696 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



November, 1921 



c 



ur 



J^ received a let- 

 ter from H, 

 E. Weisner of 

 Tucson, Ariz., in 

 which he says: 

 "I fear the 

 concluding sen- 

 tence of your 

 page in Septem- 

 ber Gleanings may cause trouble in some 

 parts of the country, for while it may do 

 very well in your locality to give a ripe 

 queen-cell to a colony less than two days 

 after the removal of the old queen, there 

 are other places where it would mean 75 

 per cent failure. I kept bees in western 

 Oregon before coming here, and there are 

 a number of rules, considered orthodox by 

 noted beekeepers, that will not work out 

 right there, and requeening cells is one of 



them." 



« * * 



On page 681, October Gleanings, F. Greiner 

 discusses a most interesting problem as to 

 whether a small brood-chamber is not pre- 

 ferable to a large one for wintering. I 

 have believed for many years that a small 

 brood-chamber is much to be preferred 

 where bees were wintered out of doors in 

 our cold climate. My attention was called 

 to this subject many years ago when one 

 spring I found in an outyard every colony 

 that had been left on eleven combs dead, 

 while those on eight combs or less had win- 

 tered fairly well. In my opinion it is poor 

 policy to try to warm a large room with a 

 small stove. Either the room will be cold 

 or you will burn out your stove trying to 

 keep it warm. In practice we try to reduce 

 our brood-chambers to the size of our colo- 

 nies — ten frames for very strong ones, seven 

 or eight for those of average strength, and 

 from four to six for weaker ones. If they 

 have good food and are well packed they 

 winter very well. It is an easy matter to 

 enlarge the brood-chamber in spring as they 



need it. 



» * * 



J. Eaymond Ball of Knowlton, Quebec, is 

 wondering (page 643) if J. E. Crane's pre- 

 diction of a poor season following an early 

 spring, has come true. "Well! I am glad to 

 report that the season has not been an entire 

 failure, altho very far from what we might 

 call a good one; in fact, the poorest we 

 have had in the past six or seven years. We 

 have from one-third to one-half of a good 

 year's surplus. The late bloom of clover 

 has helped out some, so we shall not have 

 to feed as much as usual. 

 » * * 



I enjoyed immensely the introduction of 

 Prof. Hughes to us beekeepers by E. R. 

 Root, on page 622. Hereafter we shall feel 

 that we know him and shall regard him as 

 a personal friend. But isn't that picture of 

 him just great! Aside, Mr. Root tells us 

 that Prof. Hughes is one of the finest Chris- 



SIFTINGS 



J. E. Crane 



1 



TU 



tian gentlemen 

 he has ever met; 

 that he believes 

 in the sermon on 

 the mount and 

 practices it. To- 

 day the world is 

 full of trouble, 

 poverty, and sor- 

 row untold, and 

 is looking in every direction for some rem- 

 edy, but so far has seemed to overlook that 

 little rule laid down in the sermon on the 

 mount, ' ' Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 

 thyself. ' ' 



* * » 



' ' Shall we eliminate the word extracted 

 from honey labels?" asks the editor of 

 Gleanings, on page 614. For one I say, yes. 

 As I understand it there are many times more 

 pounds of liquid or extracted honey pro- 

 duced today and placed on the market than 

 there is of comb honey, and there is likely 

 to be a still greater amount. The time was 

 when market honey always meant comb, but 

 times have changed. Let the word "honey" 

 stand for that produced in the largest quan- 

 tity, and a qualifying word to that pro- 

 duced in smaller quantities. The demand 

 for honey in tins is increasing rapidly. 



* » * 



I enjoy Mrs. Boyden's "Food Page," 

 altho I am not a cook. I have especially 

 enjoyed the page for October and her frank 

 and open statements that honey is not al- 

 together satisfactory for general cooking 

 where sweet is needed, without regard to 

 what "the editor might think or say." 

 Right here I want to tell of a new use for 

 honey that I learned down in Connecticut a 

 few weeks ago. It was to pour a table- 

 spoonful of nice honey over a dish of ice 

 cream. That which I tested was certainly 

 delicious. I was told that some one who 

 had introduced the custom or fashion in a 

 cafeteria or restaurant had reaped a rich 

 harvest of nickels or dimes as the extra 

 charge for the superior quality of such ice 



cream. 



* * » 



I was glad to learn from "North, East, 



West and South" that the home demand 



for honey is on the increase. In Michigan 



not over 10 or 15 per cent will be sent to 



the large cities. We have never before had 



so large a sale for honey in tins. It looks 



now as tho two, three, and five pound tins 



were to become the most popular of all 



packages for honey. 



» * » 



I was amused a few days ago when an 

 automobile party called and inquired if we 

 had honey for sale. When informed that 

 we had, the question that followed was, 

 "Where are your bees?" After opening the 

 back door to the honey-house, so they could 

 see the hives, I had no trouble selling them 

 all the three and five pound tins of honey 

 they could carry. 



