1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



689 



kind of hive, the strain of bees, the queen, 

 and the man, one could hardly put down a 

 set of figures as being- the right ones for all 

 parties concerned. In the South, as sug- 

 gested, the winter's consumption would be 

 much larger than in the North; and even 

 in the North the outdoor consumption would 

 be considerably more than the indoor for 

 winter. Then, again, some bees run more 

 to brood-rearing than others, resulting in a 

 large use of stores. In the first place, we 

 do not know how many pounds of honey it 

 takes to make a pound of wax. The ex- 

 periments already conducted are so much 

 affected by locality and other conditions 

 that the figures run all the way from 3 to 

 20 lbs. I do not see how we can do much 

 better than to guess at the amount of stores 

 consumed by a colony in a year. For Doo- 

 little's locality I should suppose his figures 

 were reasonably correct. Those given by 

 Adrian Getaz are probably not far wrong; 

 but if any thing they are high rather than 

 low. — Ed.] 



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De Jonbry, a French savant, maintains 

 that the chief design in the creation of bees 

 was the fertilization of plants, and that the 

 gathering of honey is merely incidental. 

 Not knowing when to stop storing, their in- 

 stinct impels them to get all they can, which 

 is usually more than they want, and that 

 surplus is what man takes as his share. 

 That writer claims that the amount of food 

 given to man by bees in the way of honey 

 is insignificant when compared with the 

 amount he gets by better fertilization of the 

 blossoms. The bee seems to be a sort of 

 double-edged benefit to man. 



I believe it was some Cleveland journal 

 that said the germs of disease in water can 

 be killed by subjecting the water to great 

 pressure, such as is used in squeezing pom- 

 ace when making cider. If that is true, 

 perhaps the germs of foul brood in honey 

 can be killed in the same way, without 

 subjecting the honey to the e fleets of heat. 

 Reports are called for. The principle is 

 this: If a corked empty bottle be put in wa- 

 ter, and the latter so confined that great 

 pressure may be applied to it, the cork will 

 be driven into the bottle, or the bottle may 

 be broken into fragments. In a like man- 

 ner, if much pressure is applied to a spore 

 it is as certainly killed as an apple seed 

 would be by crushing it. 

 \ir 



The Third Annual Report of the Illinois 

 State Bee-keepers' Association is now ready 



for delivery, and every bee-keeper ought to 

 have a copy. It consists of 160 pages, 130 

 of which are taken up with a verbatim re- 

 port of the proceedings of the Chicago- 

 Northwestern Bee-keepers' Association, 

 which took place last December. The re- 

 mainder of the bock is a report of the Illi- 

 nois State Association proper. The book 

 is well illustrated with views of displays of 

 honey, and pictures of the prominent bee- 

 men of Illinois. I believe Mr. G. W. York 

 has done more than any other bee-keeper 

 in the United States to give to all other 

 bee-keepers full reports of all that is said 

 at the big conventions — that is, all bearing 

 on the subject. He has become responsible 

 for the stenographic work, itself involving 

 great expense. To enable him to do so the 

 better, it has always been the policy of 

 Gleanings to give him an undisputed 

 field, feeling that, if others desired a com- 

 plete report of conventions, a dime or so 

 would bring it, without crowding columns 

 that are already full. I hope Mr. York's 

 work in this line will be remembered by 

 all bee- keepers. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 

 Mrs. Lucinda Harrison, probably the 

 best-known woman bee-keeper in the world, 

 died at St. Andrew, Fla., May 26, at the 

 age of 73, or she would have been that old 

 next November. Her death is not so much 

 a matter of surprise as the fact that it es- 

 caped my notice till now. She has been a 

 frtquent contributor to Gleanings for 25 

 years. Her life has been such as to bless 

 the world, and she will be missed much, 

 not only by her immediate friends but by 

 bee-keepers at large. Of late years her 

 writings have not borne so much on bee- 

 keeping as on subjects of a general nature. 

 Her home was in Peoria, 111. 



Just four days after the death of Mrs. 

 Harrison she was followed by Mr. C. Theil- 

 man, of Theilmanton, Minnesota. Mr. T. 

 was in times past one of the most valued 

 contributors to Gleanings. I learn of his 

 death in the American Bee-keeper. The 

 old familiar names are becoming scarcer. 



IRISH BEE JOURNAL. 

 In speaking of insurance the editor says, 

 " Up to June 20, 52 subscribers had insur- 

 ed 596 stocks under our scheme — an increase 

 of l7l stocks upon the corresponding period 

 of 1903. Cost, one penny per stock per an- 

 num. 



A certain bee-keeper in Australia says he 

 does not paint his hives, for he is liable to 

 be compelled to burn them at any time on 

 account of foul brood. Mr. Digges says, 

 "That is what we are coming to in Ire- 

 land." That seems like a strange confes- 

 sion. Mr. McEvoy would clean it out in 

 less than a year, as effectually as St. Pat- 

 rick did the snakes in that same island. 



