356 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



wnm 



J. E. Crane, Mlddlebury, Vt. 



That is a decidedly good plan Mr. Greiner 

 tells of on page 170, March 15, that the New 

 York bee-keepers are having school pads 

 made so as to advertise bees and honey. 

 We have used blotting-pads for the same 

 purpose. 



You tell us, Dr. Miller, page 196, April 1, 

 that M. Mertinet is the originator of a new 

 kind of clover, and has named it " apitrefle." 

 Pray what is the significance of the name? 

 I suspect it would mean in plain English 

 bee clover, but am not sure. Can you tell 

 us more about it? 



4!- 



I am glad to learn that the Ontario Agri- 

 cultural College, Guelph, Canada, is to open 

 a course for the study of ai)iculture. It may 

 not be generally known that the Massachu- 

 setts Agricultural College, at Amherst, is 

 also to have a short course from ilay 24 un- 

 til .June 7, closing with a convention of bee- 

 keepers June 6 and 7. 

 4> 



On page 199, April 1, Wesley Foster gives 

 some timely hints on advertising honey, 

 which are more practical by far, it seems to 

 me, than the expensive wholesale advertis- 

 ing advised by others. I see no reason why 

 interesting paragraphs on bees and honey 

 could not be printed in quantity by the edi- 

 tors of bee-journals, and furnished at a mod- 

 derate price to bee-keejiers in all parts of the 

 country. 



Dr. Miller inquires, page 237, April 15, if 

 it would not work, after destroying all queen- 

 cells, and in eight days again destroying 

 them, to give a laying queen. Perhaps, 

 sometimes; but I find they accept a virgin 

 more readily; also, if it would not work, to 

 give a virgin a week earlier. Most decided- 

 ly, no, as she would be quite sure to lead 

 out a swarm. Better wait until the swarm- 

 ing fever has abated. 



It is true, as Mr. Doolittle says on p. 165, 

 March 15, that a strong colony will (piickly 

 clean out dirty and moldy combs; but I 

 have about made up my mind that it i)ays 

 better to make wax of them and give the 

 bees frames of foundation instead. True, if 

 combs are badly niolded we can't get a very 

 large amount of wax out of them; and I 

 have noticed that the bees often tear down 

 such combs, or part of them, and build new. 



I will say, for the information of Mr. Byer, 

 that the corrugated cases he saw in Toronto, 

 and mentions on i>age 197, A])ril 1, are not 

 only like our cases, but were doubtless those 

 we furnished to the Canadian bee-keepers, 

 for we have had considerable trade in 

 them from Canada, where they seem to 

 be ai)i)reciated. Not onlj' do these cases 



ship honey safely to Manitoba, Saskatche- 

 wan, and Alberta, but we have used this 

 case in shipping comb honey to Europe the 

 past season, with entirely satisfactory re- 

 sults. 



Mr. H. Harley Selwyn's experience, page 

 254, April 15, is of much interest in relation 

 to the treatment of foul brood. Last year, 

 having read of placing diseased combs in 

 the super, and confining the queen below on 

 foundation starters in frames, I tried the 

 plan, only to meet with complete failure. I 

 did it as an experiment, but it won't pay. 



"May God hasten the day when good 

 women shall do at least some of the voting," 

 says A. I. Root, p. 117, Feb. 15. Well, my 

 brother, I have lived to see it. This very 

 week at a school meeting called to take ac- 

 tion on the erection of a high-school build- 

 ing in our village, when the crisis had come, 

 and the votes were nearly all in, a number 

 of public-spirited women walked single file 

 up one aisle of our hall to the stage and 

 dropped their ballots, and down and off at 

 the other side, so dignified and quietly that 

 I could not help admiring them. No need 

 to say that we are to have a new school 

 building. 



-•^ 



I think you are mistaken, Mr. Editor, p. 

 185, March 15, in thinking that G-4, lbs. of 

 granulated sugar would make about 9 lbs. of 

 stores when sealed. Now, if you take 6-3 

 lbs. of sugar and add 30 j^er cent water you 

 will have S}i lbs., which, as you say. is about 

 9 lbs., but it would be 30 per cent water, 

 while honey is but about 18 per cent water. 

 Besides, more or less of the syrup will be 

 used in making wax for cappings, and also 

 in the increased activity of the bees. After 

 some experiments we have tried I am satis- 

 fied we don't get many more pounds, if any, 

 of stores sealed in a hive than we feed 

 pounds of sugar. 



4<- 



An exceedingly interesting item by Wes- 

 ley Foster, page 199, April 1, calls our atten- 

 tion to time in the insect world. Doubtless 

 time seems longer to all the lower forms of 

 life than to us, as we may all remember how 

 slowly time seemed to move when we were 

 children, and how fast it seems to fiy now 

 that we have so many things to think about 

 and do. That insects suffer as we do from 

 bodily injury seems doubtful, as we have 

 sometimes severed a leg from a queen in 

 trying to clip her wings, without very much 

 api)arent discomfort to her. Exi^eriments 

 made ujion grasshoppers, years ago, led me 

 to think their sense of pain is quite obtuse; 

 and yet that bees often suffer from our 

 clumsy manipulation of their combs is evi- 

 dent from their cry when pinched. 



