-bloom and the other clovers, and 

 is worth all the other clovers combined. Last 

 season, from that one source, his stronger col- 

 onies filled a super holding 8 L. frames. This 

 was before any of the other clovers were in 

 bloom. Speaking of milkweed he calls it his 

 old standby, it having failed but once in nine- 

 teen years. He gets from it from 75 to 150 

 lbs. per colony. He thinks putting the aver- 

 age yield from milkweed at J 00 lbs. per colo- 

 ny is a very moderate estimate. A total fail- 

 ure in his locality, Grand Traverse Co., is un- 

 known. His average for 1896, 1897, and 1898, 

 was 150, 129, and 131 lbs. respectively. 



W. A. Pryal describes the century plant, 

 and gives a picture of one. For rapidity of 

 growth it seems to be a fair rival of Jack's 

 bean-stalk that we used to hear of when we 

 were very young. The plant in the picture 

 seems to be about 30 feet tall, and yet it grew 

 in a few weeks. Mr. Pryal is sure it will often 

 grow more than a foot in 24 hours. He no- 

 ticed the bees on a fallen plant, and observed 

 the flowers at close range. The bees tumbled 

 over each other to get the nectar. The quan- 

 tities secreted were great, and Mr. P. says he 

 never saw any thing like it before. 



\ti 



AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 

 Dr. Miller thought Mr. Manum had made a 

 mistake in saying that he had to fet d 727 col- 

 onies $2100 worth of sugar, or 80 lbs. per col- 

 ony. Mr. Hill says there is nothing extraor- 

 dinary in the consumption of that much su- 

 gar per colony, during the breeding season. 



tti 



The editor says a section of honey in which 

 pollen is contained should never be crated for 

 market, as experience has taught that the eggs 

 of the wax-moth are very liable to be present 

 in cells of bee-bread. Owing to the opacity 

 of the mass, its presence may be readily de- 

 tected by transmitted light. 



0/ 



Mr. Hill is inclined to resent the imputa- 

 tion that bee-journals owned by supply-manu- 

 facturers are unduly biased in favor of their 

 own wares. He says he has had charge of the 

 Amer. Bee keeper for sixteen months, and 

 yet the W. T. Falconer Co. has never given 

 him a single suggestion regarding the goods 

 they make. 



\ii 



In denouncing the clipping of queens, Mr. 

 Hill says Willie Atchley, in the Southland 

 Queen, " becomes so completely lost in a veri- 

 table labyrinth of sentitnentalism as to lose 

 sight of the purpose for which bees were creat- 

 ed. He evidently considers it a great sin to 

 thus mutilate a queen. Perhaps it is this sub- 

 lime sentiment, voiced by Mr. A., that dictates 

 the course of so many brethren of the South- 

 west in refusing to permit their hair to be cut. ' 

 \\, 



The editor hopes Gleanings will early de- 

 cide to come out openly in favor of giving the 

 giant bee a thorough test in America. The 

 trouble is, the test is altogether dependent on 

 the consent of dorsata itself. "Barkis is 

 willing' " on this side, sure. As will be seen 

 in another column, they tried to " raise the 

 roof" of the house when Mr. Rambo tried to 

 show them the benefits of " assimilative civil- 

 ization." 



\h 



The editor, Mr. H. E. Hill, has forsaken the 

 quiet life of the editorial tripod, and his ad- 

 dress will be, in the future, Stuart, Fla. He 

 says, " We prefer active life among the bees, 

 and, therefore, have exchanged the cushioned 

 chair and office conveniences for the open air 

 in a primitive and tropical country." He does 

 not intend to give his journal any less atten- 



