276 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 1 



send him one based on Langstroth dimen- 

 sions and which comes the nearest to being 

 our standard. Some dealers would supply 

 a ten frame, others an eight-frame. In 

 some cases the hives would be dovetailed or 

 lock-comered, and others might be halved 

 or lap-nailed. I presume that Doolittle had 

 in mind the dimensions of the Langstroth 

 hive and unspaced frame, the one used by 

 Langstroth. — Ed. ] 



Just now Ohio seems to be the storm- cen- 

 ter in the matter of trying to make the sa- 

 loons obey the law, and it seems to be a dead 

 set between the Governor and the mayors. 

 The Governor says the saloons must be 

 closed on Sunday, the mayors say no. Which 

 whips? [Yes, our Ohio legislature is strong- 

 ly temperance. The Cleveland Leader says, 

 " All observers of conditions at Columbus 

 agree that the General Assembly is honest. 

 Ohio has not been so sure of the uprightness 

 of any legislature in many years. They have 

 proved their good faith by their works. . . 

 The reform outlook is good all along the 

 line." It has just passed a search-and-seiz- 

 ure bill that will make it hot for the owners 

 of speakeasies. Yesterday another bill pass- 

 ed the House that will very g-reatly broaden 

 the scope of the district-option law now in 

 force in our cities. There are bills pending 

 against treating. Over and above all is a 

 Governor who is most decidedly with the 

 temperance people and for the enforcement 

 of law.— Ed.] 



"Is IT POSSIBLE that bees assume a state 

 of torpor that is about midway between that 

 of true hibernation and the sleep of ordinary 

 warm-blooded animals that are aroused at 

 intervals of a few hours to be fed?" p. 203. 

 I don't know whether the answer to that 

 question is yes, or that the condition of bees 

 in winter is simply that of sleep with stops 

 for refreshment. At any rate, we know 

 this, that there is a point, somewhere about 

 forty- five degrees, at which bees show least 

 activity and consume least food. Can we 

 ever get bejrond this? [There is a great 

 deal concemmg this subject, that has never 

 been exploited. Granted that a cellar tem- 

 perature of 45 seems to give the lowest con- 

 sumption of stores, is it not a fact that bees 

 in that cellar inside of their hives have a 

 temperature of nearly blood heat? Taking 

 all the known facts, and putting them all 

 together, it is a little hard to deduct posi- 

 tive conclusions. But Gleanings proposes 

 to keep at these experiments for several 

 vears. It has been so warm lately that we 

 have not been able to do any thing in the 

 way of subjecting bees to a lower temper- 

 ature.— Ed.] 



"A beginner" writes: "I quote from *A 

 few Points for Beginners, ' in a manufactur- 

 er's circular: 'The honey-knife should be 

 kept sharp, and immersed in hot water when 

 not in use. ' Now, I can sharpen it all right, 

 but how am I to keep it hot from October 

 to July? Contract with an electric-light 

 plant, flouring- mill, or some other institution 

 that has hot water always, to keep it in soak 



for you. Or, don't stop using it during the 

 time mentioned. If your wife is of the kind 

 that keeps her husband constantly "in hot 

 water," all you need to do is to keep the 

 knife with you. [If these wives of ours did 

 not keep us in "hot water" it might be the 

 worse for us. But, joking aside, this ques- 

 tion whether hot water should be used f r 

 heating a honey-knife depends largely on lo- 

 cality and partly on the honey. If the I nif e 

 would work freely without the hot water, 

 by all means dispense with the heat; but if 

 it acts logy, bends or crushes the cells, even 

 when the edge is keen, then the blade should 

 be kept immersed in a pan of hot water. 

 In California, when extracting the thick 

 mountain sage, I believe it is generally cus- 

 tomary to use a pan of hot water on top of 

 a coal-oil stove. Two knives are used, to 

 work to the best advantage. While one is 

 doing the uncapping the other is heating. 

 It is thus possible to use a hot knife by ex- 

 changing. But I have been in yards where 

 bee-keepers say they know hot water is not 

 necessary. But nevertheless it has always 

 seemed to me that a pair of knives in a basin 

 of hot water can not help doing better work 

 than the same knives without the heat and 

 the partial washing that they get; for all 

 particles of wax clinging to the edge will 

 melt off, leaving that edge free to do its 

 best work.— Ed.] 



Mr. Editor, you underrate the effort I 

 made toward keeping pure Italian stock, 

 and overrate the ease with which such a 

 thing may be done, p. 201. For years I tr'u d 

 to keep pure stock; but I rise to remark 

 that, in this locality, the yellow stock does 

 not seem to run out the inferior blood near- 

 ly as fast as the inferior blood runs out the 

 yellow stock. Please tell us how far you 

 must travel from Medina before you strike 

 any impure blood. [You once told me, doc- 

 tor, if I remember correctly, that you niade 

 it a rule to buy two or three imported Ital- 

 ians a year so as to keep up a good grade of 

 hybrids. Perhaps I misunderstood you. If 

 I am not mistaken, your breeding stock for 

 a year or two back has been hybrid, and with 

 this stock you hybridized the whole yard. 

 Now, if you had pursued the policy of the 

 queen-breeders and many of the honey pro- 

 ducers, like Mr. Alexander, for example, 

 you could have Italianized the bees for 

 miles around. You can go miles from here 

 and not strike any hybrid blood. Sometimes 

 in buying queens to sell again we are obliged 

 to introduce a few untested into the hives 

 until they can "freshen up" for another 

 journey. It is these queens that will now 

 and then show a sprinkling of hybrid or 

 black blood. If you will this coming sum- 

 mer kill off all your one-year-old and two- 

 year-old queens that are hybrid, and intro- 

 duce Italians in their stead from some good 

 pure breeder with a good record, you will go 

 a long way toward Italianizing your whole 

 locality. By keeping up that poHcy of con- 

 tinuous weeding out black or hybrid stock 

 you will, within five years, have practically 

 pure Italian stock within a radius of two 



