1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



637 



thing- that varies according- to locality it is 

 swarming. And then it varies also accord- 

 ing to the season. Here, for example, no 

 hocey has been coming in except just 

 enough to supply the demands for brood- 

 rearing. We have nothing but nuclei in 

 our j'ards, for the reason that there has 

 been such a heavy demand for bees we have 

 had to draw on all of our strong colonies 

 as well as weak ones. Of swarming- we 

 have had an unusual amount when condi- 

 tions of weather, of the colonies, and the 

 honey- flow seemed to be all against it. 



The other day we had one swarm cluster 

 a few minutes; and, before we could hive 

 it, it went over the 50- foot evergreens, then 

 struck out in a bee-line directly northwest. 

 Heretofore our swarms have been more ac- 

 commodating, and we have been in the hab- 

 it of taking our time to hive them. This 

 swarm could have been headed off if we had 

 had ready a spray-pump with a pail of 

 water; for I have proved personally that I 

 can drive a swarm in the air like a flock of 

 sheep, and finally force it to settle again. 

 — Ed ] 





y^eiejhbor^jieldj 



55 



The Canadian Bee Journal suggests that 

 combs which have been gnawed by mice 

 can be made good by cutting- out the torn 

 part with the top of a tin can, biscuit fash- 

 ion, then cutting out a whole piece from 

 another comb and putting it in the place of 

 the piece removed. The beeswill do the rest. 



Mr. Titoff has just pointed out to me a 

 passage in a Bohemian bee- journal, show- 

 ing that the number of colonies of bees in 

 the kingdom of Servia in 1859 was 50,200; 

 in 1866, 106,000; in 1890, 124,600; in 1900, 

 172,400. That is a remarkable increase 

 for so small a country — only half the size of 

 Ohio. The Bohemians call a hive an " ul. " 

 Some might see a strange coincidence be- 

 tween this sudden advance in prosperity 

 and the cessation of Turkish rule in that 

 turbulent country. 



Mil 



There's no doubt that the sale of comb 

 honey suffers at both ends of the route — in 

 the hands of the producer and in the store 

 of the retailer in the villages and cities. 

 On the 19th of June I was in a hamlet in 

 the western part of Ohio, and while there I 

 had occasion to stop in front of a grocery, 

 where I saw some comb honey in the win- 

 dow. As it was Sunday, the store was, of 

 course, closed. There were five sections 

 standing on a little board, entirely uncov- 

 ered, with the edges toward the window. 

 The sections were badly stained or else in- 



geniously decorated, for they somewhat re- 

 sembled a county map of Illinois. Right 

 here was the fault of the beekeeper, for he 

 could have easily scraped the wood so as to 

 show its natural color at least, and per- 

 haps have removed some of the marks of the 

 buzz-saw. The honey itself could not be 

 seen except on the right side of the right 

 section. The appearance of that side was 

 fine — it could have been graded as " Fan- 

 cy " without stretching the truth. It was 

 as white as honey ever is; the cells were 

 filled to the wood, and the surface was as flat 

 as the traditional pancake. I have no doubt 

 the sections were all like this one; but the 

 part that first met the public eye was re- 

 pellent — that dirty wood; and, worse still, 

 flies were having a premature celebration 

 of the Fourth all over it; and what business 

 has a fly on food, anyhoiv? That grocer 

 should have fixed those sections up in more 

 presentable shape — trimmed their edges 

 with some colored paper, and put them in 

 a glass case so the surface of the honey 

 could be seen from the outside, and thus 

 keep all the flies away. Here, from begin- 

 ning to end, every condition for the sale of 

 such or any goods was violated. I greatly 

 longed to read these lines to that grocer, 

 but he was away. It must not be supposed 

 that he was a sinner in this respect above 

 all grocers, for, take it the country over, 

 this state of affairs will be found in too 

 many stores. There is no article of human 

 food that deserves to be presented in more 

 attractive form, and kept more spotlessly 

 clean, than comb honey. Further, why 

 should a man who is in business to make 

 a living by selling things stand so exactly 

 in his own light, when it would be just as 

 easy and far more pleasant to present his 

 goods as if they had just come out of the 

 bandbox instead of some repulsive place? 



BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. 

 The editor cites the case of a Frenchman 

 who sowed a field with buckwheat, half of 

 which received a good dressing of farmyard 

 manure, and the other half was dressed 

 with lime. On the first, not a bee was to 

 be seen when the plants flowered; whereas 

 on the second they were flying in thou- 

 sands. There is no doubt that lime in the 

 soil is a great agency in inducing a flow 

 of nectar. 



In the French-speaking cantons of Swit- 

 zerland, 264 bee-keepers insured 4198 hives 

 of bees. The cost of insurance was about 

 a cent apiece. Every bee-keeper is ex- 

 pected to make a correct return of the num- 

 ber of his hives so that he may be correctly 

 assessed. 



An old English bee-keeper expressed 

 some doubt as to the large yields per colony 

 reported in some journals. A writer in 

 Mr. Cowan's journal replies, "In Argen- 

 tina, average takes of 330 to 550 lbs. per 

 hive are common. One American produced 

 112,000 lbs. of surplus last year, 22,000 lbs. 



