834 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1. 



Just for the sake of keeping up a fight 

 with you, Mr. Editor, I'll reply to a footnote, 

 p. 798. You think one would scarcely credit 

 the notion that the covering of a seed would 

 resist acid as well as an egg-shell. Put an 

 egg and a honey-locust seed in strong vinegar, 

 and see which will be most affected. Or, put 

 both in boiling water for a minute or two, and 

 see which can produce a growing thing. Ba- 

 cilli and their spores are like a good many 

 other plants and their seeds, the plants much 

 tenderer than the seeds. A good many seeds 

 may be thrown in boiling water for a short 

 time without injury, whereas the plant would 

 not stand it a second. 



I'm not going to Cuba. Various discour- 

 agements might be endured, but when it 

 comes to three separate cases of hives ab- 

 sconding, as related on p. 805, that's just a 

 little too much. Bad enough to have a swarm 

 take French leave ; but to see a hive up and 

 off is going too far. [Just what we knew 

 you'd say, doctor. You see, Mr. Somerford 

 was speaking of a hive by way of metonymy 

 — putting the vessel for the contents, just as 

 you would say a man is addicted to the "bot- 

 tle" instead of what is in it. Beekeepers 

 generally speak of colonies of bees either as 

 "hives" or " swarms," even when they do 

 not mean that the bees are swarming. We 

 wish they would always make a discrimina- 

 tion here. We have intended to change the 

 words ourselves, for sometimes the word 

 " swarm " is positively misleading. — STEnog.] 



Years ago G. M. Doolittle put me on the 

 plan of caging the queen when a swarm issued, 

 destroying queen-cells five days later, and aft- 

 er five more days destroying them again and 

 releasing the queen. I've always felt thank- 

 ful for it ; and if I had only a single apiary 

 with some one to watch for swarms I might 

 never have given it up. Now Bro. Doolittle 

 depreciates the plan on p. 808, saying it loses 

 40 to 60 pounds of honey. I can't believe it 

 does here. The bees go right on storing with 

 very little check, filling up the brood-combs, 

 and then when the queen begins laying the 

 honey is all rushed upstairs. [I have tried 

 the Doolittle plan ; but in every case it has 

 seemed to me the bees did not do as good 

 work after the queen was caged or removed 

 as before ; but one of my neighbors, Mr. U. 

 Prince, has tried the plan, and the last I knew 

 he was still using it, and considered it the 

 best way to manage swarming at outyards. 

 Mr. P. H. Elwood, one of the most extensive 

 bee-keepers in the world, was also practicing 

 it at the time of my last information. — Ed.] 



Mr. WARDELiy has found it an advantage 

 to leave cushions on top of the supers or brood- 

 nests all summer, p. 798. Sure. It is a de- 

 cided advantage to have the hive covered sum- 

 mer and winter with a cushion or some other 

 good non-conductor of heat. It keeps the 

 hive cool in summer and warm in winter. 

 The objection to a cushion is the trouble of 

 an extra piece, the extra expense of a cover to 

 contain it, and the space occupied in winter in 

 cellar. What we need, and what we should 

 have, is a cover with an air-space, making the 



cover itself a non-conductor. I'm now using 

 dilapidated covers that I can't burn up yet, 

 just because no manufacturer offers a satisfac- 

 tory hive-cover. I've 50 covers made with 

 airspace and covered with tin, and they're the 

 best I ever had ; but I don't like to order odd 

 goods. I've one cover covered with peculiar 

 paper, and painted, and perhaps the paper is 

 as good as tin, but the cover has only one lay- 

 er of wood, and I defy you to make covers of 

 that kind without some of them twisting so 

 as to let bees through. Both for non-conduc- 

 tivity and for straightness, there must be two 

 layers of wood. [Perhaps you are right, doc- 

 tor ; but if you will tell us how to make a 

 good air-space cover that will not twist, and 

 that will please others as well as yourself, we 

 shall be under everlasting obligation to you. 

 Perhaps the style of the 50 covers you refer to 

 is all right ; but you know it is expensive, and 

 will bee-keepers pay the expense of the tin ? 

 —Ed.] 



^ICJRJJWGS 



'<iA^OM OUM NE/GHBORS FIELDS. 2^ 

 -^ BYi3rcisoi>r ^ 



Indian summer now is here, 

 L,oveliest season of the year ; 

 Just a glimpse of smoky haze, 

 Then the reign of wintry days. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



The editor, Mr. G. W. York, has been nom- 

 inated on the Prohibition ticket as recorder of 

 deeds of Cook Co. In view of the fact that 

 in the neighboring city of Cleveland nearly 

 all if not all of the city council are in crimi- 

 nal court for bribery, it seems a pity that such 

 men as Mr. York — men of ability and uncom- 

 promising honesty — can not have control of 

 public affairs instead of such men as the slum 

 vote gives us — men who care nothing for office 

 except as a means of plunder. But there's a 

 " Recorder of deeds " overhead who will make 

 this all right some day. 

 Ik 

 BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. 



While the following was not clipped from 

 our London cotemporary, I put it here because 

 it came from that city, and also in hopes we 

 may learn more about it : 



There are few people in the heart of lyondon who 

 keep bees, and the Baden-Powells stand absolutely 

 alone in having an apiary in their drawing room. 

 Surrounded by costly works of art and priceless bric- 

 a-brac, standing on ornamental alabaster pede.'^tals 

 close to the great organ which takes up all one wall of 

 a lofty room overlooking Hyde Park, are two large 

 straw bee-hives, with great glass windows that allow 

 the bees to be seen at work within. The bees do not, 

 of course, fly about the room, but they escape into the 

 outside world through a pipe leading out of a window. 



These bees are truly wonderful insects — the very 

 aristocracy of their kind — and they are made to do 

 much work which bees, uncontrolled by such an in- 

 genious mind as that of Colonel Baden-P.iwell. have 

 never dreamed of. Wooden models of various objects, 

 such as bicycles, for instance, are placed in their hive, 

 and the bees build their honey-comb upon them in 

 the exact shape required. At the present time they 

 are busy building a wax model of the colonel's bomb- 

 proof quarters at Mafeking. 



