526 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15 



ties, and his election in spite of opposing 

 political conditions, prove this. His veto of 

 the foul-brood bill which recently passed 

 both Houses of the legislature must not be 

 laid so much to narrowness on his part as to 

 the. fact that even good men are not always 

 able to see all sides of a subject with which 

 they are unfamiliar. Doubtless before an- 

 other foul-brood bill is brought to him for 

 his signature the bee-keepers of Missouri 

 will see to it that he has a chance to receive 

 some elementary instruction on the subject 

 of contagious diseases. 



LITERATURE IN SHIPPING-CASES. 



When I wrote the article on p. 357 I had 

 no idea of being thought original in advocat- 

 ing sending out leaflets with each case of 

 honey. This has already been done by oth- 

 ers, and advocated in the bee journals at 

 various times. I really supposed, though, 

 that I was the first one to think of using a 

 printed poster in place of the ordinary plain 

 cover-sheet. Only a few days after I wrote 

 it, however, while overhauling some old 

 journals I accidentally came across the fol- 

 lowing, read by Irving Kenyon at the Onon- 

 daga Co., N. Y., convention: "I think it 

 would be a good plan to lay a paper large 

 enough to cover the sections in each ship- 

 ping-case, and print on it, with red ink, and 

 with type large enough to be read without 

 glasses, ' Please keep this honey dry and 

 tvarm.. Don't store in a cellar, meat mar- 

 ket, ice-chest, or cold storage.' " I presume 

 I read this at the time it was published, but 

 entirely forgot it until the present condition 

 of the honey market revived the idea in my 

 mind. 



WHAT SHALL THE HARVEST BE? 



In attempting to forecast the honey-yield 

 for the coming season, two guesses make 

 themselves prominent. One is that there 

 will be a great deal of swarming in this val- 

 ley. This is based on the fact that the un- 

 usual amount of snow and rain during the 

 past winter and spring is producing an un- 

 usual number of wild flowers, especially the 

 yellow cleome (Cleome lutens), which is 

 now springing up thick all over the desert, 

 which ordinarily has no honey-yielding flora. 

 This blooms at a time when there is ordina- 

 rily a dearth of honey-plants, keeping brood- 

 rearing stimulated to the utmost during 

 May, and bringing the bees into the begin- 

 ning of the flow from alfalfa strong in num- 

 bers, and with their hives already well stor- 

 ed. Similar conditions two years ago pro- 

 duced an extraordinary amount of swarm- 

 ing; and the probabilities are that this will 

 be duplicated the coming season. The other 

 guess is that there will be an unusual num- 

 ber of grasshoppers this year. They were 

 very abundant last year, and did consider- 

 able damage to the honey crop in this local- 

 ity by eating the blossoms of the alfalfa. 

 The myriads of eggs they laid in the fall 

 may hatch into a devastating horde for this 

 season. If so it will not be the first time 



the honey crop here has been ruined by 

 grasshoppers. 



WEIGHT OF SECTIONS. 



The fact was brought out at the River 

 Falls, Wisconsin, convention that one of the 

 members whose honey weighed 26 lbs. to a 

 24-section case had to submit to a cut of 1^ 

 cents per lb. on that account. This accords 

 with what some of our honey-merchants 

 have told us before. People will pay 16 cts. 

 for a 16-ounce section. They will willingly 

 pay 14 cts. for a 14- ounce section. They 

 will gladly give up 12 cts. for a 12-ounce 

 section; but somehow when they are asked 

 to pay 18 cts. for a section that weighs 18 

 ounces many of them will look askance, and 

 conclude that the price is too high. At the 

 root of this is undoubtedly the deplorable 

 idea that a section of honey weighs a pound. 

 I think it is unfortunate for the honey-pro- 

 ducer that this idea ever gained currency. 

 It is impracticable and impossible to secure 

 any thing like absolute uniformity in the 

 weight of sections; and the nearer they ap- 

 proach a pound in average weight the great- 

 er will be the variation in individual weights. 

 This is especially the case when separators 

 are not used. The pound-section idea is a 

 delusion and a snare. If you want to please 

 the dealer and satisfy the consumer, turn 

 your attention to the production of sections 

 as uniform in weight as possible, so that, 

 when sold by the piece (as they will be any- 

 how), no injustice will be done to anybody. 



FOUL BROOD. 



After making due allowance for the fact 

 that foul brood may be cured in a variety of 

 ways by the expert, and with but Httle risk 

 of spreading the disease in so doing, the fact 

 remains that, for the average bee-keeper, 

 the easiest, quickest, surest, and (four 

 times out of five) the cheapest way to get 

 rid of foul brood is to burn up all infected 

 colonies, bees, combs, and hives, just as 

 soon as it is discovered. The attempt to 

 cure it or to save hives or honey, or to put 

 off dealing with it till a more convenient 

 season, usually results in spreading the dis- 

 ease. The infected colonies which he in- 

 tended to treat at once are left until some 

 of them become weak and are robbed; the 

 bees find their way into the hive which he 

 closed up so carefully, or into the building 

 which he was sure was bee-tight. Some 

 have felt sure that the nice combs of honey 

 at the sides of the hive could not have any 

 thing wrong with them, so they fed them to 

 colonies that were short of stores, with the 

 usual result. Some could not bear to de- 

 stroy such nice honey; and as they could not 

 well use it themselves they gave it to their 

 neighbor. The neighbor's wife cut the hon- 

 ey out of the frames, and, in the kindness 

 of her heart, threw the frames out on the 

 woodpile for the bees to clean up. Perhaps 

 the bee-keeper moves the infected hive to 

 another part of the apiary, where he thinks 

 he can treat it moie safely, and the return- 



