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Vol. XXVII. 



DEC. 15, 1899. 



No. 24. 



Propolis, according to S. A. Deacon, in 

 Gleanings, is just the thing for grafting-wax. 



Celluloid is used in England for quilts, 

 and is well spoken of ; also in place of zinc 

 for queen-excluders. 



" There are some who think it necessary 

 to renew brood -combs every 12 or 15 years," 

 says G. M. Doolittle, p. 887. Friend D., some 

 authorities across the water insist on every 

 four years or less I agree wilhjou in be- 

 lieving in combs 50 years old. 



That foul- brood cure of Editor Simmins, 

 given on p. 878, is almost the same, you say, 

 Mr. Editor, as the starvation plan. There is 

 this very important difference, that in the 

 Simmins plan the brood-combs are all saved. 

 [What I meant was that the principle of cure 

 was the same. — Ed.] 



M. CuviLLiER reports in Bulletin de la 

 Somme that he made an Italian and a black 

 colony swap places. The black queen was 

 killed and the Italian unhurt. The same thing 

 occurred in three different trials. According 

 to that, blacks accept a strange queen more 

 readily than Italians. 



Your classification of points for bees, 

 Mr. Editor, is good : 1. Ability to get honey; 

 2. Good wintering ability ; 3. Disinclination 

 to swarm ; 4. Good temper ; 5. Good color. 

 Possibly some other points ought to come in 

 and shove color lower down, as whiteness of 

 surplus combs I rather think I'd want 2 and 

 3 to change places, making non-swarming 

 come next after honey-getting. 



Some Think that it is not necessary to 

 quote scripture verbatim. Possibly that might 

 do if every one had a perfect understanding 

 of the meaning of scripture. As it is, it is 

 risky to give any thing but the exact words, 

 and the contrary belief caused the learned 

 Prof. Wiley to make a slip in Philadelphia, 

 when he spoke of the Bible saying man can 

 not live by bread alone. The Bible says noth- 

 ing of the kind. It says, "Man shall not live 



by bread alone." It says, "Thou shall not 

 steal," but it would be misquoting to say, 

 "Thou canst not steal." 



Brother A. I., you've used more than two 

 good pages of Gleanings trying to show up 

 frauds, but they'll go right on; for, in spite of 

 all jou can say, people will be humbugged — 

 want to be humbugged. But don't be dis- 

 couraged; once in a while some one will listen 

 to what you say, and it's hard to estimate the 

 good you may do in that way. Besides, it 

 makes good reading for the rest of us. 



Isn't That plan of tacking a piece of sec- 

 tion on a super to mark it, as given by W T m. 

 Mutk-Rasmussen, p. 884, better than my plan 

 of penciling on top of sections? When clean- 

 ing sections, Philo grumbled no little at my 

 pencil-marks. [The use of section-strips for 

 the purpose of holding records of particular 

 colonies is a very common practice ; indeed, 

 it seemed to me almost universal in my travels 

 among bee-keepers over the United States. — 

 Ed.] 



To move BEES a short distance, here's a 

 plan E. R. Jones gives in Southland Queen 

 that has a promising look : Choose a day that 

 will be so fair that all the bees will fly (but 

 not in a heavy honey-yield); close the en- 

 trances with wire cloth before a single bee has 

 left in the morning. An hour or two later 

 they will be very uneasy, and then move them 

 as nearly as possible at the same time, disturb- 

 ing them enough to make them fill with hon- 

 ey; then open up all at the same time. 



Speaking of "cross or snappy" bees, 

 while great industry and great gentleness may 

 unite in the same bee, I'm sorry to say that 

 the rule is that, when I find extra good work- 

 ers among my bees, they're of the " cross or 

 snappy " kind. [There are exceptions to all 

 rules; but it seems to be the experience of the 

 majority of bee-keepers that honey-getting 

 qualities are very apt to be combined with 

 crossness — yes, generally so. This is partly 

 explainable from the fact that very strong col- 

 onies that are prosperous in every sense of the 

 word are more "touchy" than weaker ones, 

 and it is the strong colonies that get the hon- 

 ey. This is something on the principle that a 

 big powerful nation with its millions of in- 



