712 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 



Hold up, Mr. Editor. Please don't send 

 that silk hat, p, 69S, I'd rather admit that 

 a virgin emerges a week before the prime 

 swarm than to be compelled to wear a stove- 

 pipe. 



Years ago, at the home of the late Jesse 

 Oatman, Dundee, 111., I saw packing-cases 

 for four hives like that picture, p. 694. If 

 I'm correct, some of them were two stories, 

 with eight hives. He called them a success. 



Dan WHiTEis story about putting poor 

 honey on the market, p. 684, recalls that, 

 years ago, a man put on the ^larengo mar- 

 ket jars of honey-dew that was very poor. 

 In spite of protests he insisted it was all 

 right, for the bees had made it. " How could 

 any man be such a fool?" Well, I was 

 younger then than I am now. 



A. I. Root, get ready for a lot of free ads 

 of Early Joe apples. If you're here next 

 summer you can eat Early Joe apples off a 

 tree I planted 45 years ago, I don't wonder 

 you liked them. Two miles away on the 

 prairie, Early Joe is ever so much redder 

 than here. You'll find it in the list of ap- 

 ples in Standard Dictionary. It was com- 

 mon in catalogs 50 years ago. 



For dinner to-day we had chicken roast- 

 ed in a paper-bag. Tried it yet? Good 

 thing. [It is all the rage around here; but 

 some have, suggested a caution that it is not 

 wise to confine the gases in a chicken pie.. 

 For this reason many housewives make a 

 practice of pricking holes through the upper 

 crust of the pie. The other day we heard of 

 a case where a chicken was cooked inside of 

 a bag, and it made several members of the 

 family sick. There is no question that bag 

 cooking adds to the richness of the meat, 

 but does it not also place an additional bur- 

 den on the organs of digestion? We don't 

 know. — Ed.] 



Abbe Pincot, by using foundation con- 

 taining 736 cells to the square decimeter, in- 

 stead of the usual 854, has bees that are 

 about 8 per cent larger every way than bees 

 reared in ordinary cells, and he claims .they 

 store about a fourth more. — L'Apiculteur, 

 373. That he has these larger bees has nev- 

 er been questioned, that I know of, but it 

 has been questioned that they store so 

 much. [Like yourself, we question very 

 much whether larger bees would store more 

 honey, and we venture the opinion that, if 

 the thoraces or waists of those bees reared in 

 larger cells were carefully calipered, there 

 will be found no actual difference in size. 

 In other words, we believe that bees reared 

 in large cells will pass through standard 

 perforated zinc just as readily as bees reared 

 in normal cells. We do not believe that the 

 laws of nature will be changed very much 

 by a single environment in one generation. 

 —Ed.] 



Some marking for a queen that will be 

 permanent, easily seen, and harmless, is 

 asked for in the British Bee Journal, and 

 Revieiu repeats the request for some harm- 

 less chemical with which the queen's thorax 

 may be painted. Since 1900 the Swiss have 

 used a rapidly drying lac — white, yellow, 

 red, or blue. The queen is held by a little 

 net pressed down upon her; and the lac, 

 which must be neither too thick nor too 

 thin, is applied with a pointed stick. Learn 

 how by practicing on workers. Full partic- 

 ulars, occupying "four pages, may be found 

 in Dr. U. Kramer's excellent book, "Die 

 Bassenzucht," page 109. [In some cases we 

 should be inclined to believe that this arti- 

 ficial coloring would impart a foreign odor 

 to the queen to such an extent that her sub- 

 jects would ball her. In many and probably 

 in most cases no trouble would follow. — 

 Ed.] 



Mr. Trickey, p. 677, doesn't know about 

 corrugated paper on top of sections in ship- 

 ping-cases. Same here. What possible use? 

 He's right, too, in wanting uniform tare. 

 Variation in tare is owing chiefly to differ- 

 ence in glass. I don't care so much for the 

 difference in weight, but I don't like to have 

 my temper splintered into little pieces try- 

 ing to force into its place a piece of glass too 

 thick for the groove. I never got any yet 

 without this fault. [We advocate corrugat- 

 ed paper on top and bottom of shipping- 

 cases for several reasons — first, it adds but 

 very little to the expense; second, freight- 

 handlers, truck-men, and commission men 

 very often handle comb-honey cases upside 

 down. If corrugated pajDer be used on top 

 as well as in the bottom, it cushions the sec- 

 tions, no matter how the cases may be piled. 

 The slight additional cost will be more than 

 made up by the saving in leakage and 

 breakage. In the third place, even if the 

 cases are not piled upside down when there 

 is no corrugated paper on top of the sections, 

 the wooden cover comes in direct contact 

 with the sections, and any blow or pressure 

 on the cover comes upon the sections. Com- 

 mission men have complained how their 

 employees, railroad, and truck men will put 

 their big clumsy feet on top of the covers of 

 the 24-lb. cases. The weight of a man weigh- 

 ing 150 or 175 lbs. in the center of the case 

 is quite sure to do damage to the sections 

 beneath, unless there be a cushion of corru- 

 gated paper under the cover. Fourth, cor- 

 rugated paper at top and bottom will hold 

 each individual section firmly in place — not 

 by an unyielding pressure, but by a soft 

 cushion. If the shipping-case is too shallow 

 or too deep, the sections are bound to suffer 

 more or less. When too shallow, the mere 

 act of nailing on the cover will break some 

 sections. AVhen too deep, the sections will 

 have more or less shuck up and down. — Ed.] 



