1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



43 



r^/} 



^ICKlISTGS 



'^/■^OM OUN NEIGHBORS FIELDS. 



Now snoAv. now blow, now raw, now thaw; 



Now hail, now shine, now sleet; 

 And so the bees one day 'most freeze — 



The next, have summer heat. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 

 A very thorough index goes with the last 

 issue for 1899. 



\i< 

 Hon. Eugene Secor has received a can of 

 honey from Athens, the honey itself having 

 been gathered on classic Mt. H3^mettus. 

 \)/ 

 C. Davenport says a distance of only a mile 

 may make a great diflfereuce in the rotting of 

 hives. He considers it a good plan to soak the 

 boards in strong lime water. 



" Old Grimes " says where a location is sub- 

 ject to winds, and even if it is not, a wind- 

 break should be provided. Cold winds are 

 disastrous to an apiary in early spring. 



Hasty well says : ' ' What an appetite for cam- 

 els most of us have ! Our government abol- 

 ished the national cock-fight the minute it got 

 to Manilla, and introduced — the American sa- 

 loon ! " 



% 



Here is a short history of the Old Reliable : 

 Founded bv Samuel Wagner in 1861. He died 

 Feb. 17, 1872. His son conducted it till Jan. 1, 

 1873, when Rev. W. F. Clarke secured control 

 of it and took it to Washington. In 1874 T. G. 

 Newman took hold and conducted it till June 

 1, 1892, when Mr. York took control. 



At the Utah convention Mr. Hone said he 

 had cured pickled brood by using salt and sul- 

 phur. He thinks the dairy business is detri- 

 mental to bee-keeping, as cattle eat sweet clo- 

 ver and other flowering plants off the land. 

 Mr. Schach said he had cured pickled brood 

 by a free use of dry slacked lime and salt, scat- 

 tering all through the hive. He said it cleansed 

 and purified the bees, and kept down disease. 

 Sec'y Fagg said that twice this season he had 

 caught the bees killing their old queen, and 

 concluded that the subject of requeening could 

 be left to the bees. 



Oir 



In speaking of birds as enemies of bees, H. 

 L. Jones, of Australia, says : 



The green oriole has, however, the honor of being 

 the greatest gourmand in this line that I have yet en- 

 countered, and its capacity for stowing away bees and 

 stings is simply marvelous. To .secure its prey it some- 

 times settles on a hive and catches the bees as they fly 

 home ; at other times it darts from some convenient 

 perch and takes the bee on the wing ; but its most 

 favorite plan is to locate itself in a fruit-tree, and 

 either snatch up a bee as it alights on a blossom, or as 

 it flies from flower to flower. In one of the.se little 

 friends that I shot and made a post-mortem examina- 

 tion upon. I found 15 stings in the stomach, sticking 

 into the lining of it, just like pins in a pin-cushiori, 

 some of them being very firmly implanted and im- 

 bedded almost up to the head. Another bird had no 

 fewer than 27 stings imbedded in its alimentary canal. 



and also one sting with its poi.son-sac attached sticking 

 loosely in its throat at the base of the tongue. 



Mr. Jones finds the magpie a great bee-eater, 

 but dislikes to kill so valuable a bird. The 

 martin is a nuisance to the bee-keeper, but is 

 easily killed on account of their habit of perch- 

 ing on a line all together, thus making a fine 

 mark for a boy with a shotgun. 



\«< 



BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. 

 The issue for Dec. 28 starts out with an edi- 

 torial tinged with deep sadness. England is 

 engaged in a bloody struggle in South Africa, 

 and so far has met with dreadful reverses. It 

 is no place here to state just what is right, for 

 no man on earth can do it ; but the following 

 extract is a good indication of the painful sus- 

 pense in the hearts of our British neighbors. 

 It reminds us of the dark days of 1862 in this 

 country : 



The closing days of the year and of the nineteenth 

 century are, for the people of this kingdom, shadowed 

 by clouds which, though soon to roll away — as clouds 

 always do — and be succeeded by sunshine, are still 

 overhead as we write. . , , It is with some sad- 

 ness that we wonder what becomes of the Btitisli Bee 

 Jour>tah sent regularly every week to South Africa, 

 where there is at present, unfortunately, no peace, 

 and where a word of sympathy in these closing lines 

 of our twenty-seventh volume will have but small 

 chance of reaching those subscribers whose " Homes 

 of the Honey-bee " are, or wer«, located where war is 

 now raging. I,et us hope, too, that the end is not far 

 distant, and that the final outcome of the terrible 

 struggle now going on will be the securing of equal 

 rights for all white men in that part of the world, and 

 a full measure of justice for our darker brethren in 

 South Africa. 



^lu 



Here is an account of what is probably the 

 oldest honey-comb in the world. The story, 

 which seems to be entirely accurate, was in a 

 Cambridge paper : 



There is in the possession of Mr. W. Drake, of Broad 

 street, Cambridge, a curiosity of great antiquity in the 

 shape of a perfect honey-comb in the center of what 

 was once an oak-tree, which, according to naturalists 

 who have viewed it, is hundreds of years old ; in fact, 

 it is impossible to say what age the comb and tree 

 may not be. The tree was raised on land in the 

 occupation of Mr. Gale Cornell, of Brick-kiln Farm, 

 Bottisham L,ode. It had been known to be imbedded 

 in the fen Und for a long period, and when 6 ft. of peat 

 had been taken off the surface, it was decided that the 

 tree, which is of the species known as bog-oak, should 

 be raised. It was found to be no less than 100 ft. long, 

 and the men were in the act of splitting the tree into 

 logs when, in the center of it, they came upon a honey- 

 comb, which, with the oak, had been imbedded in the 

 peat. The comb was in a perfect state of preservation, 

 and dotted about it and lying at the base of the aper- 

 ture were bees. 



"Peat cages" are nothing modern, after 

 all. It would be interesting to know when 

 bees were first seen in England. 



Hi* 



A picture of an old-fashioned apiary is given, 

 consisting of five straw hives, owned by a Mrs. 

 Booth. The apiary was started by her great- 

 grandfather over 150 years ago, and has been 

 run ever since without interruption, always on 

 the female side. Talk about " simplicity" and 

 Excelsior covers ! This good lady uses old 

 earthenware pannings, too much broken to be 

 of use ; old bottomless metal coal-scuttles sup- 

 plemented by worn-out straw skeps, broken 

 tiles, a box on edge, old sacks, rusty dripping- 

 tins, pudding-pans, etc. It is good that an oc- 

 casional relic of this kind has been preserved. 



