588 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1 



controlled in the production of comb honey, 

 a la Townsend. The one great drawback to 

 the production of comb honey has been 

 swarming. Well, now, if we should combine 

 the Sibbald or any other good non-swarming 

 plan with the Townsend, of producing both 

 comb and extracted in the saine super— 

 well, it seems to me we shall almost reach 

 the millennium of comb-honey production, 

 providing — providing — we can get a fair 

 price for our honey. Happily, a well-con- 

 certed effort is being made at this problem. 



Already the year 1905 has been noticeable 

 for bringing to light some excellent non- 

 swarming plans as given in our late issues, 

 and now we have before us a comb-honey 

 plan that looks as if it might have very 

 much merit. 



Now, let us not rise up and decry the plan 

 by calling it old and worthless, but let us 

 give it a trial in this year of our Lord 1905, 

 in connection with all other late ideas that 

 have been promulgated. 



rious ardor, for there is a host of other peo- 

 ple who know a good thing when they see it, 

 and there are plenty of chaps like the editor 

 who are so dumb as to fail to grasp it. 



HIGH- PRESSURE ENTHUSIASM NOT AN UN- 

 MIXED EVIL. 



The criticism may possibly be made that 

 the editor of Gleanings is liable to be too 

 enthusiastic over any new fad. Editorial 

 utterances regarding some new or semi-new 

 practices advocated in this issue might give 

 ground for this; but if the reader will par- 

 don the egotism which prompts the state- 

 ment, he will recall that many of those so- 

 called fads over which the writer of these 

 lines has become enthused are not now fads 

 or untried theories, but practical, working 

 realities, bringing a large measure of suc- 

 cess. At one time your humble servant was 

 very enthusiastic over fixed spacing for 

 frames, even when most of the bee-world 

 considered them a nuisance. The principle 

 is getting to be now all but universal in 

 modern bee-keeping, although the editor 

 was severely scored at the time for helping 

 to push the "heresy." Fences and plain 

 sections, thick top-bars, lock-cornering in 

 hives, wide entrances, copious ventilation in 

 bee-cellars, shaken swarms, etc., are not now 

 untried theories but working realities. 



Coming up to the present time I verily 

 believe that some of the late non-swarming 

 methods that have been advocated in these 

 columns, and the Townsend method of 

 controlling swarming, as enunciated in this 

 issue, are two more fads, if you please, that 

 will mean many dollars to the bee-keeping 

 craft. 



Now, having said this much I do not mean 

 to imply that my enthusiasm has never been 

 misplaced— far from it; but sometimes, in 

 order to make a thing go we must take on a 

 Jull head oj steam. If that full head will 

 not make it go, there is something wrong 

 with the thing itself. But if that thing is 

 all right, the high pressure will push it for- 

 ward as perhaps nothing else will, even if 

 (to carry out the figure) the boiler is a poor 

 one and does sometimes spring a leak and 

 dampen some other fellow's equally merito- 



gleanings prize pictures, again ; bee- 

 trees, AND COMB-SPACING IN NATURE. 

 By some misconnection the third-prize pic- 

 tures reached us before the second. On p. 

 602, '3, in this issue, we present two photos. 

 In the opinion of many of our subscribers 

 these might rank ahead of the first-prize 

 picture given in our previous issue. And 

 that leads me to say that they were award- 

 ed the prizes by a special committee in The 

 A. I. Root Co.'s general office. The firm, 

 much less the editor of this journal, had no 

 hand in the matter. 



The bee-tree is very remarkable, and a 

 fine specimen. The figure of the man, Mr. 

 George A. Fenton, gives an exact idea of 

 the size of the tree. By the way, if I am 

 not much mistaken this is a very good like- 

 ness of Mr. Fenton, for the pose seems to 

 be natural and easy. There is no sugges- 

 tion that he is close on to a bee-tree; that 

 the same has been cut open, and that there 

 might be angry bees flying about while the 

 artist was pressing the button. As a mat- 

 ter of fact the bees of a bee-tree will offer 

 no attack after several vigorous blows of an 

 ax have been delivered against their domi- 

 cil. They soon become demoralized, and 

 will not sting unless accidentally pinched. 

 Mr. Fenton is undoubtedly cognizant of this 

 fact. 



As he states in his letter, which is here- 

 with given, he has sawn into the tree in five 

 places, and each time discovers the combs 

 are much longer than he suspected. The 

 reader is left to infer that they still extend 

 down into the trunk of the tree. 



Mr. Root:—l send you a photo of a bee-tree. I cut 

 this tree last November, and got about 25 lbs. of honey. 

 The tree is standing on the point of a high hill. You 

 will notice that I sawed into it in five places, and chip- 

 ped the pieces out. You also will notice the bees are 

 all at the top. The tree is about twenty rods from 

 where I live, in plain sight of the house. I gave the 

 honey to the man owning the land, as all I wanted was 

 the photo. I was to have some help but the bees scared 

 them away. I set the camera up, and my wife snapped 

 it. Your humble servant is seen standing by the tree. 



I am a photographer myself. I think it would be 

 fairer to some of us living in the Northern States if you 

 would extend the time to July 1st or 15th. 



Mazeppa, Minn., April 17. Geo. A. Fenton. 



Some years ago there was quite an ex- 

 tended discussion as to how far apart bees 

 space their combs in nature. Some said IJ 

 inches; others argued just as strenuously for 

 1§ as being the right average. As a matter 

 of fact, combs in bee-trees, straw skeps, 

 box hives, etc., are laid out by the bees all 

 the way from \\ from center to center, up 

 to 2 and even 2^ inches. The wide spacing 

 usually applies to the store or drone comb. 

 In the bee-tree shown on page 602, some of 

 the combs, I should judge, are spaced 3 

 inches. Evidently the bees had not been 

 very much crowded; but when the time should 

 have come when they would have needed 

 more storeroom every available space not 



