852 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15 



has. If all the saloons of the land were 

 closed on Sunday, it would mean many a 

 taste of honey in poor families whose heads 

 now spend much of their earnings at the 

 Sunday saloon. [The wave of reform is 

 starting in various cities, and not a few 

 thanks are due to that great good man, Gov. 

 Folk, for startmg reform in St. Louis, even 

 if he did veto the foul-brood bill of the bee- 

 keepers. Just now there is a growing feel- 

 ing against bossism and boss rule in Ohio. 

 The bosses have had control of this State 

 for many years; and the good people are 

 now looking to see if they can not emanci- 

 pate themselves from the rule of boss Cox, 

 of Cincinnati. We are looking with anxious 

 eyes on the verdict of next November. — Ed. ] 



Rev. J. G. Baumgaertner is puzzled. 

 Editor Root, page 643, preaches strongly the 

 doctrine of warm supers. A Straw, p. 756, 

 estimates the gain more than the loss when 

 a currant of air is allowed to pass through 

 the hive by having "an opening at top at 

 back end of hive." How to reconcile the 

 two. Don't need reconciling, Bro. B. ; they 

 are two separate things, both good. One is 

 warm supers, the other is a well-ventilated 

 brood-chamber. Please understand that I 

 don't ventilate by shoving forward the cov- 

 er, for that would cool the supers as well as 

 the brood-nest. The ventilation is made by 

 shoving forward the lowest super. There is 

 loss from that in cooling off the row of sec- 

 tions next the opening, making the work 

 there slower, and a gain in cooling the brood- 

 nest; and I believe the gain greater than the 

 loss. I even up m.atters sometimes by 

 changing the super end for end after work 

 has started in it, but it doesn't make as 

 even work in the super as without the ven- 

 tilation. 



Ye editor thinks I have no good proof to 

 sustain my fears that so much caging of 

 cells and queens may have bad results. I 

 thought I had some such proof in former 

 days, but lately the proofs seem to be going 

 against my notions. B^^ accident I left two 

 virgins caged 16 days. Instead of killing 

 them at once, I thought I'd see how they 

 would turn out, so uncaged them. Five 

 days later I found them laying finely. It 

 seems to me that, if they had proper ideas 

 of self-respect, they ought to have laid very 

 sparingly, if at all. With many misgivings 

 I've been trying the dual plan of introducing 

 virgins; and, so far from getting any clear 

 proofs that it's all wrong, I'm afraid I'll 

 have to own up that it's a fine thing. [We 

 have been working the dual plan for two 

 seasons now, and for the last month we 

 have been practicing it in baby nuclei with 

 entire success. A virgin queen more than 

 one day old usually requires on the average, 

 in our experience, about four days of cag- 

 ing before the bees will accept her. If my 

 theory is correct (that scent is the control- 

 ling factor in the matter), then if we put 

 two queens in at the same time, they can 

 both be acquiring that same scent. When 

 the plan is carried out in its entirety it vir- 



tually takes only two days to get actual re- 

 sults, although as a matter of fact the 

 queen has been acquiring the scent, or what- 

 ever it is, for four days.— Ed.] 



I WANT to endorse some of A. I. Root's 

 notions about making extra work for the 

 women, especially in the matter of cooking. 

 It's outrageous the amount of extra work 

 they do by way of getting up extra dishes 

 to tempt us to eat more than is good for us. 

 Almost any physician will say that, if the 

 variety of dishes were cut in two, and the 

 amount of food we gobble also bisected, we'd 

 be a healthier and a happier people. Then 

 the dishwashing— I confess to the weakness 

 of having an uncomfortable feeling when 

 three teaspoons are put at my plate when 

 only one is needed. Generally, though, I 

 use only the one. Keep it up, Bro. Root. 

 [Once for a week or so, when my wife was 

 without help and she herself was not very 

 well, I was asked to help wipe the dishes 

 after the evening meal. It was not long 

 before I began to ask the question, "Why 

 not get along with one plate, one spoon, and 

 one knife and fork ? What is the use of 

 having a great big butter and bone dish ? 

 What is the use of having an extra pie- 

 dish?" And so I went on. I had never 

 thought of these things until I had to wipe 

 the dishes. It makes a great deal of differ- 

 ence whose ox is gored, especially if that ox 

 is the pater familias. — Ed.] 



Gleaningsfrom the Pacific Coast 



By Prof.A.J.Gook. Pomona Coli-ece. Cal. 



sage honey. 

 A subscriber from La Crescenta, California, 

 sends a little friendly criticism of my article 

 in Gleanings for June 15. He says that 

 they have thousands of acres of white sage 

 which, at the date of his writing, June 30, 

 were in full bloom and were being visited by 

 the bees. He hopes that the present year 

 will be a good one, but adds that the white 

 sage is not much to be depended upon. He 

 comments upon the excellence of both black 

 and white sage honey. The black sage, he 

 says, never fails them if the rains are abun- 

 dant. He says that bee-keepers in his vicin- 

 ity are of the opinion that black sage fur- 

 nishes ten pounds of honey to white sage's 

 one, although there is a good deal more white 

 sage than black in his neighborhood. He 

 voices the general experience of Southern 

 California in the statement that because of 

 the cool cloudy weather in May and June 

 the bees did but little work. Up to the time 

 of the date of his letter, June 30, he had an 

 average of fifty pounds per colony and was 

 hoping much from the white sage, which was 

 attracting the bees in great numbers at that 



