14S4 



Gi.i A\'i^■G^> IN BEE JULTLKE. 



Dec. 1 



liiuk 1 :,vul iiaiui.pli'' i he'-i.u.l) to IMeilina. 

 if laigi- jsi/e I'livi'ii laying vvoikurd. ceitaiuly 

 luviug uorkeio oiiiailii have heeu plentilul iu 

 i.hal ^LOl•k; but if so, 1 think Dr. Murdock 

 would have rueutioned it. The colony! had 

 showed nothing of the kind, but they were 

 not a fair test. [1 am referring this to W. 

 K. Morrison for a n-ply. It \vas he Avho 

 made the statement that an enlargement of 

 the honey-eel !s would lesult in an excess of 

 laying workers. — Eu.] 



A GOOii BIT of nonsense about that second 

 item, p. 1418 — ''iSo manufacturer or dealer 

 desires to hold any ortice in a honey-produc- 

 ers' organization."' How do you know that, 

 Mr. Editor? And would it be a capital of- 

 fense if he did? A worse bit of nonsense is 

 the iilea that a law is needed to debar cer- 

 tain classes from oflice. 1 don't think a man 

 that can't hear should be elected president; 

 but it would be foolish to pass a law to that 

 effect. The National is made up alrnost en- 

 tirely of bee-keepers; and if they don't want 

 to \(>te for a supply-manufacturer they don't 

 have to. They are not a lot of soft-heads, 

 but a set of bright men who know what they 

 want, and what they don't want, and it 

 sounds foolish to make a law to prevent them 

 from voting for a thing they don't want. 

 [The number of supply-dealers and manu- 

 facturers is very small compared with the ag- 

 gregate number of honey-pi'oducers or bee- 

 keepers. While I do not think the dealers 

 or manufacturers that have been or may be 

 now on the list of officers have abused their 

 privileges while in office, yet as a general 

 proposition I believe it would be better if 

 they were not eligible to any official position. 

 —Ed.] 



The Irish Bee Joiirnal, referring to a Straw, 

 p. 1228, thinks it was not changing to a light- 

 er but lo a cleaner shirt that prevented fur- 

 ther stings — that it might be "not the color, 

 but the smell that caused the second and sub- 

 sequent stings." Not the least doubt that 

 bees are sensitive to odors, but that does not 

 in the least disprove their sensitiveness to 

 colors. It so happened that the colored shirt 

 had just been put on clean, and it drew the 

 first sting — the white shirt didn't. Editor 

 Digges "uses a black felt hat, and never had 

 a sting in it." At diffei'ent times 1 have used 

 a black felt hat, and had it well peppei-ed 

 with stings. I've changed from light to dark 

 clothing the same day, and had more stings. 

 I've changed from dark to light, and had 

 less or no stings. I've worn dark clothes and 

 my assistant light ones — I was stung severe- 

 ly and she wasn't. These things, happening 

 not once, but a whole lot of times, through 

 a whole lot of years, furnish "a whole lot of 

 positive proofs " that are at least satisfactory 

 enough to me to make me prefer not only 

 light but white clothing. 



My assistant adds the following sugges- 

 tions: There can certainly be no odor to the 

 black glass head of a hat-pin, and yet it has 

 been funny to see at least a dozen bees at a 

 time dabbing viciously at it, following it for 

 half a day. When Huber Root was hei'e he 

 visited the apiary, with a black felt hat on. 



In a very short time it vvas literal! ij tlecorat- 

 ed with stings. Huber was very much in- 

 lerestetl, and. t<> make sure that it was the 

 c(;lor and not the felt that vvas the trouble, 

 he went to the house and donned a gray felt 

 hat, and came back. Not a sting did he get. 

 He carried that l)lack hat, with the stings in 

 it. home, to convince Ernest. [Huber re- 

 ported this incident to me at the time, show- 

 ing the hat in evidence. "There has been so 

 much proof adduced on this point that I do 

 not see how the fact can be questioned. — Etj. J 



Rai^ph I. Hale had a thousand acres of 

 clover in full bloom within five miles, yet no 

 surplus, and wants to charge the failure to 

 an insect, p. 1445. I had pei'haps as much 

 clover here, anti certainly as much failure, 

 but I don't charge the failure to any insect. 

 The clover blooms and blooms and blooms, 

 all right in appearance, but the bees just 

 don't get any honey. Seasons of this kind 

 occur with painful frequency, and I wish 

 somebody could tell us what the trouble is. 

 [Is it true that these off seasons of clover 

 are coming with more painful frequency 

 than formerly? Is it not rather true that 

 there is less of clover owing to intensive ag- 

 riculture than twenty or thirty years ago? 

 When a season comes along that is unfavor- 

 able to the clovers, for secreting nectar, the 

 very greatly decreased acreage makes the 

 shortage much more pronounced. There is 

 less pasturage for cattle and consequently 

 less clover for bees. Twenty years ago there 

 was comparatively little beef raised in the 

 West; but now a great deal of western beef 

 is shipped in. While our population has in- 

 creased, I am of the opinion that the actual 

 figures would show that we have less of 

 pasturage for cattle per 1000 population than 

 we had before irrigation was opened up in 

 the West. If that be true we have less clo- 

 ver; but that is not all — we have more bees 

 and bee-keepers for that same population. 



Do you think it is possible that nature has 

 changed in any way during the last tw^enty 

 years in the amount of nectar secured from 

 clover for a given acreage? Is it not rather 

 true that there is less of that acreage, and 

 hence a noticeable shortage — a shortage that 

 would not have been apparent when there 

 was a larger acreage of clover? 

 I ^Precisely the same condition holds true in 

 a locality now overstocked which formerly 

 had comparatively few bees to gather the 

 nectar. Bee-keepers in the great West are 

 beginning to feel the infiux of Eastern bee- 

 keepers into their territory, and the result 

 is they have every now and then poor sea- 

 sons — something they never knew of years 

 ago. It is not that nature is less lavish than 

 she used to be in seci-eting nectar, but, rather, 

 that there are either too many bees for the 

 pasturage, or, to put it another way, too lit- 

 tle pasturage for the same number of bees 

 that, twenty years ago, gathered a good 

 crop of honey. When we remember that 

 nature during centuries makes no noticeable 

 changes in the character of its species, we 

 are almost forced to conclude that clover per 

 head yields as much nectar as ever. — Ed.] 



