1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



795 



enthusiasm and love for the bees have made 

 this department of his work particularly in- 

 teresting and instructive. He was the in- 

 ventor of the Bigelow Educational hive and 

 of the Pearl Agnes hive that were illustrat- 

 ed and described in these columns. He has 

 a regular scientific laboratory at his home, 

 entirely devoted to the general study of bees. 

 Not merely content with the practical side 

 of the subject of bee-keeping, he is con- 

 stantly delving down into the scientific side. 

 Scientific men, teachers, and instructors at 

 the colleges speak of him in the highest 

 terms. 



Dr. Bigelow is a most interesting speaker; 

 and those who have the opportunity to hear 

 him should not fail to do so. We feel very 

 fortunate in securing his attendance at the 

 Jenkintown field-day meeting; and those of 

 our friends who will be able to attend these 

 meetings, we can say in advance, will not 

 be disappointed when they see and hear Dr. 

 Bigelow. Like Prof. H. A. Surface — and 

 the men are very much alike in some re- 

 spects—he is a whole team. Here is a list 

 of some of Dr. Bigelow's popular leceures— 

 lectures that have delighted audiences 

 wherever they have been delivered: 



Journeys about Home — Roadsides, Fields, and For- 

 ests; Travels in a Swamp; Vacations in the C!ountry; 

 The Haunts of Nature; Half -hours at the Sea-side; 

 Journeys in Space— Our World and Others; Our Near- 

 est Neighbor, the Moon; Nature's Largest Things; Let 

 Nature be Your Teacher; Henry David Thoreau; In the 

 Land of the Setting Sun; Nature's Little Things; Lec- 

 tures on Nature Pedagogy from the Standpoint of the 

 Child, etc. 



Owing to not getting data concerning the 

 life of Mr. J. C. Acklin, whose untimely 

 death was announced in our last issue, in 

 time for this number, we have arranged to 

 put in a full write-up, with a portrait on the 

 cover, in our next issue. 



THE BIG FIELD DAY AT JENKINTOWN, PA., 

 JUNE 26. 



As will be seen by the announcements on 

 pages 851 and 838, this promises to be 

 one of the biggest things of the kind that 

 was ever held m the United States. While 

 the meeting of a year ago at the &ame place 

 was in the nature of a convention and field 

 day combined, the convention feature at this 

 meeting has been almost entirely eliminated, 

 and practical field work will take its place. 



We are fortunate that we shall have with 

 us three well-known scientific men— Prof. 

 H. A. Surface, of Harrisburg; Dr. Edward 

 F. Bigelow, of Stamford, Ct., and Dr. E. F. 

 PhiUips, of the Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C. and the partial promise 

 of several others. In addition we shall have 

 such practical men as Doolittle, Coggshall, 

 West, Pratt, Morrison, and possibly E. W. 

 Alexander and others. These men are too 

 well known to need further mention. 



Mr. W. A. Selser, our eastern manager at 

 Philadelphia, is making preparations to re- 

 ceive over a thousand people. While we may 

 not have such a number present, yet if we 

 should have a good day, all indications go to 

 show there will be the biggest crowd of bee- 



keepers that ever assembled in one place in 

 the United States. 



I have just come from Jenkintown, and 

 was much pleased to note how well Mr. Sel- 

 ser has got things in hand. The apiary is 

 beautifully situated, parkUke in appearance, 

 and the terraces will give an opportunity for 

 an immense crowd to sit in comfort and take 

 in all the demonstration work by the various 

 experts. 



OUR STINGLESS BEES AT JENKINTOWN. 



Something that I think will especially in- 

 terest those who do attend will be the han- 

 dling of a colony of stingless bees by W. K. 

 Morrison, lately from the tropics. These 

 bees are interesting, to say the least, and 

 such combs! Instead of individual cells, 

 they make immense cups of wax. While 

 the internal construction of their brood-nest 

 is entirely different from that of other bees, 

 they are yellow and look very much like or- 

 dinary Italians; are a trifle larger, and a lit- 

 tle blunter at the end of the abdomen, where 

 there is no sting. Mr. Selser reports that 

 these little chaps, when annoyed, will attack 

 one's nose and ears, as if they were going 

 to do something awful. While the little 

 bites of these bees are not painful, he says 

 it makes one feel as if he had got into a 

 fearful hornet's nest. 



We regard these bees as a find, and hope 

 to propagate them possibly in Florida; for if 

 they work as they did the day I saw them, 

 when the other bees stayed in their hives 

 because of the cold, they may be something 

 more than mere curiosities. 



Prof. Surface was selected to preside be- 

 cause of the fact that he has splendid talent 

 in this direction. If there i3 any man who 

 can make things move along with a clocklike 

 precision in a businesslike way, it is Prof. 

 Surface. 



MAILING- CAGES FOR QUEENS. 



Our subscribers are urged to be very care- 

 ful when putting up queens for the mail to 

 see that the wire cloth is covered by a card- 

 board or wood cover so that no stinging of 

 employees handling the mail can occur. We 

 occasionally receive cages with wire cloth 

 unprotected, which is contrary to postal reg- 

 ulations. 



ANOTHER NEW SYSTEM OF COMB-HONEY PRO- 

 DUCTION AND SWARM CONTROL; MAM- 

 MOTH JUMBO hives; han- 

 dling HIVES WITH 

 A DERRICK. 



We have just closed arrangements with 

 Mr. A. K. Ferris, of Madison, Wis., bv which 

 he is to contribute a series of articles de- 

 scribing his system of swarm control and 

 comb- honey production. This system in- 

 volves the use of mammoth jumbo hives— so 

 large, indeed, that they actually require a 

 special derrick, I call it, to permit of han- 

 dling the brood- chambers, taking off the hive, 

 and, in fact, doing any thing and every thing 

 that requires back-breaking, lifticg work. 



While some of the principles ot the sys- 

 tem are not new, the method of applying 



