1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



925 



Continuing he says, " The great advantage of 

 long tongues, aside from the clover quesiion, 

 is in the fact that in a locality like this, at 

 least, their greater reach enables them to gath- 

 er enough when ordinary bees are getting 

 nothing. . . When honey does come in 

 freely, they (the long-tongued bees) make 

 the most of it without thinking of swarming ; 

 while the ordinary colonies with the hives 

 partly filled with brood commence storing be- 

 low, and soon try to swarm, with the result, of 

 course, of wasting the whole flow." 



The average tongue-reach of ordinary bees, 

 as I have pointed out, is from jW to ^^q\ ; so 

 it will be easily seen that, with the testimony 

 I have produced, bees with long tongues are 

 the very ones to get the honey, and I should 

 not be at all surprised if a// good honey-gath- 

 erers were a /so long-tonguites. 



It is apparent that Mr. Gerbracht, in re- 

 queening with five-banded bees, expected to 

 get a superior strain ; but his experience is not 

 much different from ours, with the further 

 fact that the average yellow bees ' ' sting like 

 fury," and are almost the first to succumb 

 during winter. 



THE ONTARIO CONVENTION ; IS THE STERE" 



OPTICON TO BE BARRED OUT BY THE 



CUSTOM HOUSE? 



Canadians will remember that the Ontario 

 Bee-keepers' Association will hold its annual 

 meeting at Niagara Falls, Dec. 4-6. I am ex- 

 pecting to be in attendance at this meeting 

 with my stereopticon ; but it begins to look 

 now as if the collector of customs in Canada 

 will not allow my instrument to go through 

 the lines. It has been the rule that guns, 

 bicycles, and the like, could be taken across 

 by paying a deposit of 25 per cent of their 

 value, this deposit to be refunded on the re- 

 turn of the article and its owner. But in the 

 case of the stereopticon it appears there may 

 be an exception on the ground that it is con- 

 sidered a money-making affair, and should, 

 therefore, be taxed without a refund. But in 

 my case, at least, there is no money in it to me, 

 nor is there to be an admittance fee charged ; 

 and as the Ontario Bee-keepers' Association is 

 fostered by the Ontario government, I hope 

 it (the Association) can make such arrange- 

 ments as will permit of the instrument being 

 used for one night only, and within )< mile 

 of the American lines. I have some very 

 choice slides which will be exhibited if I can 

 get the instrument through. 



Later. — I am pleased to announce that a per- 

 mit to take the stereopticon and slides across 

 the lines has been secured, and that I will be 

 on hand as scheduled. 



GLEANINGS FOR 1901. 

 I DO not wish to set before our readers any 

 extravagant promises as to what we shall do 

 in the future ; but during the coming year I 

 expect to have a series o<^ symposiums on va- 

 rious questions. One of these symposiums 

 will take up the subject of Ijottl.ng honey, 

 and continue on, perhaps, through several is- 

 sues. The knowledge of how to bottle honey 



and keep it from granulating is a very impor- 

 tant one. Nine-tenths of the bee-keepers of 

 our land do not know how to fill a gross of 

 Muth jars without wasting labor and honey. 

 Some do not know how to remelt candied 

 honey withe ut spoiling lis flavor ; others are 

 not expert in putting in corks and making a 

 hermetic sealing. Mere cork alone is not an 

 air-tight substance ; and the only way to pre- 

 vent honey from granulating is to dip the 

 corks in a preparation of paraffine, wax, or 

 rosin before they are inserted in the bottles. 

 It is another trick of the trade to put on tin- 

 foil caps so that the bottles of honey will look 

 as neat and attractive as the ordinary pickled 

 goods we see on the market. Then there is 

 the matter of selecting and putting on a label 

 neatly. The question whether honey should 

 be melted in a large vat, and poured into the 

 bottles while hot, or whether it should be 

 poured into the receptacles cold, and then 

 heated to the required temperature, is impor- 

 tant. If the latter is the better plan, how 

 shall it be done ? All these and a hundred 

 more nice little points will be answered in the 

 forthcoming series of articles. Many and 

 many a bee-keeper might add two or three 

 cents net to the price of his extracted honey if 

 he only knew how to cater to a fancy trade for 

 bottled goods ; and if we can help him to re- 

 alize this extra price, we shall feel that we 

 have been amply repaid for our trouble. 



There will be another article or articles on 

 how to refine beeswax without the use of sul- 

 phuric acid, and how to get every particle of 

 the wax out of old combs. We expect to 

 show soon how one can make good wages by 

 refining wax by a new plan. 



Another set of articles will detail the very 

 latest methods of queen-rearing. Some very 

 short cuts have been discovered during the 

 past season, and, so far as I know, have not 

 yet been made public. Among the writers 

 will be Mr. Pridgen and Mr. — I dare not give 

 his name yet except Swarthmore, for that is 

 his noin dc plunic. 



As before, we shall make a large use of half- 

 tone engravings, and these will be printed on 

 coated book paper. Unfortunately, our last 

 car of paper was much below the standard, 

 and some of our engravings have suffered in 

 consequence. But we hope that, next year, 

 we shall be able to present our readers some- 

 thing that will leave nothing to be desired. 

 Taking it all in all, we feel ver}^ sure that the 

 investment of the small subscription that we 

 ask will pay a big dividend. The one set of 

 articles that we shall publish, for instance on 

 bottling honey, will be worth many times the 

 subscription price, to say nothing of the other 

 good things that will be given from time to 

 time. We take the Inlatid Printer, one of the 

 finest if not the very finest exponent of its 

 class — indeed, of any class — for beauty of ty- 

 pographical work and fine engravings. There 

 is hardly an issue of it that comes to us but 

 that we get something out of it worth more 

 than the mere subscription, and in a year's 

 time we have picked up enough hints to make 

 it one of the most valuable investments we 

 make. 



