490 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15. 



Perhaps you have not noticed it, but we 

 have been giving eight extra pages during all 

 the spring and early summer, and we shall 

 probably continue doing so for some time. 



Referring to the Hakes-Heddon honey 

 matter, see page 446, Dr. Mason says I mis- 

 understood him if I got the impression from 

 him that Hutchinson wrote that he was not 

 sure the honey came from us. But Mr. Hakes 

 sajs that pari of the Hutchinson honey prob- 

 ably came from two sources and sends letters 

 from Mr. Hutchinson to him, in which the 

 latter says the honey was some he produced 

 himself, and some he bought. But so far as 

 the real issue is concerned it makes no differ- 

 ence whether it came from us or not, as Mr. 

 Hutchinson would not knowingly sell adulter- 

 ated honey. From all the evidence now in our 

 hands, it is very doubtful if that last sample 

 (that was analyzed and pronounced adulterat- 

 ed) ever came from Hutchinson ; for there is 

 no real proof that his honey was in any of the 

 jars that-were on the shelf from which the . 

 sample was taken. 



THE CANKER WORMS ON THE BASSWOODS ; 



OUR BASSWOOD ORCHARD ALMOST A 



FAILURE FOR HONEY. 



The canker or measuring worm is making 

 rather bad work in our basswood apiary. 

 Thousands of them are at work on the leaves, 

 and nearly the whole orchard of about 300U 

 trees is infested with the pests. It is some- 

 what of a question whether we had not better 

 spray the whole orchard, comprising as it does 

 ten acres of land. It might kill the worms, 

 but would it pay ? 



By the way, that fond dream of A. I. R.'s, 

 of 25 years ago, of a basswood orchard, has 

 never materialized, or never, I should say, 

 come up to his expectations. It probably 

 would have done so if the land had been un- 

 derdrained in the first place, and the shoots 

 had been cut away from the body of the trees. 

 There are but very few basswood buds to be 

 seen this season, and I am sorry to say I have 

 not seen buds on any basswood-trees in our 

 locality to amount to any thing. I do not, 

 therefore, expect that in Northern Ohio there 

 will be much honey from that source. 



Later. — Since the foregoing was written we 

 have had some hard heavy rains, and the can- 

 ker worms have disappeared almost entirely ; 

 but we can easily see the effects of their work 

 in the curled and partially eaten leaves. 



hill's CELL-CUPS ; THE IMPORTANCE OF 

 LARGE ONES. 



Mr. H. E. Hill, editor of the American 

 Bee-keeper, and one of the members of the 

 Southern Bee Company, at Fort Pierce, Indian 

 River, Fla., has sent me some specimens of 

 Doolittle cell-cups which he has made, which 

 are more accurate, and more nearly perfect, 



than any thing I have ever seen before, and 

 that is saying a good deal, because our friend 

 Pridgen has come very near reaching the acme 

 of perfection. Speaking about size, they are 

 large with large bottoms. Our Mr. WardelL 

 says he thinks that large cups are better than 

 small ones. The cells not only look larger, 

 and are larger, but he thinks the queens them- 

 selves that are reared in them, because of the 

 abundance of room which they have enjoyed 

 during their babyhood, so to speak, have 

 thus an opportunity to develop in a way they 

 will not in cells made from smaller cups_ 

 Said he, " You will remember that swarnung- 

 cells are always large roomy affairs, and that 

 the queens from them are monstrous beauties. 

 I believe Doolittle is right in urging the im- 

 portance of rearing queens according to na- 

 ture. Give me the big cups — the big roomy 

 ones." 



Later.— lAr. W. H. Pridgen, Creek, N. C, 

 has sent another assorted, lot of cell-cups or 

 " goblets," as he calls them, that are fully the 

 equal of those submitted by Mr. Hill. The 

 former says he can make them any size and 

 any shape by the peck. We shall probably 

 offer cell-cups for sale, but in the meantime I 

 would suggest sending direct to Mr. Pridgen 

 and to Mr. Hill, the latter at Indian River, 

 Florida. 



the devil and the deep SEA ; the GLU- 

 COSE TRUST. 

 I HAVE heard about being " between the 

 Devil and the deep sea ; " but here seems to 

 be a case where the two parties are at war 

 with each other Possibly these designations 

 of the two contesting factions are a little se- 

 vere ; but the majority of the syrup-makers 

 are as much competitors of the honest honey- 

 producer as the glucose trust itself. Of the 

 former there is a class who are also venders 

 of so-called honey, which they label as " Pure 

 Honey," " Farm Honey," and a score of other 

 innocent nice-looking names. Well, here is a 

 clipping from one of the dailies, and I only 

 hope they may war themselves to death, but 

 this they will never do. But we as bee-keep- 

 ers can stand back and say, " Sic 'em ! " 



Chicago, June 2. — Seventeen Chicago syrup-mak- 

 ers and scores of syrup-makers in other cities, repre- 

 senting hundreds of thousands of dollars of invested 

 capital, have seen their business almost destroyed as 

 the result of a vrar of extermination started against 

 them two months ago by the Glucose Sugar Refining 

 Co., known otherwise as the glucose trust. Within 

 the last sixty days, so the syrup-manufacturers say, 

 the glucose trust has gone into syrup-making, and has 

 put up the price of raw products and reduced the 

 price of syrups to its customers to such a degree that 

 the other syrup-makers are unable to do a satisfactory 

 business. 



Affairs of the syrup-makers, however, have reached 

 such a crisis that a meeting of the principal manu- 

 facturers of the United States, who are organized into 

 the National Syrup Association, has been called in 

 Chicago early in July to devise some method of fight- 

 ing the trust and resuming satisfactory business. In 

 the meantime twelve out of the seventeen Chicago 

 syrup-factories have practically closed their doors, 

 and the remainder have given up syrup-making and 

 gone into other lines of business. 



APIS DORSATA ON THE WAY TO AMERICA. 



One of the American soldiers with whom we 

 have been having some correspondence, de- 



