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February, 1922 



THE short, cd- 

 i t o r i a 1 on 

 piiffo 9 of the 

 January issue of 

 G 1 c a n i ngs set 

 nie to tliiiikiiig 

 of the tinie when 

 I was young in 

 beekeeping, and 

 my bees had 



American foul brood, when I bought colo- 

 nies of bees from a distance. I got rid of it 

 by simply destroying the combs, without 

 disinfecting the hives. We knew nothing of 

 microbes in those days. A few years ago I 

 was attending a beekeepers' convention 

 where a learned professor told the beekeep- 

 ers how they must disinfect foul-brood 

 hives with a gasoline torch and all tools 

 used in handling the combs, with boiling 

 water. He did not even except their fin- 

 gers. A gentleman sitting near me whis- 

 pered to me and said he had used hives 

 from which foul-brood colonies had been 

 removed without any return of the disease. 

 Now I am not saying that the bare walls of 

 the hive may not carry the germs of Ameri- 

 can foul brood, but I do think the danger 

 to be much less than generally believed. 



* * * 



That is a right good editorial on page 11 

 on the "Condensation of Moisture in Hives 

 in Winter, ' ' and well worth a most careful 

 study by every young beekeeper in the 

 North. To keep bcos dry and warm in win- 

 ter is the secret of successful wintering, and 

 how best to conserve heat and let the mois- 

 'ture escape is another way of putting it. 

 For this we will make the brood-chamber as 

 warm as we can, and then we will give up- 

 ward insensible ventilation thru old woollen 

 carpeting, rugs, leaves, soft planer shavings 

 or dry sawdust, or cork dust. Such a cov- 

 ering will permit most of the moisture to 

 escape while it retains the heat. With such 

 conditions bees will winter as safely in our 

 cold northern winters as any stock. 



* * * 



As I look over Gleanings for January it 

 would seem as tho the most important ques- 

 tion confronting the commercial beekeeper 

 of today is that of marketing or selling his 

 cTop at paying prices. As I look over the 

 markets for the past 50. years and think of 

 the enormous amount of honey consumed to- 

 day, compared with the demand for it when 

 I first began keeping bees, the outlook for 

 the future is bright and promising. There 

 seems but little difference in the retail price 

 today and 40 years ago, notwithstanding the 

 very greatly increased production. The nuis- 

 ance of one producer's selling his honey at 

 retail at wholesale prices seems to be wide- 

 spread; and, what is more, there appears to 

 be no way to prevent it. We may, how- 

 ever, reduce this evil somewhat by bee- 

 keepers or associations securing the names 

 of all beekeepers who practice this method, 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



SIFTINGS 



J. E. Crane 



1 



TU 



89 



and buy their 

 honey early in 

 tlic season. I 

 was told of one 

 beekeeper in 

 Maine, who was 

 selling his comb 

 h o n e y for six 

 cents a pound. 

 Another and lar- 

 ger beekeeper bought him out and put a 

 stop to such considerable competition and 

 made a good profit on the honey at the same 

 time. 



» » « 



E. S. Miller of Indiana, on page 31, tells 

 us of carloads of honey being put up in five 

 and ten pound pails and sold by canvassers 

 directly to the consuming public. With low- 

 er prices, this will be practiced more and 

 more. 



* » * 



"Caged queens lose fertility," says M. C. 

 Osborne on page 21. Our own experience has 

 been that it is injurious to confine a queen 

 in a small cage for two or three weeks. If 

 it is necessary it is better to confine them 

 with a "push-in-comb cage." 



* » » 



That is certainly a very interesting article 

 by George Riedel, page 16, on "Beekeeping 

 in Foreign I^ands," with climate and honey 

 resources almost perfect. Yet even there he 

 finds conditions not altogether satisfactory. 

 There are other things than success in our 

 business that add to or detract from our 

 happiness. 



ft * * 



Mr. Demuth tells on page 38 how best to 

 prevent the granulation of comb honey in 

 cold weather. There is still in my mind 

 much mystery as to the causal of granulation 

 of comb honey. Doubtless the kind of honey 

 has much to do with it, but not all. Mr. 

 Demuth 's advice appears to be the best to 

 be given at present. 



* * » 



On page 714 of the Atlantic Monthly I 

 read: "It is summer; the breath of sweet 

 air, simmering noises of insects, shrill lo- 

 custs high in the foliage, heavy bees wad- 

 ing from milkweed to clover." Now this 

 may be very literary, but hardly true to na- 

 ture. Bees do not wade from milkweed to 

 clover in real life. 



It was with a heavy heart that I read of 

 the death of Mrs. Root, in the January num- 

 ber of Gleanings in Bee Culture. Yet not for 

 long for I can not think of her as dead, for 

 indeed she is not dead but rather removed to 

 a higher sphere of life. With even a small 

 acquaintance with her one could not help 

 but recognize her sweet, patient Christian 

 spirit, in fact, her kinship with the Christ. 

 Our heartfelt sympathy is extended to her 

 laroe circle of relatives and friends. 



