1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



705 



I was surprised yesterday to find how long 

 old rags would burn. Running out of smok- 

 er fuel, and every thing being wet at the 

 yard, I went to the automobile-box and 

 picked out some greasy rags and old waste, 

 and lit this— only a small quantity of it— 

 and put it in the smoker. I thought it would 

 last me, perhaps, fifteen minutes, but was 

 surprised to find it gave me a nice good 

 clean smoke for an hour and a half, without 

 any coaxing or getting up steam, ready to 

 tackle a cross colony. Yesterday, June 26, 

 was a very cool raw day, and I had to use, 

 as a matter of course, much more smoke 

 than usual. 



We are just getting our boys into the way 

 of using this greasy waste from our machine- 

 shop and factory buildings. This we have 

 ordinarily burned under the boilers, as the 

 insurance companies do not allow us to keep 

 it around, for fear of spantaneous combus- 

 tion; but this very fact makes it readily 

 ignitible, and for our purpose it is the 

 cheapest fuel that can possibly be obtained. 



The reader of these lines can probably 

 obtain all the greasy waste he can use by 

 applying at any large machine-shop where 

 quantities of this material are thrown away. 

 Something not quite so good, but a good 

 deal the same character, can be obtained at 

 any printing-office, for large quantities of 

 waste must necessarily be used at such a 

 place. By "waste" I mean the stringy 

 material of cotton that is used for wiping 

 printers' rollers, greasy machinery, or 

 greasy fingers. Any of the places I have 

 named will be glad to get rid of it, as they 

 know its retention on the premises is a con- 

 stant source of danger from fire. 



Mr. Bingham recommends dry sound ma- 

 ple wood. I have used this considerably, 

 but, all things considered, I very much pre- 

 fer excelsior or greasy waste. 



It was Mr. J. E. Crane, who, some years 

 ago, spoke about propolized quilts or cloths 

 which had become too poor for covering 

 frames or supers, for smoker fuel. The 

 burning propolis makes a terribly strong 

 smoke. It will make bees curl up in utter 

 helplessness about as quick as any thing I 

 have tried. It is a little too subduing, and 

 ordinarily I should prefer greasy rags, such 

 as we can obtain at a machine-shop. 



If you provide such a place with a metal 

 can, and request the men to throw their 

 waste into the can, outdoors, you will soon 

 have accumulation enough to run you a 

 whole season. 



HIVE -RECORDS. 



For many years we have used little slate 

 tablets, writing the record with slate-pen- 

 cils sometimes, but generally with a red or 

 lead pencil. But the slates would get dis- 

 placed or lost, and the records would wash 

 out sometimes. This year we began num- 

 bering our hives, and started out on the Dr. 

 Miller plan of keeping a book for each yard, 

 giving each hive a number and a full page in 

 the book. This plan has some advantages 

 to recommend it; but, my, oh my! with our 



diversity of help one man would forget and 

 carry the book away; and when another 

 man would go to the yard he was utterly 

 helpless. We have abandoned the book sys- 

 tem now entirely, and are using what I 

 believe to be better than any thing else— a 

 large shippers' tag made of heavy manilla 

 paper, with a hole in one end. This is 

 soaked in linseed oil, and is then ready for 

 any record with pen or pencil. One tag is 

 secured to the cover by means of a large 

 tack through the hole, and the record of that 

 colony or of its queens is recorded in short 

 long-hand. Then at the end of the season 

 they can be filed away, for each tag has a 

 number corresponding with a number on the 

 hive which was used. If we wish to consult 

 an old record of some particular colony, the 

 file containing these cards can easily be 

 found, and the entire history obtained. It 

 virtually amounts to a card index, with the 

 advantage that the card itself is on the hive 

 during the working season, and then is 

 available in the ofl!\ce for reference after 

 the working season. It sometimes happens 

 that a customer complains that a certain 

 queen was unsatisfactory, or that she was a 

 hybrid. If this complaint is made along in 

 the fall or winter we can easily look up the 

 history of the case. The handwriting will 

 show who put up the queen. 



THE NEW honey-producers' LEAGUE AND 

 ITS WORK. 



This new organization, although it has 

 been in existence for less than three months, 

 is beginning to do some valuable work. It 

 is now preparing a statement for the gener- 

 al pubhc, to go in comb-honey shipping- 

 cases, giving the facts about comb honey, 

 refuting absolutely the comb-honey lie. In 

 proof of its falsity the authority of the Na- 

 tional Bee-keepers' Association, the reward 

 of $1000 oflFered by a reputable firm, and the 

 statement of government bulletins, are cit- 

 ed. The full text of this will be published, 

 possibly, in our next issue. I understand it 

 is the desire of the League to get the man- 

 ufacturers of the country to insert these 

 leaflets, free of charge, in all the shipping- 

 cases they send out. The A. I. Root Com- 

 pany proposes to do it, and I feel sure that 

 the other manufacturers will do so for the 

 sake of the good it will do to their own busi- 

 ness. 



Manager York has been useful in getting 

 various items concerning comb honey in the 

 daily press. He has prepared a very read- 

 able article, which is published in one of the 

 largest and most influential journals in Chi- 

 cago—the Daily News. Here it is: 



In March, 1905, there was formed in Chicago, and in- 

 corporated the following month in Illinois, an organiza- 

 tion called the Honey-producers' League. One of its 

 objects is " to publish facts about honey, and counter- 

 act misrepresentations of the same." It is hoped 

 through the efforts of this League, with the co-opera- 

 tion of the leading newspapers and magazines of our 

 country, to turn the tide in favor of the use of honey as 

 a daily food, and also, as before stated, to endeavor to 

 correct the popular delusion that comb honey is a man- 

 made article. 



Some twenty-five years ago a noted "professor," in 



