414 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



was added to the measure would indicate 

 that it was done to save the bill. 



In brief, the law now provides that, on 

 the complaint of three persons, residents of 

 the county, to the county commissioners, 

 setting forth that the disease known as foul 

 brood actually exists within said county, the 

 county commissioners shall (not may, as it 

 was in the old law) appoint a competent 

 person as foul-brood inspector, clothed with 

 necessary authority to inspect colonies, and 

 treat the same according to the most up-to- 

 date methods. The expense of such inspec- 

 tion will be paid out of the funds secured 

 from the special tax of one cent per colony, 

 as I understand it. As there are 150,000 

 colonies in Ohio, according to the last census, 

 this will give us a fund of $1500— more than 

 enough, I should say, to do the work thor- 

 oughly throughout the whole State. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Very few, perhaps, will recognize the in- 

 dividual whose face appears on the front 

 cover page of this issue; but he is, never- 

 theless, one of the best-known men in all 

 beedom. He is none other than our old 

 friend G. M. Doolittle, of Borodino, N. Y., 

 a correspondent who has been conspicuously 

 before the bee-keeping public as general in- 

 structor for a period of at least thirty years. 



He is the author of "Scientific Queen- 

 rearing," a work that first brought out cer- 

 tain new principles that are now basic in 

 nearly all modern methods of rearing queens. 

 He was the first to exploit to any great ex- 

 tent the artificial cell cup, grafting the 

 same and then having it accepted and built 

 out in a colony where there was already a 

 laying queen; of having queens fertilized 

 from "upper stories," and several other 

 tricks that were then new to the business. 



For the last sixteen years he has been 

 working on a system of swarm control in 

 connection with the production of comb hon- 

 ey. The two first chapters of the new book 

 are published in this issue, and will speak 

 for themselves. Mr. Doolittle considers 

 this one of the best things he has ever given 

 to the public. He is a close, careful observ- 

 ■er, one whose apicultural knowledge comes 

 direct from the bees. There are but few 

 men in our ranks who are better posted in 

 regard to the natural habits of bees than 

 he; and few men whose writings are more 

 carefully read, especially by the beginner 

 class, for he has been the Gamaliel at whose 

 feet many have sat. 



EARLY QUEEN-REABING IN THE NORTH. 



Just as we were going to press with the 

 last form I received the following from the 

 senior editor which will explain itself: 



ARTIFICIAL HEAT FOR BEES IN SPRING. 



When Ernest speaks of keeping bees in the office (see 

 p. 348) he probably forgot about my experiments with 

 the house-apiary 25 years ago. The idea was to keep 

 the whole house warm so as to hasten early brood-rear- 

 ing, etc. ; but after much time and money were spent by 

 myself and many others we reluctantly decided that a 

 good sboos colony with no artificial heat was quite often 



ahead of us. I believe poultry-men have also decided 

 that stove or steam heat to get eggs in winter is a failure. 

 Will our poultry- men tell us if this is true up to the pres- 

 ent date? Queens can be hatched any month in the year 

 here, or up north, and drones can be secured also; but to 

 get queens fertilized we must have warm still days for 

 both drones and queens to get a good natural flight. I 

 have finally, during the middle of March, succeeded in 

 getting all queens, not too old, to laying nicely. 



A. I. Root. 



As will be seen by the answer to Dr. Mil- 

 ler on the same subject in Straws in this is- 

 sue, both he and A. I. R. have misunder- 

 stood what I tried to say on page 348. I 

 was not unmindful of the experiments of 

 my father 25 years ago, both in his green- 

 house and in the house- apiary. I also re- 

 member an experiment not mentioned by 

 either, of his burying colonies in manure. 

 The artificial heat generated by the ferment- 

 ing mass kept the individual hives warm. 

 But colonies so treated did no better than 

 other colonies packed without artificial heat. 

 As I remember the experiments at the time, 

 it was a question whether or not the heat 

 did not over-stimulate to the positive detri- 

 ment of the colony. 



The plan I outlined on page 348 was not 

 for stimulating colonies, but to get queens 

 early in the season, the flight to be always 

 outdoors when suitable weather permitted. 

 The plan is working all right so far as get- 

 ting the cells is concerned; but so far during 

 March (it is now the 28th) we have not had 

 a single fly-day, and this is rather unusual. 

 During April we sf^ali undoubtedly have 

 plenty of days in which the queens can fly 

 out, and meet drones in the yard. 



There is another point, that small nuclei 

 for mating purposes could not possibly exist 

 outdoors in a temperature such as we have 

 been having. Experiments thus far show 

 that they do exist in a warm room; but un- 

 less we get a fly- day soon there will be trou- 

 ble. 



SOME OF THE GOOD THINGS THAT GLEANINGS 



WILL GIVE ITS READERS DURING THE 



COMING YEAR. 



I THINK that never before in all our ex- 

 perience have we had on hand and in pros- 

 pect such a wealth of valuable matter for 

 {)ublication as for the present year. Doo- 

 ittle's special series of articles alone will 

 undoubtedly attract wide attention, and be 

 the means of emancipating some bee-keep- 

 ers from the vexations of natural swarming 

 at outyards where comb honey is the ob- 

 ject. The Alexander series of articles will 

 continue to lighten the burden of the bee- 

 keeper; and R. F. Holtermann will speak 

 from his large experience as a bee-keeper 

 and bee-journal editor. 



We have in hand also a fine lot of special 

 articles on important subjects, which will be 

 given to our readers as our space and the 

 season will permit. The article by Rev. 

 Frank McGlade, illustrated by our special 

 artist, in our Dec. 15th issue, on the face- 

 tious order, comparing poultry- keeping with 

 bee-keeping, to the disadvantage of the for- 

 mer, has called forth a lot of valuable re- 

 joinders from bee-keepers who are also 



