1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



675 



The torrid days, the chilly nights, 



Bespeak th' approach of fall ; 

 The few bright flowers that still remain 



Now constitute our all. 



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Between a very bad season and preparations 

 for the Philadelphia convention, world-chang- 

 ing events in apiculture are scarce. Old 

 standard subjects, such as wintering, size of 

 hives, etc., are thrashed over with some vigor, 

 but things in general are quite monotonous. 



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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



M. D. Andes gets drone brood out of combs 

 by setting the frames containing it against a 

 fence and letting young chickens pick the 

 larvae out. Probably large fowls would knock 

 the combs to pieces. 



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On page 532 is a view of a barn owned by 

 Jacob Huffman, of Wisconsin. It is 36x40, 

 and was paid for by the honey crop of one 

 season. In 1885 he sold 14,000 lbs. of extract- 

 honey and 6000 lbs. of comb honey, which 

 sold for $1280. Owing to the cutting-off of 

 basswood timber around him his yields now 

 are not so good. 



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Mr. York prints the name of this journal 

 with a hyphen in Bee-Culture. Why not use 

 one in American Bee Journal ? Proper names 

 should be printed as the owner writes them. 

 Surely the hyphen should be omitted in the 

 case cited. 



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The value of a question-box has been ques- 

 tioned, as the answers therein are often widely 

 divergent one from another. For all that, I 

 believe in the box, for even the divergence in 

 answers is often a source of new knowledge. 

 Only by getting the position of the moon 

 from points thousands of miles apart on the 

 earth can we determine her distance ; and so 

 ultimate truth can be arrived at in some mat- 

 ters only by comparing notes. 

 iii 



E. E. Hasty, living a short distance north 

 of Toledo, Ohio, reports his bees, Aug. 7, as 

 gathering a fair quality of surplus. He says : 

 " Earl Baker, a young apiarist in the edge of 

 the city, has been harvesting quite a lot — pre- 

 sumably sweet clover, which is plentiful down 

 there." 



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Sometimes a correction does not correct. 

 An amusing instance of this kind conies from 

 A. B. Bates, of Missouri. He desires a certain 

 passage to read thus : " The atmosphere above 

 retains the heat, etc., and the warm atmos- 

 phere coming in contact with objects of the 

 earth's surface, contract and give off mois- 

 ture." Of course, the above means nothing, 

 and I suspect Mr. York printed it thus by 

 way of a joke. Try it again, Mr. Bates. 



Mr. J. C. Carnahan, foul-brood inspector of 

 Mesa Co., Col., in writing about foul brood, 

 says: "We have a little foul brood, confined 

 to one end of the valley, but hope to have it 

 soon stamped out. We are using radical 

 measures, hoping the sooner to get rid of it. 

 We burn it — bees, hive, and honey." If every 

 county in the land, where foul brood is known 

 to exist, had an inspector like that, this great 

 scourge could soon be subdued. It seems to 

 some folks that the attempt to save the sound 

 part of an infected colony, and destroy the 

 diseased part, is poor economy. 



m 



W. A. Pryal states that one dealer who has 

 been handling honey for 20 years in San Fran- 

 cisco has, in the past two months, sold more 

 honey than in all his previous business. 

 Honey is now worth there 7 cts., while last 

 season it was only 3. 



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AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 

 In speaking of the difficulty in making a 

 bee-journal composed of matter that is equally 

 well adapted to the needs of all, the editor 

 well says : 



It is doubtful if ever a preacher or a lecturer has 

 succeeded in addressing even a local assemblage to 

 the entire satisfaction of all his hearers. How much 

 less, then, is it possible for the editor of a bee-paper 

 to make up his journal entirely of matter that will 

 interest and please each one of the vastly greater 

 multitude constituting his audience ! That which is 

 of practical value to the bee-keeper of New England 

 or New York is seldom capable of practical applica- 

 tion in the hands of a California or Florida subscriber; 

 yet each has equal rights in the paper for which he 

 pays. And, if he is progressive, he will certainly be 

 interested in proportion to the character and extent 

 of the information conveyed through any foreign 

 communication. 



According to the authority of J. M. Ham- 

 baugh, California raised, in 1870, 3750 lbs. of 

 honey, and in 1876 the large amount of 3,500,- 

 000 lbs. Its product for 1899 would be inter- 

 esting reading. 



\ii 



In replying to Mr. York's editorial on the 

 use of cans in preference to barrels for honey, 

 the editor says: "We have no fear but good 

 barrels will stand on their merits, and in ex- 

 tensive apiaries long remain as a package for 

 honey ; but with the small bee-keeper, with 

 whom honey-producing is but an avocation, 

 a smaller receptacle will doubtless be more 

 popular." 



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Mr. Hill gives a view of a covered apiary he 

 established on the Indian River, Florida. It 

 was simply a double roof supported on up- 

 right beams. On the following page is a view 

 of the same apiary after it was struck by the 

 recent hurricane that devastated Porto Rico. 

 The effect, like the hurricane, is "striking." 

 The destruction w?s complete. When Mr. 

 Hill first saw the ruins he said, heroically, 

 " It's pretty rough on the bee business, but a 

 rather interesting subject for the press. Bring 

 my camera." 



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In speaking of the myriads of mosquitoes 

 and sandflies at Blue Hole, the name of the 



