636 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1 



the public. W. S. Hart^^says in Americati 

 Bee-keeper that this honey all comes from 

 outside the orange districts, and that not a 

 barrel of pure orange-blossom honey was 

 ever shipped out of the State. [If there are 

 bee-keepers who are knowingly shipping 

 honey under the catchy brand of "orange- 

 blossom " when it is something else, their 

 names should be made public, providing, 

 of course, they will not discontinue the 

 practice. Perhaps the mere mention of the 

 matter in a general way will reach the 

 proper parties. — Ed.] 



" Thp: scheme of lengthening the top-bar 

 by cutting out the rabbet, and nailing a 

 cleat on the end of a hive," p. 609, if I am 

 not mistaken, is exactly the way movable- 

 comb hives were first made. [You are cor- 

 rect, that Langstroth was the first to make 

 a cut- out rabbet and hive-cleat clear across. 

 I find that, in one of his early works, 

 dated 1857, is a drawing where the rabbet 

 was entirely cut out, the same as is illus- 

 trated on page 609. I have just consulted 

 our patent-files, and find in the original L. 

 patent, dated Oct. 5, 1852, that the form of 

 the rabbet is not clearly shown; but the 

 drawing gives the impression that the rab- 

 bet first used was the same as we are now 

 using. If this is the case, then Mr. Lang- 

 stroth subsequently cut the rabbet out en- 

 tirely, lengthening the projection of the top- 

 bar. This only goes to show how nearly 

 Langstroth was right in so many of his 

 conclusions. We have had instances of it 

 before so repeatedly that we can only mar- 

 vel at the wonderful perception of the man 

 whereby he could discriminate between the 

 best and the mediocre.— Ed.] 



I've just been transferring into Miller 

 frames combs from various other frames, 

 and I marked one as of special interest. 

 It's one I bought of Adam Grimm. I don't 

 know how old it is, but Mr. Grimm has 

 beeo dead 28 years, and I don't know how 

 many years before his death I bought the 

 comb. To look at it you would hardly no- 

 tice it as a very old comb. [So far I have 

 yet to see what I consider good proof that a 

 comb more than 10 or 25 years old will rear 

 smaller bees than a comb one year old. 

 Nature certainly would not make such a 

 fearful mistake. She is always in harmony 

 with herself; and the presumption is that, 

 if the cells do grow smaller from cast-off 

 bowel-skins, or cocoons, the bees will re- 

 move them. 



One is apt to be deceived about the size of 

 his bees. A customer recently wrote us, 

 stating that he wished to get some founda- 

 tion for his bees that was 4 '2 cells to the 

 inch, because the bees were larger than 

 usual. I somewhat questioned the state- 

 ment, and finally asked him to send me 

 some bees in a mailing- cage so that we 

 might measure them with a micrometer that 

 would indicate thousandths of an inch. 

 When the bees arrived they looked larger 

 than common; but an actual micrometer 

 test showed that, in every way we measured 



them, they were about the size of our regu- 

 lar stock here at Medina. A careful exam- 

 ination showed that the abdomens were 

 slightly flatter and correspondingly wider, 

 giving the whole bee the appearance of be- 

 ing larger. In the same way one might 

 jump to the conclusion that his bees were 

 small, and, if reared in old comb, reason 

 that it was responsible for their smallness, 

 when, in fact, they were not small. — Ed.] 



A. I. Root, that's wonderfully interest- 

 ing reading on pages 610 — 612. Keep up 

 the fight; you're doing perhaps more than 

 you know toward making some of the relig- 

 ious papers behave decently in their adver- 

 tising. [A religious paper that inserts 

 doubtful or objectionable advertisements — 

 especially those of the "get-rich-quick" 

 kind — can not help weakening its influence 

 on its editorial pages. When a paper is 

 struggling for existence, a big cash offer of 

 whole pages of space is very tempting; and 

 the presumption is that some of these relig- 

 ious editorial leaders have a little bit of the 

 old Adam left in them, in that the almighty 

 dollar has not entirely lost its glitter. On 

 the other hand, it is very easy for a large 

 journal with an immense circulation to dis- 

 criminate, because it would be impossible 

 to insert all the advertising that is offered 

 it, and therefore it can select only the best. 



The Ladies'" Home Journal, with its im- 

 mense circulation — immense because its 

 pages are clean, can do this. It has certain- 

 ly set so)ne of our religious publications to 

 thinking along the line of practicing more 

 what they preach. — Ed.] 



"Location " is a thing laughed at now 

 and then; but, all the same, it keeps right 

 on making serious differences as to the way 

 things pan out. There's that plan given 

 by Mr. Doolittle, p. 587, whereby three colo- 

 nies are made from two with no danger of 

 swarming from either. Mr. Doolittle is a 

 close observer, and one who is careful of 

 his statements; and when he says he has 

 tried a thing for " over 25 years, and it has 

 always proved successful," you may bank 

 on it as being reliable — for his locality. 

 For many other localities, mine for exam- 

 ple, it wouldn't work. Take " any popu- 

 lous colony which you have reason to think 

 may swarm in a few days," and get the 

 work " all done about three to eight days 

 before your expected honey- flow." In this 

 locality, three to eight days before the hon- 

 ey-flow you don't find colonies thinking 

 about swarming. Again: "The removed 

 colony is in perfect condition, less the field- 

 bees which have been drawn off by its re- 

 moval in just the right time to stop all idea 

 of swarming for the season." In this lo- 

 cality, a colony removed to a new location 

 before the honey-flow would merely have its 

 swarming delayed, but would be just about 

 as certain to swarm as if not removed. [In 

 this locality swarming i's apt to take place 

 a little prior to the honey- flow — that is, a 

 little prior to the real onrush of nectar; 

 then it lets up a little. If there is any one 



