710 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1. 



I'm not pressing them very far to the front. 

 [I have been accused of pressing barns also, 

 doctor ; but, like yourself, I have not arrived 

 at the point where I can recommend them. In 

 certain localities I believe they might be the 

 hive, especially if extracted honey is the kind 

 to be marketed. I believe in giving every 

 thing a fair show, and sometimes I champion 

 the merits of a certain thing for the sake of 

 drawing out both sides and thus getting at the 

 truth. Whatever I may have said in favor of the 

 barns has been with that end in view. — Ed.] 



jk Commission men are getting the worst of it 

 nowadays. All right, brethren ; bat them over 

 the head all you like ; but wait till a year 

 comes with big crops and no offers, and you 

 may be glad to have a commission man work 

 for you. I've seen the same thing in years 

 gone by. A scarce year brought into the field 

 many purchasers. Then came a year of plen- 

 ty, and with few exceptions they dropped 

 right back again into the ranks of commission 

 work, pure and simple. See if it isn't so 

 again. [I'm not one of those who believe that 

 we can dispense with the services of the com- 

 mission men just yet. Indeed, I do not see 

 how we ever can. But if we can induce more 

 of them to do business on a cash basis it will 

 do away with some of the friction we find here 

 and there. — Ed.] 



Bro. Doolittle, you seem to have waited 

 so long before answering my question that 

 you have changed it into another question. 

 You start out all right on p. 684 by saying the 

 question is the yellow-maroon one, and then 

 leave that entirely and answer about pure Ital- 

 ians. You ask where I was in the early seven- 

 ties. Right here, Bro. Doolittle, and I dis- 

 tinctly remember the discussion about pure 

 Italians. But that's not the question. The 

 question for an answer to which I am waiting 

 is this : " Why didn't you before, in all these 

 years, tell us that Italians were maroon and 

 not yellow f " [Now look here, doctor; if 

 Bro. Doolittle is made to answer that question, 

 where will this color business end ? To even 

 things up I will agree to give him a little bit 

 of space on condition that you will agree to 

 keep mum on the matter, no matter how saucy 

 he talks. Perhaps he will be magnanimous 

 enough to drop the matter where it is. — Ed.] 



Foul brood is not slow in its action. Says 

 H. W. Brice, in B. B.J.: " Spores require suit- 

 able and favorable conditions to supervene for 

 the space of only half an hour in order to 

 transform them into the virulent type known 

 as rods, and these rods are capable of produc- 

 ing two generations every hour of their exist- 

 ence as such ! A single spore is thus capable 

 of infecting a whole colony of bees in a week, 

 if it were not for the natural immunity of all 

 living things to disease. ' ' [That foul brood is 

 not slow in its action, some of us know to our 

 very great sorrow. When it once breaks out 

 in an apiary it seems to start almost every- 

 where at once. Years ago, when we had foul 

 brood, after we had discovered it in two colo- 

 nies we found it in a dozen or two others. Aft- 

 er we had cured these up, then there would 

 be a dozen more to take their place, and so on 



until it went through our apiary. Then for a 

 little time it would break out in isolated colo- 

 nies. — Ed.] 



"Somnambulist," in Progressive, enters a 

 protest against "inflated honey reports." A 

 man has an extraordinary yield, and the bee- 

 journals, as if short of other copy, print and 

 reprint the story. Then the manufacturers 

 tell what big piles of lumber are used for sup- 

 plies, and the commission man says the stock 

 of honey must be enormous, and prices must 

 come down. A good bit in that, Sommy, but 

 there are two sides. It isn't in human nature 

 to catch a big fish and not tell of it. And is 

 it fair to call it "inflated " if it's true? If our 

 business is to receive the recognition we desire 

 from railroads, legislatures, etc., we must let 

 them see that it isn't a one-horse affair. All 

 the same, Sommy, prices ought to go up ; and 

 if you keep talking about it that will help to 

 make them go up. [Somnambulist strikes at 

 a good point, and you have fairly put the 

 other side. One thing should be well under- 

 stood : A large demand for supplies during the 

 season does not necessarily indicate a big 

 honey-flow. In 1897, when so many factories 

 were running night and day, the season was 

 almost a failure. — Ed.] 



Dr. Dzierzon relates in Ung. Bienen that 

 he removed a queen from a colony, and the 

 bees reared a new one that was lost on her 

 wedding-trip. Opening the hive to give them 

 some fresh brood he was surprised to find 

 three fresh queen-cells with larvae, from one 

 of which a good queen was reared. He thinks 

 that the three eggs from which the three royal 

 larvae came had been kept for three weeks 

 after the removal of the queen. If correct, 

 that may help to solve some of the mysterious 

 appearances of queens in queenless colonies, 

 and impure stock from purchased pure queens. 

 [This same Dr. Dzierzon, a name that stands 

 almost beside that of Langstroth, and who 

 practically is the Langstroth of Germany, pro- 

 posed a set of theories some thirty odd years 

 ago which go to make up the very foundation 

 of scientific bee-keeping. It is only within 

 recent times that any one has risen to disprove 

 any one of them ; but so far as I have been 

 able to determine they are not disproven by 

 considerable. He has now proposed a new 

 theory, and it seems one of the most reason- 

 able that has yet been proposed for explaining 

 how fertile eggs are sometimes found in a col- 

 ony when no laying queen has been in it for a 

 good many days. Poultry eggs will keep 

 good for hatching for a considerable length of 

 time ; and why shouldn't the eggs of a queen, 

 under favorable conditions? Why not call 

 this Dzierzon's new theory, considering the 

 fact that his old theories have come to be ac- 

 cepted as true ? — Ed.] 



/. T. W., Va.—lt is a little bit late to 

 strengthen up your nucleus by ordinary stim- 

 ulative feeding. The only thing you can do 

 is to unite it with some other weak stock. 

 If you haven't any other bees, put this nucle- 

 us in a double- wall hive and pack it well. 



