March, 1920 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



167 



I HAVE beeu 

 reading in the 



ABC and X 

 Y Z of Bcc Cul- 

 ture the articles 

 on tupelo gum 

 honey of Flor- 

 ida. We have 

 the same condi- 

 t i n s here in 



southeast Texas. The banks of the Neches 

 River are lined on either side with both 

 the white and black tupelo gum. This tim- 

 ber is from one to two miles thick. Would 

 not the source of nectar be as good here as 

 in Florida? I have not had time to test the 

 possibilities of it yet. I started the year 

 with one colony and have built up to 25 

 strong colonies for spring. The bees start 

 to working here in February and March if 

 the weather is right.— Wm. Meador, Jeffer- 

 son County, Tex. 



' ' I used to have two or three thermome- 

 ters hanging side by side. Sometimes one 

 would read highest and sometimes the other. 

 This is, no doubt, caused by the tubes not 

 being the same at different places. That 

 being the case two thermometers might 

 agree at zero or at 32 degrees and might 

 read several degrees different about 45 and 

 50. ' ' — Geo. M. Thomson, Greene County, la. 



' ' But now we have to acknowledge that 

 the season is an almost total failure on ac- 

 count of the prolonged severe drought. Bees 

 have found no flowers and in consequence 

 could gather but little honey. The wax has 

 suffered equally, aud arrivals are very in- 

 significant and the quality is almost invari- 

 ably poor." — Cuba Export Company, Santi- 

 ago de Cuba, Jan. 23. 



"I have found that 'bait sections' will 

 produce just as good-looking comb honey, 

 aud with as nice eappings as any other, if 

 you pass a knife over the cells and scrape 

 down the comb about halfway to the mid- 

 rib. This is done best in frosty or cool 

 weather while the wax is brittle. It leaves 

 the sections cleaner than to melt the cells 

 down by a hot iron plate, as some have re- 

 ported doing. Try it on a section one of 

 these cold mornings." — G. A. Pauli, Otero 

 County, Colo. 



"Carniolan tested queens; price, $2.00. 

 Jan Strgar, Queen Raiser, Bitnje, J. Bo- 

 hinska Bistrica (S. H. S.) Stete of Serbs, 

 Croats, Slovenes, Carniola, Europa." — 

 Francis Jager, Hennepin County, Minn. 

 [Gleanings knows nothing of Jan Strgar, but 

 prints this notice sent by Prof. Jager, as an 

 answer to many inquiring as to where Car- 

 niolan queens can be secured. We assume 

 no responsibility as to this information. — 

 Editor.] 



"I remember long ago in Ireland that the 

 chief inspector, Mr. T. B. O'Brien, told me 

 that the best beekeeper he ever saw was a 

 blind man. He used to relate how this 

 blind man once went out with him to look 

 at a strong stock. The minute he had the 



MEN AND THINGS 



(You may find it here) 



^HINGS r 



c o V e 1' off, the 

 blind man said, 

 "They have 

 swarmed without 

 my knowing it." 

 O 'Brien was as- 

 tonished, as the 

 quilt had not yet 

 been taken off 

 the top of the 

 frames. The blind man explained that he 

 knew by the loss of heat that the swarm 

 was gone. I correspond regularly with a 

 blinded soldier whose eyes were shot out. 

 He has been taught carpentry and chicken 

 farming. And he writes me that he defies 

 any carpenter to do better work. We all 

 know that fineness of touch is a great ac- 

 quisition in beekeeping, which probably ac- 

 counts for women being better than men at 

 it. Therefore the blind man whose touch 

 becomes tremendously developed should 

 make a very good beekeeper." — Will H. 

 Gray, British Columbia. 



"1 am looking for American foul brood 

 next season in greater quantity than last 

 season. I find after a hard winter it seems 

 to show itself more. New Jersey is having 

 quite a stir over the disappearing disease. 

 Coley and myself attended their meeting at 

 Treuton recently. They are a wideawake 

 association. ' ' — E. Vanderwerken, Fairfield 

 County, Conn. 



' ' The census taker was here today, and 

 judging from the way he took census of me, 

 it would seem that beekeeping is in for a 

 pretty raw deal at the hands of our census 

 takers. He merely asked me my name, age, 

 where born, where father and mother were 

 born, whether married or single, and occu- 

 pation, and that was all he wanted to know. 

 He declined to take any notes on property, 

 real or personal, that I might own, number 

 of colonies of bees I have, income from my 

 business, or anything about it. He is getting 

 all the statistics possible about farming, 

 poultry-raising, etc., but says he has no 

 form on which to take statistics in regard 

 to the bee business. So far as I know, the 

 beemen of the country will appear on the 

 census rolls as a lot of men without any 

 property of any kind, not even a colony of 

 bees, no income, and, to all intents and pur- 

 poses, paupers. ' '• — H. D. Murray, Red River 

 County, Tex, 



' ' The Stroller notes that would-be pur- 

 chasers of bees are very numerous; that 

 many are trying to break into the game; 

 that any old bee in any old box commands 

 a price; that twenty dollars per in a good 

 hive finds customers; that it is reported 70 

 per cent of the honey in Washington is still 

 in the hands of producers; that the price is 

 no higher notwithstanding the advance in 

 sugar; that here it takes more honey to 

 spring the bees than it does to winter them; 

 that abundance of honey in the hive after 

 winter means extra-strong colonies." — E. 

 .1. Ladd, King County, Wash. 



