584 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15 



say in full when I wrote. I said it had 

 seemed strange that such presses were used 

 by the thousands in Europe and not at all 

 here. And I intended to say why it no 

 longer appeared strange. You say, Mr. 

 Editor, " I suppose the principal reason is, 

 there is no one on this side of the Atlantic 

 to push it." No, that's not the right ans- 

 wer. It can be given in a few words: In 

 Europe it's difficult to buy pure foundation. 

 In this country it's impossible to buy any 

 other. 



I BELIEVE I shall be doing a real favor to 

 any young bee-keeper who wishes to be in 

 the front rank in bee-keeping, and to get 

 out of it all the enjoyment to be had, if I 

 urge him to get " The Honey-bee," by T. 

 W. Cowan, which book has just been re- 

 vised thoroughly and brought up to date. 

 Even if you have all the excellent text- books 

 on bee-keeping published in this country, 

 you need this little work to teach you the 

 natural history, anatomy and physiology 

 of the little toilers that bring us our bread 

 and butter. You can get it from The A. I. 

 Root Co. for $1.00 [I am proud to possess 

 a copy of this little work. Mr. Cowan is 

 so careful in his statements that I consider 

 him an authority on any scientific subject 

 on which he writes. — Ed.] 



If you succeed, Mr. Editor, in perfect- 

 ing that scheme of having a National brand 

 for the honey of National members, p. 536, 

 then it would be a good thing to spend 

 some good money advertising. If it pays 

 to advertise glucose, why not a better 

 thing? [I do not bel eve the bee-keepers of 

 the country know how much their product 

 is suspected of being impure or manufac- 

 tured. The general suspicion that has 

 been created by these newspaper canards 

 has resulted in a stagnant market— unusu- 

 ally so at this time of the 3 ear — and I can 

 account for it in no other way than that 

 there has been a lot of these manufactured- 

 comb- honey stories afloat. I can scarcely 

 meet a person, one who knjws nothing 

 about bee keeping, but honestly believes 

 that comb honey is manufactured. It is 

 high time that something were done to dis- 

 pel this delusion. The National Bee keep- 

 ers' Association would not be interested in 

 putting out manufactured goods; and it 

 seems to me perfectly feasible and proper 

 that the National should put the seal of 

 purity OQ all the honey put out by its mem- 

 bers; then if any one says that such honey 

 is adulterated or manufactured, the Na- 

 tional would have a splendid chance to 

 bring a case for heavy damages. — Ed.] 



A HONEY-PRODUCER, according to Bro 

 Doolittle, p. 534, should breed from a good 

 queen and any thing that happens in the 

 line of drones; but he says a " queen- breed- 

 er can not work along the line a honey-pro- 

 ducer cin;" if he does, his stock will dete- 

 riorate. Of course, then, the stock of the 

 honey-producer who follows Bro. Doolittle's 

 advice will deteriorate, and Bro. Doolittle 

 doesn't say what he is to do about it. One 



way, no doubt, would be for the honey-pro- 

 ducer to buy a choice queen each year, and 

 for many that might be an excellent plan. 

 But would it be the best plan to keep the 

 two classes entirely distinct, the honey-pro- 

 ducer each year purchasing a queen from 

 a man who produces no honey, but gives 

 his whole attention to rearing queens? 

 How is the queen - breeder to select the 

 best stock if he knows nothing about the 

 honey-gathering quality of his bees from 

 actual observation? He must either be a 

 honey-producer or depend upon the selec- 

 tion of some one who is a honey-producer. 

 Fii st or last it is the honey- producer, even 

 if he be also a queen-breeder, who must be 

 depended upon for selection, and the chance 

 for selecting the best is a good deal better 

 with the man who has a thousand colonies 

 than with the man who has ten. Kind o' 

 looks as if best results might be attained if 

 queen-rearers and honey-producers would 

 work together to select the best and sup- 

 press the worst, not only of queens but 

 drones. 



E. W. Alexander tells us formaldehyde 

 is all right for black brood but no good for 

 foul brood, page 536 But don't bacteriolo- 

 gists tell us the bacterium of each is the 

 same? [Yes; but the two diseases are so 

 dissimilar that it does not seem possible 

 they can be one and the same. If I am cor- 

 rect, the same bacteriologist who said that 

 the microbe of black brood was Bacillus al- 

 vei, afterward examined a sample of real 

 foul brood and stated that it was totally 

 different. Mr. Thos. W Cowan examined 

 the foul brood that we had here at Medina, 

 with a microscope, in 1887, and he distinct- 

 ly recognized the Bacillus alvei of Europe. 

 It seems to me probable that this germ may 

 be present in black brood; but that it is the 

 primary cause of it is hard to believe. 



Mr. Alexander, of York State, one of the 

 most extensive bee-keepers in the world, 

 has found that black brood can be cured 

 with formaldehyde, but not foul brood. 

 The inspectors of Netv York have been in 

 the habit of making sharp distinctions be- 

 tween black brood and foul brood, if I am 

 correct. Of course, it would be possible, I 

 suppose, for one germ to manifest itself in 

 different forms; but in this case the two 

 diseases should show more points of simi- 

 larity. While foul brood and black brood 

 are alike in color and in the appearance of 

 the comb, the character of the dead matter 

 is totally different, as is also the odor. Its 

 manner of spreading is different, because 

 foul brood can be held in check with com- 

 parative ease by one who understands how 

 to handle it. But black brood has not al- 

 ways yielded to trea'ment, although the in- 

 spectors, when their directions were fol- 

 lowed out carefully, have been fairly suc- 

 cessful. — Ed.] 



Please tell us what is a Titoff cage; also 

 how Titoff is pronounced, page 550. [The 

 Titoff cage was illustrated on page 134. 

 While the present cage has been modified 



