952 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



StPT. 15 



of empty logs, with a board nailed at the bottom, and 

 one for a cover with a hole in it for the entrance. When 

 the gums get pretty heavy, in the spring, the cover was 

 knocked off, and the honey cut out while smoking with 

 rags. 



" By this mode a good deal of pollen and larvae and 

 grown bees were taken out with the chunks of honey, 

 and pressed with it before it was strained. The wax 

 would then be melted, and sold at from 10 to 15 cents 

 per pound. The industry gradually grew as the farmers 

 became more appreciative of the abundant wild flowers 

 of the State, and its advantages for the honey products. 

 Up-to-date movable-frame hives, extractors, and smok- 

 ers gradually came into use. North Texas is not so 

 well adapted to the raising of bees on account of the 

 prairies. Southwest Texas is more brushy, and the 

 flowers that bloom in this region are generally nectar- 

 producers, and the nectar easily accessible to the bees. 



" In three of my apiaries, which are located in the 

 horsemint section, my man says between the 1st and 

 10th he will take off forty thousand pounds of bulk 

 comb honey, which is a great deal for one flow. 



"In Uvalde County, where there is an abundance of 

 catclaw and guajilla, the bee-keepers often average 200 

 pounds per colony. I have known them to get 400 

 pounds per colony when the colony was very strong in 

 number of bees." 



The largest honey-producing county in the United 

 States is Uvalde, Texas, where many thousands of acres 

 of guajilla, mesquite, and catclaw are to be found. 

 The climate is dry and warm. 



The Jenkintown meeting of bee-keepers, 

 on the 7th of this month, near Philadelphia, 

 Pa., was pronounced an unqualified success. 

 There were something like 400 present, and 

 in the matter of attendance this convention 

 excelled that of any National meeting so far 

 as known. A further account, with a ver- 

 batim report of some of the speeches, will 

 be given later. 



GLEANINGS WITH A SUBSCRIPTION-LIST OF 

 NEARLY 22,000. 



Our binding department now shows that 

 Gleanings has a subscription-list of nearly 

 22,000. We are printing regularly 23,000 

 copies each issue, the surplusage to supply 

 the demand for sample copies. The last is- 

 sue reached 30,000. In spite of the unfavor- 

 able season our subscription- list has been 

 growing at a rapid rate. This is perfectly 

 logical. When the seasons are unfavorable 

 one needs all the hints he can get in his bus- 

 iness in order to enable him to make a suc- 

 cess. It is poor economy to cut off the val- 

 uable interchange of experiences that one 

 gathers by reading about the work done by 

 others. 



THE candy-man AND ROOT'S BEES ON THE 

 ROOF IN NEW YORK CITY. 



For the last two or three weeks the news- 

 papers have been full of items about The A. 

 I. Root Co.'s bees on the roof of the build- 

 ing where its office is located, 44 Vesey St., 

 New York. A candy-man complained that 



the bees in question were interfering with 

 the work of his employees, and he appealed 

 to the Board of Health, averring that the 

 bees not only helped themselves to his 

 sweets but stung some of his girls. The re- 

 sult was the issuing of an order by the said 

 Board, requiring that the bees be removed 

 from the roof. As there was an important 

 principle involved, this order, if carried out 

 in our case, would require the removal of all 

 the bees in the city of New York, including 

 those owned by the city in Central Park. 

 Our managers at Philadelphia and New York 

 made repeated representations to the Board, 

 the result of which was it granted a stay of 

 proceedings. The whole matter is in statu 

 quo, and what the outcome will be can not 

 now be determined. 



There are two other roof apiaries as near 

 to the aggrieved candy-manufacturer as our 

 own. The Root bees can not, therefore, be 

 the only trespassers, if trespassers at all. 



CAUCASIAN QUEENS. 



Dr. E. F. Phillips, in charge of apicul- 

 ture. Division of Entomology, Washington, 

 D. C, authorizes me to say that the only 

 imported queen of the Caucasian race in the 

 apiary of the Department is dead, and that 

 it will be necessary, therefore, to stop the 

 distribution of these queens for the present. 

 There is now a terrible uprising in the Cau- 

 casus regions of Russia, and this renders it 

 impracticable for the Department to get any 

 more importations for this season. The A. 

 I. Root Co. has two queens which seem to 

 be fully up to the standard. Should they 

 winter successfully we may be able to sup- 

 ply some half-bloods — Caucasian-Italian — 

 and possibly some pure queens next season, 

 but no deliveries can be made before June 

 15tn at the earliest. 



A SCHEME TO DRAW CROWDS AT A HONEY- 

 STAND; HANDLING LIVE BEES BEFORE 

 THE CROWDS AT COUNTY FAIRS. 



Every year we do some business in selling 

 bottled and comb honey at our county fair. 

 This year we thought we would try the ex- 

 periment of a "drawing card" by putting 

 a man in a wire-cloth cage, with a dissected 

 colony of bees on an elevated platform. We 

 accordingly built a cage 5^ feet high, 6 feet 

 long, and 4 wide, having a door on one side 

 so that the operator could step in and out 

 without tipping up the whole cage. We se- 

 lected a colony of gentle bees, moved it off 

 its regular stand, some distance away in the 

 bee-yard, so as to let all the flying bees get 

 out. We then moved it over to the wire- 

 cloth cage before mentioned. When the 

 crowds began to assemble we put one of our 

 apiarists inside and had him open the hive, 

 hunt the queen, lay his hands on the bees, 

 practice shaken swarming, take up the bees 

 by the handfuls, etc. When one man be- 

 came tired of demonstrating, another would 

 step inside. Did it draw the crowds? Well, 

 I will show you some photos in a future is- 

 sue, taken on the spot, that will speak 



