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TublishedW-THE'A ll^OO'l' Co. 



l°JP[RYEAR.'^^@ Medina OHIO' 



Vol. XXVIII. 



JAN. I, 1900. 



No. 



It's fine. This in answer to that first ques- 

 tion on page 935. [Fine? what was fine? I 

 had to look clear back to page 935. Thanks. 

 —Ed.] 



On page 928 it is said that alfalfa ' ' makes 

 good honey." I think that's the first time 

 I've seen any testimony that alfala was of val- 

 ue as a honey plant as far east as Michigan, 

 and I'm wondering whether it may not possi- 

 bly be mixed up with alsike. 



Imitating the bee. " Why don 't you take 

 example from the little busy bee?" inquired 

 the man of original ideas. " I do," answered 

 Meandering Mike. " An' I want to call your 

 attention to de fact dat about now is when de 

 little busy bee lays off an' doesn't do no more 

 work fur de nex' six months." — Washington 

 Star. 



The Revue Universelle d^ Apiculture men- 

 tions an offer of Gleanings of ?25 each for 

 dorsata queens, and ardently wishes success 

 to the enterprise, because in the hands of its 

 American confreres Apis dorsata will not de- 

 lay to multiply rapidly, and to reach Europe 

 Notis vej^rons. [That offer is still good ; but 

 no one has taken it up yet. — Ed.] 



D. W. Heise gives in C. B.J. his trick of 

 getting unfinished sections cleaned out. At 

 4 p. M., set in the open only as many as the 

 bees will clean that day, putting the sections 

 at least \% inches apart in the supers. Don't 

 remove till 4 p. m. next day, and then replace 

 with fresh ones, and so on till all are done. 

 All right, friend Heise, only I suppose jou al- 

 ways put out a sufficient number. If the num- 

 ber is too small, they'll surely be riddled. 



Sometimes we become so accustomed to er- 

 rors in speech that we no longer recognize 

 them as such. My good friend Stenog, to 

 whom I look up as authority in general, has 

 evidently allowed himself to fall into the lazy 

 habit of confusing the sounds of short o and 

 broad a, as in not and all. If he will look in 

 the dictionary he will see that they are unlike; 

 and if he will observe those who speak co)'- 



rectly he will find that they are never alike in 

 "common talk." I can not say " not all olives" 

 without a distinct dropping of the under jaw 

 at the middle word. 



R. F. HoLTERMANN says, p. 924, tha*^, when 

 the foundation is " removed from the bottom- 

 bar a distance at least equal to the thickness 

 of the plate and whatever was melted away 

 from the wax sheet," that distance is too much 

 for best results. With any foundation I have 

 ever tried, that distance is too little, for the 

 foundation will surely buckle unless there is 

 space for a bee to crawl under, in which case 

 the space will too often be left in the finished 

 section. The remedy is to have a bottom 

 starter. 



W. H Pridgen succeeds in giving a just- 

 hatched queen on the same day on which the 

 old queen was removed. Friend Pridgen, if 

 you take a queen just hatched, one that has 

 not been held in her cell, and put her in a 

 hive where there is a laying queen, I think 

 you will find that she is ahvays kindly receiv- 

 ed without the removal of the old queen. The 

 trouble comes when she attains a little age, 

 perhaps a day or so old, when she begins to 

 assert herself as a queen, at which time the 

 two will no longer be tolerated under the same 

 roof. [Correct, according to my experience. 

 —Ed.] 



"During the honey-fi^ow, when breed- 

 ing is heaviest, bees require most water," p. 

 922. May be so in some places and conditions, 

 but the reverse is the rule here. When a 

 heavy flow comes, the watering-places are 

 largely deserted, and when you see bees again 

 at the water you may count the flow is letting 

 up. I suppose they get enough water for their 

 needs, in the nectar. [Yes, doctor; but is it 

 not true that, when bees are breeding heavily, 

 they require the most water, irrespective of 

 ivhere ox how \.\i^y get it? And yet I think 

 you are right in saving that the bees gather 

 most water when the honey-flow is not on, es- 

 pecially when brood-rearing at such times is 

 at its height. — Ed.] 



" A BEE-KKEPER who contemplates much 

 moving of bees should adopt some sort of 

 closed-end frame," page 920. Fixed-distance 

 frames, friend Rambler, but not closed end 

 for this gluey locality. [Right there, doctor, 



