1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



603 





7^/lOM0aM NtlGHBOmriElDS 



■2%^^: 



The crickefs lonesome chirp, 



The quick (Usceiiding sun, 

 Spi;ak of tlie fall's approach — 



I'he harve-t labor done. 

 Fill up the hive, 'gain'-l Borean hla.>-t. 



With siinnuei'.s choicest .-tores ; 

 I,et not a nionieiit go to w ste 



Ere winter locks our doors. 



CANADIAN BEE JOURNAL. 

 In speaking of the coming convention at 

 Chicago, the editor says : 



The program will no doubt be an excellent one, be- 

 sides the opportunity of visiting the great city ; au^l 

 we would recommend any of our readers who can 

 take a holiday to themselves on the above dates not to 

 miss going to the convention. Our brethren on the 

 other side have always shown the warmest and kind- 

 est feeling toward Canridir n visitors, and treated them 

 with the greatest possible courtesy. 



That has the right sound, and the good feel- 

 ing between the people of Canada and the 

 United States of the World should be regard- 

 ed as a matter of course. 

 \l< 



A gentleman at the Oxford convention said 

 he had some honey that weighed 14 lbs. to 

 the gallon. He thought he was giving too 

 much for the money, so he thinned it down 

 with water. The advice he got at Oxford con- 

 vinced him he had not better do it again. If 

 11-lb. honey is worth 10 cts., I would very 

 willingly give 20 for 14-lb. honey of the same 

 kind. Density of extracted honey does not 

 receive enough attention. When it can be 

 kneaded into gum-drops a big boom awaits 

 apiculture. 



Among the other things that seem to anger 

 bees, Mr. Morley Pettit says a toy windmill 

 placed near their apiary last summer so enrag- 

 ed his " pets " that they flew about it and 

 dirted at the revolving fans. He says perspi- 

 ration angers them, and hence sting-proof suits 

 of clothes are objectionable, as they cause so 

 much perspiration. He uses a complete suit 

 of white cotton, with a bee-veil over a broad- 

 riramed straw hat tucked into the clothing far 

 enough to stand out clear from the face. 

 With a good smoker filled with rotten wood 

 he feels reasonably safe from stings. He says, 

 " Never allow horses to enter the apiary, for 

 the bees will rush at them and sometimes sting 

 them to death, even at night." 



THE AUSTRALASIAN BEE-KEEPER. 

 Concerning the cause and cure of robbing, 

 Mr. H. L. Jones, of Goodna, has this to say : 



with all the viitues attributed to the bee, she, never- 

 theless, falls from grace in at least one respect, and 

 that is in the utter disregard she displays for the good 

 old maxim, " Honesty is the best policy." Her motto 

 is to get honey hone-^^tly if she can, but to gel it, and 

 this disposition of hers to get it when none is to be ob- 

 tained by honest quest is f i equently the cause of much 

 perplexity and vexation of spirit to the inexperienced. 

 My troubles in this line have been as deep as any, and 

 first obtruded themselves upon me when I found it 



necessary to extract during times of scarcity of nec- 

 tar, and was guileless enough to replace the combs in 

 the hives at once after extracting. 1 know better now 

 how to manage the.se things, and find that I can ex- 

 tract with impunity at anytime, providing that I have 

 a bee-proof honey h, use, and return the extracted 

 combs at dusk, so that the bees can have them cleaned 

 up and every thing in apple-pie order before morning. 

 Carelessness in feeding, or in exposing sweets of 

 any kind, is also often the source of an outbreak of 

 robbing. But very few experiences, in an apiary of 

 any size, with the robbing propensitie.. thoroughly 

 aroused, are required to induce the greatest care in 

 the performance of any future operations that are 

 necessary during a dearth of honey. Of the many 

 remedies that I have tried in bad cases of robbing, 

 carbo'ic acid has been the most successful. This acid 

 « mits an odor so obnoxiou- to the olfactory organs of 

 the bee that only the legitimate occupants of the hive, 

 with their strong attachment to home, will pass it, 

 while the most persistent marauders are content to 

 sniff it from afar. A weak mixture of the acid and 

 water sprinkled at the entrance i- often sufficient ; but 

 in veiy bad cases I find it a big advantage to throw a 

 quantity of grass loosely at the entrance and sprinkle 

 this occasionally with the mixture. Apart from the 

 loss sustained through the plunder and murder of 

 their own species another disagreeable result of the 

 robbing mania is the persistency with which the de- 

 moralized bees attack every living object in the vicin- 

 ity of the apiary, and the unfortunate attendant speed- 

 ily finds himself a special target for the operations of 

 their stinging apparatus. 



Confirming the above the editor says : 



I too can testify to the efficacy of carbolic acid in 

 cases of robbing ; and I think that, if once tried, no 

 apiary will be without a bottle of it. . . To use the 

 acid solution conveniently I procure a tight-fitting 

 cork and cut two slots in it lengthwise. This makes a 

 good sprinkler of the bottle ; for, by suddenly invert- 

 ing it, several drops of acid are thrown out, and by a 

 simple swing of the inverted bottle the acid can be di- 

 rected to any spot. When bees get to making a target 

 of the bee-keeper he should wear a black hat, as they 

 will strike it every time. 



\h 



DISCOLORATION OF COMB. 



The following unique if not interesting ar- 

 ticle on travel-stain came to my notice in a 

 French bee-journal. I am very sure they 

 credited it to the Leipziget Bienenzeitimg, a 

 German paper. Being struck with what seem- 

 ed to me to be some good reasoning I trans- 

 lated it for this department, and give it for 

 what it is worth. 



The illustrious Huber, that passionate friend of 

 bees, was blind. There are blind people to-day — not 

 in body, but in mind, among bee-keepers who pretend 

 to be masters of apiculture. It is true, it is not always 

 easy to see, and I have often had that experience my- 

 self. How many things I have witnessed everyday, 

 and yet have not been able to understand them until 

 by chance my eyes were opened ! Thus it was that 

 for a long time I was unable to explain the color- 

 stains in wax. No bee-keeper, even among the most 

 experienced, has been able to give me the true reason. 



We notice the .sheets made by a prime swarm during 

 the first days. They are entirely white, while by au- 

 tumn they will have become yellow or even brown. 

 Evidently, this coloring of the wax is due to an out- 

 side cause. The new frames in which there was brood 

 are brown while those that contain honey or which 

 are empty are yellow. We see likewise some white 

 frames, others which have become partly yellow, and 

 others show here and there only a few stains of va- 

 rious tints. From this we may conclude the colora- 

 tion of wax is not made all at once but partially. 

 That brings to mind the erroneous old doctrine that 

 the yellow color of wax is due to the breath of the 

 bees or to Ihe color of the pollen Have the bees, 

 then, eaten nothing but yellow or while pollen? To 

 this question every bee-keeper will say no. For me 

 the bees gather pollen of various colors, which should, 

 according to I)r, Planta, gives even a noxious wax, 

 and not simply a white or yellow wax. It is useless to 

 claim that. 



Let us take several yellow frames and expose them 

 to the light ; then we shall be convinced that the wax 

 is not uniformly yellow, but that some parts are dark- 



