324 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



italicized "one" means "only one." I 

 think Von Siebold was the first to discover 

 spermatozoa in bees' eggs, " and in each of 

 thirty, out of forty, of his prepared female 

 eggs, he found from one to five spermato- 

 zoa." See Atnerican Bee Journal for 1861, 

 p. 125. [This is respectfully referred to 

 Mr. Phillips, although I am satisfied he 

 was fully cognizant of this statement, and 

 was probably in possession of later evidence 

 of a more conclusive character on which he 

 based his statement in question. — Ed.] 



Gleanings seems to favor putting bees 

 part in cellar and part out, p. 275. Good 

 thing to experiment that way to find out 

 which is best; but I suspect that, when 

 Doolittle settles to a dead certainty which 

 way averages the best in a series of years, 

 he'll use only that best way. [Yes, prob- 

 ably. Possibly Doolittle's locality is of 

 such a nature that it is best to "put his 

 eggs in two baskets." But there are some 

 localities where, certainly, outdoor winter- 

 ing would give much better results in a 

 period of ten years; and it is equally true 

 that there are other localities where the in- 

 door plan for the same time would show 

 the least loss.— Ed.] 



A FRIEND wants to know about my try- 

 ing the Hershiser plan last summer. I did 

 not try it on a large scale; but when, in the 

 flush of the harvest, I put the empty super 

 on top, there was extra waste in the way of 

 burr-combs in the nearly finished supers 

 below, and the case was aggravated if only 

 two supers were allowed. I think I should 

 have lost several hundred dollars if I had 

 submitted all to the same treatment. With 

 weak colonies, or in poor flows, it is all 

 right. [Our season for comb honey, at 

 least last year, was almost a failure, and 

 we were not, therefore, able to come to any 

 conclusion with regard to the Hershiser 

 plan of tiering over rather than tiering un- 

 der; but it is easy to see that for you at 

 least it was more feasible to tier under — 

 that is, putting an empty super under one 

 partly filled — than putting the empty on 

 top. — Ed.] 



L. H. Cremers says {Atnerican Bee 

 Journal, p. 189) that buckling of foundation 

 is because foundation expands with heat 

 and contracts with cold, so when founda- 

 tion that was wired cold is put into a hive, 

 the expanding makes it bag. He puts in 

 wire and fastens foundation to top-bar in 

 winter, then in summer he imbeds the wire 

 in a very warm place and immediately puts 

 it into the hive. [There may possibly be 

 something in this. Our foundation has 

 nearly always been imbedded within at 

 least a week before the time it was given to 

 the bees. As we have had very little trou- 

 ble from buckling, this may account for the 

 fact. I should like to hear from others on 

 this point. I might add further that, when 

 we put in foundation, the pile is always 

 warmed up by being set in a window where 

 the sun shines. The foundation is imbed- 

 ded when the sheet is warm; and very often 



it is put into the hive as fast as it is im- 

 bedded.— Ed.] 



If the railroads keep on they will soon 

 put out of business the Prohibitionists, An- 

 ti-saloon Leagues, etc. "The general 

 rules against intoxicants that are now en- 

 forced on all railroads," says a Chicago 

 daily, " have, up to this time, applied only 

 to the emploj'ees of the train and operating 

 departments. Now the St. Louis and San 

 P'rancisco and the Chicago and Eastern 

 Illinois roads have determined no longer to 

 allow expense accounts for wine feasts 

 among traveling, district, and general 

 agents." [But the Prohibitionists and the 

 Anli-saloon League have been keeping up 

 the agitation that makes all these progress- 

 ive moves possible. There is nothing the 

 saloon men fear more than agitation and a 

 good airing. They love darkness rather 

 than light. As long as their deeds can be 

 held under cover, so long will they continue 

 to rob our boys of this life and the one to 

 come. — Ed.] 



We are told, p. 293, that few city cus- 

 tomers " who have ever tried genuine buck- 

 wheat honey would be willing to exchange 

 it for the finest grade of white clover." 

 Now, what under the sun made the Country 

 Gentleman print such nonsense as that? 

 Yes, I know that some people very much 

 prefer buckwheat or other dark honey, but 

 the great majority, city or country, much 

 prefer the taste of the light honeys. [If you 

 were to stay a few weeks in the locality 

 where the Country Gentleman is published 

 (Albany, N. Y. ), and talk with consumers, 

 you would possibly, from their testimony, 

 think there was no honey in the world that 

 was pure and good but buckwheat. The 

 Country Gentleman was evidently basing 

 its statement on the current belief and pref- 

 erence in its own immediate locality; and 

 its statement, when confined to that locali- 

 ty, is not far wrong. — Ed.] 



The official report of the committee of 

 the insurance companies says that the great 

 Baltimore fire was started by the dropping 

 of a match, or a lighted cigar or cigarette 

 thrown down through a broken deadlight 

 in the pavement above the basement of the 

 Hurst building, falling upon some inflam- 

 mable material. If the city had had an or- 

 dinance forbidding smoking on the streets, 

 it would have been in the interest of com- 

 mon decency, and, incidentallj^ a saving of 

 seme millions. Just now Chicago is having 

 a lively time making arrests for spitting on 

 the streets. Why not make smoking go 

 with spitting? [It would not be practica- 

 ble, because public sentiment would not fa- 

 vor putting the two on the same plane. 

 Spitting on the sidewalk is repulsive to ev- 

 ery one. There is no lobby that would 

 dare to go into a legislature and argue that 

 spitting on the sidewalk is a good thing. 

 It is easy to pass laws against bad things 

 when every one is in favor of abolishing the 

 thing that ought to be effaced by law; but 

 if we were to take a poll of a vote as to 



