Vol. XXXIV 



NOV. U 1906. 



No 21 



I WONDER will the foul-brood men at San 

 Antonio tell us what makes foul brood? 

 Bacillus alvei is pronounced innocent. Who 

 is the culprit? 



"The San Antonio people will elect the 

 sweetest lady between 16 and 20 to be queen 

 of the convention," p. 1290. Who is to test 

 all the 16 to 20's for sweetness? and will it 

 be by the sacchax'ometer or by the natural 

 labial process? 



N. E. France, p. 1309, thinks the 10 lbs. of 

 honey saved by cellaring bees does not pay 

 for the extra labor. That extra labor costs 

 me for the home apiary less than 3 cts. per 

 colony. But if I could winter out with no 

 more loss than his two per cent I'd winter 

 out. 



"I WANT, early in July, more sealed hon- 

 ey in the brood-combs than is necessary to 

 winter the colony," p. 1309. That's all right, 

 Bro. France, with your big hives; but with 

 eight L. frames how much room would the 

 queen have? But you are all right about 

 having plenty of honey in the hive. 



Later developments make me modify 

 what I said about sweet clover on a lawn. 

 That one plant of yellow, as I said, was kill- 

 ed out after blooming through the summer, 

 and 1 thought that was the only plant on the 

 lawn. But now, Oct. 15, I count 27 tiny 

 plants of white sweet clover blossoming that 

 did not show before during the summer. 

 But, as J. A. Green says, the little dwarfs are 

 not unsightly. 



E. W. Alexander objects to the unpleas- 

 ant odor and taste of honey vinegar, p. 1298. 

 I wonder if that is not due to the quality of 

 the honey. Certainly I have tasted honey 

 vinegar that was unexceptional — no hint of 

 the odor or taste of honey, but would easily 

 have passed as the choicest brand of cider 

 vinegar. Bingham, of smoker fame, made it. 



A GOOD DEAL of pollen is being gathered 

 Oct. 17. The color is between brick and 

 orange. I don't know of anything in bloom 

 but dandelions, but this is d'arker than dan- 

 delion pollen. What is it? [Don't you have 

 some various-colored asters in your vicinity? 

 In the fall we have them all the way from 

 white to a deep purple. If you were as young 

 as you used to be, you might settle the mat- 

 ter by stepping out into the field and trac- 

 ing out the flight of those pollen-bearers. — 

 Ed.] 



Dk, von Buttel-Reepen, the German 

 scientist, mentioned page 1290, unless he has 

 backslidden in late years, is a man in close 

 touch with American bee-keeping. If I am 

 not mistaken he was the first man to con- 

 duct a department in a German bee-journal 

 in which gleanings from American journals 

 were given, and I felt lonesome when press- 

 ing duties obliged him to give it up. [Any 

 practical bee-keeper who has read carefully 

 his paper can not fail to be convinced that 

 Buttel-Reepen is a man in close touch with 

 American bee-keeping and with all the latest 

 and best practices in both continents. — Ed.] 



M. RoBEKT-AuBERT heats his uncapping- 

 knives by a simple alcohol arrangement con- 

 sisting of a bottle turned upside down upon 

 a reservoir. Three or four jets are lighted 

 according to the length of the knife to be 

 heated. That's the meager and unsatisfac- 

 tory description given in L'Apiculteur; but 

 some one may get an idea from it. [Any 

 method of heating a knife other than by im- 

 mersion in hot water, would be very faulty, 

 for the water serves a double purpose. It 



