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rubhshedbyTHEA I'RooY Co. 

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Vol. XXVIII. 



OCT. I, 1900. 



No. 19. 



I don't object to a green cover for Glean- 

 ings, but please paint mine a shade lighter 

 next time. 



GivAD TO SEE Jimmie Green on deck again, 

 p. 728. He has the right kind of inside gear- 

 ing for a bee-keeper, and it was naughty of 

 him to turn the cold shoulder on bees for the 

 sake of bicycles and such things. 



The Belgian-hare fever struck me, but I 

 could hardly see where I could find time to 

 look after another industry, at least till I had 

 more leisure. I've now given it up altogether. 

 Accordintf to what I read, Belgian-hare meat 

 can be produced so cheaply, and so many are 

 going into the business, that soon I can buy it 

 cheaper than beef without the trouble of rais- 

 ing it. 



Formerly it was supposed that when eggs 

 were found in a queenless hive, a single work- 

 er was in the laying business, and it is still 

 quite common to read of the presence of a 

 laying worker. If I am not mistaken micro- 

 scopical examinations across the water showed 

 that where laying workers were present a large 

 number, if not the majority, of the workers 

 had eggs in their ovaries. 



"All bee-keepers should understand that 

 it is bees that gather honey or nectar, not the 

 number of hives which they have standing in 

 the yard," p. 733. Pound away on that, Bro. 

 Doolittle ; you'll get it into the heads of some 

 beginners ; but a whole lot of them will per- 

 sist in trying to winter a lot of weaklings 

 withc'it understanding that they would have 

 more bees next June if they would lessen the 

 present number of occupied hives. 



Tally one for Iowa. There must be a lot 

 of good people there, even to talk of such 

 a man as our Eugene for Congress. [But 

 Eugene is so modest I am afraid he will not 

 lift a finger to help himself ; and a politician 

 nowadays — yes, even a statesman— often has 

 to get out and hustle for himself. I hope our 



'Gene-ial Manager will go to Congress. We 

 bee-keepers only wish we could all vote for 

 him, for we would send him with a good rous- 

 ing majority. — Ed.] 



I've more faith than formerly in killing 

 queen-cells to prevent swarming. A number 

 of colonies did not swarm this summer after 

 having queen-cells killed once, twice, or three 

 times. Some had swarming delayed two to 

 four weeks by the killing of queen-cells. But 

 generally only eggs were in the cells where 

 destroying them made any difference. If an 

 ^SS was destroyed in a cell, and a week later a 

 queen-cell was found with a grub in it, it 

 was not much use to make any effort to 

 thwart them. 



After reading what you have lately said, 

 Mr. Editor, I'm wondering whether you might 

 not regard a little more favorably that gloss- 

 ometer project on page 731, 1898. No need 

 of an inside bottom ; just a plain bottom with 

 the wire cloth at a slight angle ; then the bee- 

 keeper could level the dish till the liquid co- 

 incided with the wire cloth. I'd like such a 

 dish 17 inches long. [A queen-cage filled 

 with candy, the same as is spoken of on page 

 734 of our last issue, is about as good a gloss- 

 ometer as can be devised. Your plan may be 

 all right ; but it appears to me it would not 

 give quite as accurate a measurement of the 

 tongue as the simple queen-cage which can be 

 fixed up in two minutes of time. If yours is 

 a better plan, fix one up and tell us how it 

 works. — Ed.] 



Sometimes there is trouble with clipped 

 queens and hives close together. I've had a 

 few cases in which a colony swarmed and the 

 queen entered a neighboring queenless col- 

 ony, where she was kindly received. [You do 

 not explain, doctor, that your hives are in 

 pairs, the individual hives of each pair being 

 some four or five inches apart ; is it not possi- 

 ble that you would, therefore, cause more con- 

 fusion among queens, either virgin or undip- 

 ped, than if you had the hives othervdse ar- 

 ranged? In a queen-rearing apiarj', if hives 

 are in pairs each pair must be quite dissimilar 

 in appearance from the pair or pairs next to 

 it, either because of shrubbery or because of 



