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Publishedby THEA-l r RoO"f Co. 



$i™ perYear.^'N© Medina- Ohio 



Vol. XXVII. 



NOV. 15, 1899. 



No. 22. 



Mr. Bradley says, on a piece of land 

 where the sandstone contained an acid the 

 honey did not candy ; on another piece of 

 shale and clay, without acid, the honey can- 

 died. — Australia)! Bee Bulletin. 



W. C. GaThrighT is surprised that I got 

 bees to start queen-cells by putting jelly in 

 worker-cells. Nothing surprising when you 

 remember that bees often start queen-cells of 

 their own accord when young brood is put 

 over an excluder with a laying queen below. 

 Later in the season I tried putting jelly in 

 worker-cells over an excluder again, and it 

 was an utter failure. 



I'm surprised that you get votes in favor of 

 shorter spelling and none against. I beg the 

 great public's pardon for thinking it more 

 prejudiced than it was. If that proof-reader 

 ever gets started on the reform track, he'll 

 spel wers than York. [Votes are still coming 

 in in favor of the shorter spelling ; and up to 

 the present writing only one dissenter has re- 

 ported, and that is Mr. Harry Lathrop, of 

 Browntown, Wis. — Ed.] 



J. F. Munday says in Australasian Bee-keep- 

 er, he prefers a record on a hive to one in his 

 pocket, for the book might be lost. But I 

 wouldn't have a book so small it would go in 

 my pocket, so it isn't easily lost. Sometimes 

 I've decided whether I needed to go to an out- 

 apiary by consulting my book. In that case, 

 if my only record was on the hives I'd have 

 to go five miles to learn whether I needed to 

 go that five miles. 



On page 799 is figured "20 or 25 lbs. of 

 stores for outdoor colonies, and 12 lbs. for 

 those wintered in the cellar." Isn't that a bit 

 risky — at least for this locality ? [You mean 

 that the 12 lbs. for indoor wintering is a rather 

 scant supply, I suppose. Well, perhaps it is 

 for your locality ; but a set of tables that Dr. 

 Mason prepared a few years ago made it ap- 

 pear that between and 7 lbs. was a fair aver- 

 age of what his bees actually consumed dur- 



ing winter ; possibly for your locality, 15 lbs. 

 would be a safer figure for indoor wintering. 

 But it is a fact that indoor bees require less 

 than those out. — Ed.] 



W. H. Pridgen says (797) that I'm mistak- 

 en if I think because a larva is accepted in a 

 Doolittle cup it is always fed from the start as 

 a queen should be. I don't know that I ever 

 said that ; but I certainly did think that, if 

 bees accepted a larva less than three days old 

 in a cell-cup, it was all right for a queen, be- 

 cause scientists tell us the food of all larvae is 

 alike for the first three days. If practical men 

 have enough proof to show that the scientists 

 are wrong, I'm ready to desert the scientists. 



"Apple-TrEES ideal shade for an apiary," 

 says a heading, p. 805. So they are in Ohio. 

 But in this region a man musn't live too long 

 if he wants to continue believing in apple-trees 

 as ideal shade. The young apple-trees I be- 

 gan putting my bees under have mostly died 

 from old age. [I thought the apple-trees at 

 your home apiary afforded very good shade 

 for your home bees, doctor. Of coiirse, your 

 apple-trees are not to be compared with those 

 in the grand old State of Ohio. — Ed.] 



" There will be a slight change in the 

 construction of the cover ' ' for 1900 says an 

 editorial, p. 806. I wish there might be a big 

 change, giving us a cover with a dead-air space 

 and a tin top. [We have sold for years a dou- 

 ble cover ; and where such cover is preferred 

 the purchaser can have his preference grati- 

 fied ; but a double cover with tin, while it 

 might be absolutely proof against leaking, 

 would be very expensive. The present price 

 of tin plate would almost rule it out for hive- 

 covers. — Ed.] 



Lots of Things seem to be coming to light 

 about queen-rearing lately, and I suspect there 

 are lots of things we don't know about it yet 

 — at least that /don't know. I thought it 

 was the jelly and not the kind of cell that 

 made the bees rear a queen. But I accept the 

 word of friend Gathright, p. 804, that the cells 

 will do without the jelly. Editor Pender is 

 even more emphatic in Australasian Bee-keep- 

 er. He gave on the same frame cells with and 

 without jelly, and the bees accepted the larger 

 number without jelly. [As I have already 



