1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



277 



miles of each of your yards. I have seen 

 that thing done so many times— that is, I 

 have been in yards where it was done— that 

 I am sure your locality would be no excep- 

 tion.— Ed.] 



Mary Hinman Abel, in The Delineator 

 for January, gives glucose a good send-off 

 as "a wholesome food, " " perfectly harm- 

 less." and "a blessing," and she seems to 

 think it would be for the health of the nation 

 if prejudice would give way and allow more 

 of it to be used. All of this may be true of 

 the chemically pure article which costs 10 or 

 20 cents a pound; but is it possible that Mrs. 

 Abel has written the article without ever 

 samphng the stuff that the public is consum- 

 ing by the ton, and, mixed with a third or 

 fourth of its weight of cane syrup, is sold 

 in the groceries for 3 cents or so a pound? 

 If she would take one good swig of some of 

 the stuff on the market, and contemplate 

 upon them for about two minutes, she might 

 tell another story. [There are some whose 

 taste is so blunt that they can not detect 

 the brassy flavor in corn syrups; yet some of 

 these people have just enough discrimination 

 in taste so that, when they taste a honey 

 different from what they have been accus- 

 tomed, they declare that it is adulterated. 

 Only yesterday a traveling man told me that 

 he bought some honey in Cleveland that he 

 knew was adulterated. 



"How do you know?" I asked. 



"Because it does not taste like the honey 

 that I used to get on the old farm. ' ' 



On inquiring where he got it I soon dis- 

 covered that he was eating logwood honey 

 from Jamaica— a beautiful honey, white and 

 well-flavored, but distinctly different in taste 

 from clover or basswood. I told this trav- 

 eling man that the pure-food laws of Ohio 

 were rigidly enforced, and that any dealer 

 in Cleveland or anywhere else in this State 

 who sells adulterated honey would get into 

 the clutches of the law almost instanter. — 

 Ed.] 



Prof. Bigelow, p. 233, wants facts from 

 my experiences in answer to some questions. 

 "Why do I think bees hear?" In hiving a 

 swarm, if a few bees can be got to set up a 

 call at the entrance, there is little trouble 

 in getting the swarm to follow the call. A 

 swarm once started to enter a hive into 

 which I did not want them to go. I moved 

 the hive to a new place, but a few at the 

 entrance were making a call, and the swarm 

 began to settle at the entrance. I put the 

 hive on a wheelbarrow, and wheeled it some 

 distance away. When I stopped, the swarm 

 began to obey the call again. I trundled 

 the thing around for some time; and when- 

 ever I stopped the flying bees began to set- 

 tle. What but the sound could have attract- 

 ed them? "What facts lead me to think 

 that bees hear sounds inaudible to the human 

 ear?" I have no facts; I read that long ago; 

 if you know that it isn't true, I am ready to 

 change my belief. "What makes a swarm 

 of bees cluster?" I don't know. "Is the 

 queen first to start the cluster?" Certainly 

 not always. "If not, where does she come 



in, and why?" With my bees she generally 

 does not come in at all, because, while the 

 swarm is clustering, she is crawling around 

 with clipped wings somewhere near the hive. 

 I think that, when a queen settles with a 

 swarm, she is just as likely to be last as 

 first. I don't know why. I don't mind at 

 all, professor, exposing my ignorance to you; 

 but I don't like to have that aggravating 

 editor gloating over it; so, please inform us 

 more fully about the hearing of bees. [We 

 know that the bee's sense of smell is very 

 acute, and how they will persistently clirg 

 to a bough or limb on which their sisters have 

 been clinging. While not denying that the 

 bees are influenced by the call that has been 

 set up, yet they might follow that hive of 

 bees around, being guided wholly by their 

 sense of smell. Further than this, I will 

 leave you and Dr. Bigelow to fight it out. — 

 Ed.] 



THICKNESS VS. LENGTH AND BREADTH OF 

 SECTIONS. 



In the last issue, on p. 205, our correspon- 

 dent J. A. Green corrects me by saying the 

 Root Co. advertises 4J plain sections If thick 

 when I had said no such sections were in use. 

 While my statement was not strictly correct, 

 the actual facts are that we sell almost no 

 If plain by 4 J square. We catalog the 1| 

 and If because I learn from our office we 

 did have some calls for them. 



I agree with our correspondent that a thin 

 comb in a section is getting to be more and 

 more popular among the bee-keeping frater- 

 nity; and this may account largely for the 

 growing popularity of the 4X5 plain section 

 If thick. The 4x5 size is the only one of the 

 plain sections Ig thick that has very much 

 of a sale. We can almost say that, practi- 

 cally, no other section of this thickness is 

 sold of the no-be eway. At least this is Ht- 

 erally true so far as our sales are concerned, 

 although the catalog gives a different im- 

 pression. 



Mr. Danzenbaker, when he brought to our 

 attention the 4X5 section, was very strenu- 

 ous in his advocacy of &. thin comb in sections 

 which this size permitted. He even went so 

 far as to claim that, if it did not hold a 

 pound, rather than thicken the comb by a 

 wider section he would prefer to make the 

 section 4jx5, leaving the comb the same 

 thickness. I am at a loss to understand why 

 there has not been more demand for the 

 1| square plain section. Perhaps this dis- 

 cussion will start the ball a rolling in their 

 favor. 



