580 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1. 



Fdit°-rial 



^ • ». BY. *- 



SEE special offers on page 592. 



Brother Hutchinson very magnanimous- 

 ly says bee-keepers ought to read all the bee- 

 journals, visit other bee-keepers, and attend 

 conventions. From a purely selfish point of 

 view an editor would be inclined to say, 

 "Take only one journal, and that one our 

 own." But Bro. Hutchinson is away above 

 such a spirit, and always was. 



SERENADING SWARMS WITH TIN PANS. 



A correspondent says that the old cus- 

 tom of serenading swarms with tin pans orig- 

 inated from an old act of the English Parlia- 

 ment, giving a person a right to follow his 

 swarm provided he rang a bell, or drummed 

 on a tin pan, to give notice that he (the own- 

 er) was after the bees. This old act was passed 

 something like a thousand years ago, and dur- 

 ing the centuries since it is evident that the 

 original purpose of the drumming was lost 

 sight of, and that subsequent generations came 

 to the conclusion that the serenading induced 

 a sort of spell on the bees, causing them to 

 cluster so they could be captured. 



STORING HONEY IN A SPONGE, ETC. 

 An item is going about in the papers, to the 

 effect that bees have been taught to store hon- 

 ey in sponges, and the sponges are then passed 

 through a clothes-wringer so as to squeeze out 

 the honey, etc. Years ago I selected some 

 sponges with holes in them as near the size of 

 honey-comb as I could get, and tried to get 

 bees to store honey in them, but I did not suc- 

 ceed. Bees will store honey in a receptacle 

 only about the size of regular honey-comb. 

 Unless they can crawl into the cell they will 

 not use it for honey. The holes in a sponge 

 that are too small for a bee to enter would 

 make an excellent place for moth-worms where 

 the bees could not get at them. The whole 

 story is no doubt a newspaper yarn, and we 

 hope it will not go the rounds of the papers as 

 many such foolish things do. — A. I. R. 



WHY CLOVER AND BASSWOOD DID NOT YIELD 

 NECTAR. 

 IS there any one among our readers who can 

 tell why, when all the conditions are favora- 

 ble — plenty of rain, plenty of warm weather, 

 and clover in abundance — it should not yield 

 nectar in the good old-fashioned way ? It is 

 true that a good many of the favorable condi- 

 tions have been lacking in some portions of 

 the country. In our locality we have had all 

 of them, apparently, and yet we may say there 

 is the smallest yield from clover we have ever 

 known. Some days ago I was talking with 

 Vernon Burt about the prospect for bass wood. 

 "Why, there is plenty in bloom," said he, 

 "but the nights are too cool." A few days 



ago, while talking with R. F. Holtermann, he 

 remarked that the showing from basswood in 

 Canada was good, but that it had been too 

 warm — that they needed cooler and more 

 moist weather. Well, now, I should like to 

 know what are the best conditions for a secre- 

 tion of nectar from basswood. If there is any 

 scientist or bee-keeper who is able to give us 

 the solution of these two problems I wish he 

 would answer. 



THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION. 

 We have just received a copy of the pro- 

 gram for the national convention of the Unit- 

 ed States Bee-keepers' Association to be held 

 in Philadelphia Sept. 5, 6, 7, next. The fol- 

 lowing is the program : 



Necessity of Pure-food Legislation from a Bee-keep- 

 er's Point of View. — Rev. E. T. Abbott. 



Out-apiaries, and Their Management for Comb 

 Honey. — W. L- Coggshall. 



Possibilities and Difficulties of Bee keeping in Cuba 

 and Porto Rico, and the Effect of Our New Relations 

 with those Islands on Our Honey Market. — Fred L- 

 Craycraft and W. W. Somerford. 



Best Method of Comb-honey Production, with Lat- 

 est Hive Improvements. — F. Danzenbaker. 



Possibilities of Bee keeping. — Address by G. M. Doo- 

 little. 



Marketing Honey— Can and Ought We to Control 

 Prices?— P. H. Elwood. 



Bee-keeping, and the Source of the Honey Supply 

 in and around Philadelphia. — W. E. Flower. 



Foul Brood — Its Detection and Eradication. — N. E. 

 France. 



Our Pursuit as Viewed by an Amateur. — F. Hahman. 



Why Bee-keepers' Exchanges Fail.— C. A. Hatch. 



Bees or Honey — Which in Spring Management? — R. 

 F. Holtermann. 



Bee-keeping as a Profession. — W. Z. Hutchinson. 



How to Conduct Successfully a Bee-keepers' Ex- 

 change.— J. Webster Johnson. 



The Fall Honey Crop of Philadelphia. — John L. 

 Kugler. 



Organization among Bee-keepers — If Desirable, 

 Why, and How Best Accomplished. — Thomas G. New- 

 man. 



Best Method of Extracted -honey Production. — 

 Frank Rauchfuss. 



Address by A. I. Root. 



Fads, Fancies, and Follies in the Apicultural World. 

 — Hon. Eugene Secor. 



The Products of the Bee — Pollen, Propolis, and Hon- 

 ey — W. A. Selser. 



Food Value of Honey— Its Adulteration and Analy- 

 sis.— Hon. H. W. Wiley. 



President's Address. — E. Whitcomb. 



The " Western Passenger Association " will 

 make a rate of one fare for the round trip plus 

 $2.00. This amount is "added to the rates 

 charged by the other association through 

 whose territory the person may travel." For 

 further particulars apply to the secretary, Dr. 

 A. B Mason, Station B, Toledo, Ohio. While 

 the season has been exceptionally poor, so far 

 as honey is concerned, farm crops generally 

 will be good ; and as the rates are very low, 

 owing to the G. A. R. encampment at Phila- 

 delphia, there ought to be a good attendance. 



CORRESPONDENTS FOR BEE-PAPERS. 



Editor York, of the American Bee Jour- 

 nal, says it seems that more than ever before 

 the contents of the bee-papers of to-day are 

 contributed by only a few writers, and that in 

 this respect it is far different from what it was 

 ten or fifteen years ago. This is quite true. 

 Years ago it seemed to be the fashion, or rath- 

 er, perhaps, the proper thing, to make every 



