1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



743 



no-drip cleats in no drip shipping--cases 

 should not be less than '4 inch thick. When 

 only 's inch, the sections are not raised 

 high enoug-h to be out of the drip that may 

 run out of the combs. Mr. Burnett is doubt- 

 less correct for Chicag-o and vicinity. In 

 Colorado the bee-keepers want the strips no 

 thicker than js inch. We should be glad 

 to get expressions from honey- buyers and 

 commission men as well as bee-keepers. 



AN UNUSUAL AMOUNT OF SWEET CLOVER. 



There seems to be an unusual amount of 

 sweet clover this season — so much of it that 

 our bees have not annoyed us by robbing as 

 they usually do at this season of the year. 

 While, undoubtedly, a part of the honey 

 comes from white clover that is not yet out 

 of bloom, there is a good big portion of it 

 that comes from sweet clover, because bees 

 seem quite busy on it. 



Sweet clover is not a noxious weed, be- 

 cause it grows where nothing else can 

 thrive. It is spreading from one end of the 

 country to the other; and I believe it is go- 

 ing to be a great help to the bee business, 

 for it will keep down the robbing tendency, 

 and at the same time give the bees suffi- 

 cient stores to take care of their daily needs 

 without drawing on the winter supply gath- 

 ered in the height of the season. 



NOTHING GAINED BY SELLING UNRIPE HON- 

 EY, AND MUCH TO LOSE. 



The American Bee-keeper, in indorsing 

 a statement in an exchange, to the effect 

 that unripe honey on the market has done 

 much to injure the business, goes further 

 and says there is no advantage gained in 

 extracting before the honey ripens, because 

 '•ninety per cent of the total evaporation 

 comes duiing the first night in the hive, 

 and the further improvement is not so much 

 a matter of evaporation as a matter of in- 

 tluence caused by the presence of the bees 

 —an influence subtile, but positively known 

 to every experienced apiarist, whereby the 

 honey slowly but surely attains that de- 

 gree of body and flavor that makes the 

 consumer who samples it wish for more." 

 I wish to indorse most heartily the senti- 

 ment that no bee-keeper should put out ex- 

 tracted honey until the same has been most 

 thoroughly ripened. There are times when 

 unsealed combs can be extracted without 

 waiting for it to be capped over; but as a 

 rule the average person had better wait un- 

 til every inch of comb is completely capped. 



THE UNTIMELY DEATH OF H. C. MORE- 

 HOUSE. 



It is with very much regret that we are 

 compelled to record the death of Mr. H. C. 

 Morehouse, one of our editorial writers, 

 July 24, at Boulder, Col., after a severe ill- 

 ness of only nine days. We had only re- 

 cently engaged him to edit the department 

 of Rocky Mountain Bee-keeping, and the two 

 first installments which we have already 



published certify to his excellent editorial 

 ability. He had something over a thousand 

 colonies. He was a man of ripe experience, 

 and from our brief acquaintance with him 

 we judge him to have been a most lovable 

 man. Gleanings feels that it has suffered 

 a severe loss in the death of so excellent a 

 writer; and although he had just begun 

 his work, yet so excellent was the charac- 

 ter of it that he could not help leaving his 

 impress on the minds of our readers. He 

 leaves a wife, and a boy two years old. 

 We extend to the family our sincere sym- 

 pathy. 



MATING QUEENS IN MINIATURE NUCLEI AN 

 APPARENT success. 



Several times the belief has been ex- 

 pressed in these columns by correspondents 

 and even by m3'self that the miniature 

 queen-mating nuclei as recommended by 

 Swarthmore (E. L. Pratt) were so unreli- 

 able as to be practically a failure; and it is 

 true that our correspondent has abandoned 

 some of his earlier models and the manner 

 of using them. While he made them work, 

 he has devised better ones. 



One of our correspondents, after testing 

 his first nuclei, reported that the experi- 

 ment had been very expensive in that every 

 one of the small Swarthmore nuclei into 

 which he put a queen had failed in having 

 even one queen successfully mated — bees 

 swarmed out, they were robbed out, etc., 

 and that he did not think we should publish 

 such stuft". But notwithstanding all the 

 adverse reports, Mr. Pratt has been con- 

 tinuing to work at the problem, claiming 

 that he was having queens mated in them 

 successfully. 



Dr. E. F. Phillips, of the University of 

 Pennsylvania, visited him at his home, in 

 the height of his queen- rearing operations 

 last season, and saw that he was indeed 

 making a success of these "baby nuclei." 

 When he came to Medina to renew his sci- 

 entific work he reported what Swarthmore 

 was doing. We had some small one-frame 

 boxes made, and, later on, some of two 

 frames. They have been put to the test, 

 and so far are working very satisfactorily. 

 But honey has been coming in a little every 

 day, and this may make a difference. 

 However, we have reason to believe they 

 will work later on, because we have thus 

 far attained a degree of success far beyond 

 what we have had before. 



We have had reports from various queen- 

 breeders who have made these little nuclei 

 work; and we feel satisfied that what oth- 

 ers can do we can. 



This matter is not alone interesting to 

 the queen-breeder. It will mean a great 

 mary dollars to the honey- producer. When 

 he is ready to requeen, all he will have to 

 do will be to make up a batch of 25 or 30 

 nuclei and give them virgins or ripe cells. 

 A few nuclei like this will raise all the 

 queens he will need, in a short space of 

 time, and the expense will be merely tri- 

 fling. He will hardly need to use up one 



