Vol. XXXIV. 



DEC I, J906. 



No 23 



Fkexch scientists have determined that 

 the digestive organs of the larva? of the wax- 

 moth i-an destroy the bacilli of tuberculosis. 

 Whether any practical use can be made of 

 this interesting fact is doubtful. 



Cellared bees Nov. 19. Sorry to say 

 they had no flight after Nov. 9. [We have 

 not yet put our bees in the cellar, and it prob- 

 ably will be the first of December laefore 

 they go in — a difference in locality. — Ed.] 



Honey selling in Great Britain at 48 cts., 

 p. 1418. Shouldn't those figures be doubled 

 or halved, or something? [No. If my in- 

 formation is correct, the price at which the 

 best grades of coml) honey sell for in Eng- 

 land is 48 cents, or 2 shillings. — Ed.] 



Editor Hill expresses doubt as to wheth- 

 er I know enough to know that Cuba will 

 not Ije annexed. Rather unkind to awaken 

 doubts as to one of the few things I thought 

 I knew. But say, Harry, didn't Uncle Sam- 

 uel promise that Cuba shouldn't be annexed, 

 and isn't Uncle Samuel a man of his word? 



Empty combs need more care to protect 

 them against the ravages of mice than combs 

 containing honey. I said that once to an ex- 

 perienced bee-keeper, and the reply was, 

 •'No, indeed: they prefer the combs with 

 honey every time." That's just it. Give 

 them combs with hcmey and they will eat the 

 honey, chewing the combs very little: where- 

 as if "no honey is present pretty much all the 

 combs will be chewed up into little bits. The 

 value of the honey they consume is much 



less than that of the combs they will destroy 

 if no honey is present. 



Dr. Bruennich declares the view of Rei- 

 denbach, that formic acid is developed in 

 brood-cells, utterly untenable. Planta's care- 

 fully conducted investigations clearly show 

 its origin in the blood. One fact that "knocks 

 out Reideubach is that no acid is found in 

 nectar in the flowers, but it is found in nec- 

 tar in the honey-sac. — Schtveiz. Bztg. 



Isn't that ad. of fireless cook-stove, p. 

 1467, a little strained? Would you call an 

 old trunk and an armful of hay a $15.00 

 stove? And to be on a level with it I am 

 afraid that cook-book is rather small for 

 $2.00. [No, not "strained" if the book de- 

 scribes a fireless stove that is worth a good 

 deal more than an old trunk and a luindle 

 of hay. — Ed.] 



Major von Hruschka, the inventor of the 

 honey-extractor, born in Moravia, was an 

 oflicer of the Austrian army at Legnano, It- 

 aly. His leisure was occupied with bee-keep- 

 ing, and one day he sent his little boy to the 

 house with a comb of honey on a plate in a 

 hand basket. The boy whirled it about to 

 get rid of robber bees. The lower side of 

 the comb was emjitied, and the honey-ex- 

 tractor was born. After the peace of 1866, 

 von Hruschka left the army, lived a while at 

 Dolo, and then at Venice, where he ran a 

 big hotel. This swamped him financially, 

 and in May, 1888, he died a poor man, foi'- 

 gotten by most bee-keepers. This little trib- 

 ute is to awaken in the minds of the young- 

 er members of the fraternity a feeling of 

 warm regard for one to whom we owe so 

 much. 



How COULD increasing the size of bees 

 possibly increase the number of laying work- 

 ers, p. 1417? The largest hive bees i ever 

 knew any thing about were those that Dr. J. 

 P. Murdock had some years ago. They made 

 woi'ker-cells that measureil 4 to the inch, 

 with drone-cells correspondingly large. I 



