140 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



J. E. Crane 



SIFTINGS 



Middlebury, Vt. 



I wonder if any of the readers 

 of Gleanings have had any suc- 

 cess in securing honey from the 

 hairy vetch. It is a good forage- 

 plant, and said to be an excellent 

 laoney-plant as well. 



" Tickling the Palate of a Nation " is a 

 mighty big job as it seems to me, page 34, 

 Jan. i. But tickling it with honey is cer- 

 tainly better than with the thousand and 

 one artificial compounds now on the mar- 

 ket. 



* * * 



I believe the complaints which E. C. Bird 

 makes of the net-weight law, page 948, Nov. 

 15, are quite just. It has cost us a great 

 many dollars to grade and stamp our honey 

 this year, without any sufficient advantage 

 to any one to make it pay, so far as I can 



see. 



* * * 



Dr. Miller asks, page 5, Jan. 1, why ten 

 days is not just as well to cage a queen to 

 cure a hive of European foul brood as two 

 or three weeks. May be in cases where dis- 

 ease has just started; but I would not ad- 

 vise so short a time where the disease has 

 gotten a good start. 



Grace Allen is thrilled by the marvelous 

 mechanism of the stomach of a bee. There 

 are more wonders all about us than we 

 dream of in our wildest moments. We can 

 never exhaust them ; and so the great loving 

 Father would reveal himself to us tnru the 

 things he has made. 



» * * 



Mr. F. R. Bethun informs us, page 994, 

 Dee. 1, that there is in Australia a gi'eat 

 demand for honey for army contracts. 

 Slowly but surely honey is being more and 

 more appreciated ; and before many years 

 it will come to hold the place in dietetics 

 that belongs to it. 



* * * 



That " Serious Situation in Florida " 

 seems to me sevious indeed, page 1009, Dec. 

 15. The Florida fruit-growers had about 

 all the trouble before they could well stand 

 up under. It was the last straw that broke 

 the camel's back. 



* * * 



It was with pleasure that I read P. C. 

 Chadwick's experience with the mud wasps 



(page 925, Nov. 15). These wasps here- 

 about seem to lay an egg on the base of 

 the cell before filling with spiders. They 

 prefer those same crab-spiders for their 

 young here as in Kansas. But several years 

 ago the supply of this kind failed; but the 

 wasps were equal to the occasion, and filled 

 their cells with other kinds, little and big, 

 and their larv« did not suffer. 



That editorial, " The Economy of Honey 

 as a Food," is just splendid, page 1010, 

 Dec. 15. If we had more such illustrations 

 I believe it would add immensely to the 

 popularity of honey. The facts are that 

 honey at present prices is about one of the 

 cheapest energy-producing foods we have, 

 with the exception, perhaps, of potatoes 

 and the gi-ains, and sugar and molasses. 



I fear that the Oklahoma foul-brood law 

 may prove something of a boomerang (page 

 940, Nov. 15) — it's something to do for an 

 inspector to examine every yard of bees in a 

 state, or for every beekeeper who sells hon- 

 ey, bees, or qtieens to go before a notary 

 public and swear he has no disease among 



his bees. 



» * * 



Mr. Lewis L. Winship, page 1022, Dec. 

 15, relieves his disgust of home-made hives. 

 But a factory-made hive in the hands of an 

 ignoramus of a beekeeper is a sorry affair, 

 not much better. We used to hear a good 

 deal about making hives "fool-proof;" but 

 I came to the conclusion some time ago that 

 fools were poor material out of which to 

 make beekeepers. 



The index to the 43d volume of Glean- 

 ings is one of the best we have ever had. 

 It doubles and trebles the value of back 

 numbers, and gives us an amount of in- 

 formation on almost every subject connect- 

 ed with beekeeping that is surprising. 

 When we compare this volume of over 1000 

 pages with those in the seventies we can 

 readily see how fast we are moving for- 

 ward. 



* * * 



" Do Bees Perish during Winter when 

 Their Hives are Completely Covered with 

 Snow for Long Periods of Time?" editorial 

 page 3, Jan. 1. Our experience has been 

 that bees winter at their best out of doors 



