488 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 15 



last a life-time, and would not cost very much 

 either; but on account of freight every bee- 

 keeper would have to buy his blocks in his 

 own vicinity, or, better still, make them 

 himself. A cheap wooden mold could be 

 made very easily. A sack or two of cement 

 and a load or two of gravel and sand would 

 furnish all the material for a good-sized api- 

 ary. Thanks for the suggestion, doctor. 

 We will experiment.— Ed.] 



Daily papers announce that Shurtleff, 

 speaker of the last Illinois legislature, has 

 "seen the handwritmg on the wall and 

 climbed into the band-wagon." In other 

 words, he has promised the anti-saloon 

 forces that, if they will call off their opposi- 

 tion to him, he will give the local-option bill 

 a far show in the next legislature— a thing 

 he did not do last session. Things seem 

 changing when a leader of the dominant 

 party gets down on his marrow bones to the 

 foes of the saloon. [We have been doing 

 that thing in Ohio for the last three or four 

 years; and the legislators have got so now 

 they will promise almost any thing if we 

 will only keep the "dogs " off.— Ed.] 



"DooLiTTLE recommends putting a wet 

 rag over the entrance to shut bees in, page 

 412." Doolittle has enough other things to 

 answer for, but I think that wet- rag busi- 

 ness originated in this locality. But it isn't 

 needed one year in five. [The use of the 

 wet rag depends largely on the temperature 

 of the atmosphere when the bees are carried 

 out. If it is nearly down to the frost- line, 

 no rag will be needed; but if some of the 

 bees are flying outside while the remnant 

 are being carried out, the rag will be a good 

 thing. From some late experience I believe 

 we will hereafter carry out our bees after 

 dark. Even in cool weather, when the hive 

 is bumped the bees are liable to fly out 

 rather promiscuously; and such as fly out 

 are quite liable to be lost.— Ed.] 



A Frenchman, according to Abeille Bour- 

 guignonne. following Root's instruction, fed 

 his bees in a very warm place (bei grosser 

 Hitze) with feed which had an addition of 

 five grams of vinegar per quart, to prevent 

 candying. After two or three days the 

 floor of the hive was covered with innumer- 

 able dead bees. [The item doubtless refers 

 to a statement in our catalog. It is there 

 recommended to mix syrup cold, 50 per cent 

 of sugar and 50 per cent of water; but for 

 late winter feeding it is advised to make the 

 proportion J water and § sugar, and then 

 add a pint of vinegar to every 100 lbs. of 

 syrup. As a pint is a pound the world 

 round, that malces approximately one per 

 cent by weight to the whole mass of syrup. 

 I can hardly think the bees died because of 

 the vinegar; but perhaps it would be well 

 to eliminate the vinegar from the catalog. 

 -Ed.] 



Tangled up again, Mr. Editor, page 412. 

 You say A. I. Root "was trying to make 

 the bees fly inside of a greenhcuse." Look 

 again at the Straw and you will see I wasn't 

 talking about ahothou3e but a hotbed, and, of 



course, the bees were flying outside. What I 

 meant was the thing you mention, page 414, 

 which you call ' ' burying colonies in ma- 

 nure. " Wasn't that practically the same 

 thing you are trying now? I don't want to 

 discourage your experimenting, but no little 

 experience has taught me that the average 

 queen reared here before the middle of May 

 is worthless, although she may be nice- 

 looking and seem to lay well for a time. I 

 don't know why, but I know the fact. I 

 suspect it's the outdoor weather, and I do 

 not believe your heated hive will help that. 

 [It is true that A. I. R. was trying to make 

 bees fly inside of a greenhouse, and he also 

 attempted to make them fly outdoors; but 

 you still seem to miss the very point that I 

 was making — not stimulating colonies but 

 getting early queens, even if we had to sac- 

 crifice a colony in so doing. We are getting 

 queens all right; but the cold March dis- 

 posed of all of our drones. Next year we 

 will try to make some arrangement to get 

 early drones.— Ed.] 



To MY REQUEST, p. 412, Mr. Editor, that 

 you send me a queen likely to be better than 

 my mongrel stock, you reply by advising me 

 to get a queen from each of five different 

 queen-breeders. Now, that's discouraging. 

 1 supposed you could send me. a queen just 

 as good as either of those five. The re- 

 deeming feature of encouragement is that 

 you evidently think your pure Italians are 

 no better than my mongrels. But what 

 makes you wander off talking about $200 

 and $ Ol» queens? Mine are only one- dollar 

 queens. But I should be glad to give $5.00 

 for a better honey-getter. [There you go 

 again. But, seriously, 1 have been led to 

 expect that you were getting big results 

 from your mongrel queen. "The buying of 

 breeding queens to get an improved stock is 

 somewhat a matter of chance. I might send 

 you a $5.00 queen, and such queen might 

 fall far short of a queen of the same value 

 in our own yard. We have had the case of 

 a queen that performed splendidly, yet when 

 sent to a customer would apparently be worth 

 little or nothing. Sometimes the journey in 

 the mails has a disastrous effect on a fine 

 queen a year old or old enough to be tested 

 out. Young queens just beginning to lay do 

 not. as a rule, receive any injury in Uncle 

 Sam's bags. My suggestion was for you to 

 get five queens from as many different 

 breeders so that we could reduce the ele- 

 ment of chance. But, doctor, I would not 

 guarantee at $5 00 to give you a queen that 

 would excel or even equal the breeder that 

 you have been developing in your yard for 

 several years. She might outstrip her in 

 honey, but you yourself could not guarantee 

 to me that a daughter of your breeder would 

 come up to the performances of her mother, 

 for five or even ten dollars. But out of the 

 five $5.00 queens from five different breeders, 

 you stand a chance of getting one queen 

 that would equal or excel your own breed- 

 ing stock. We could send five queens from 

 here, but your chance would be better to get 

 one from each of five breeders.— Ed.] 



