1020 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1 



better. The average reader of a bee paper 

 knows that stock will eat sweet clover, and 

 consequently Professor Richards' statement 

 needed no denial. We have had any amount 

 of proof that stock will eat it when it is cut 

 early enough. This only goes to show that 

 the National Bee-keepers' Association, the 

 Honey- producers' League, and the various 

 State bee-keepers' associations, should take 

 measures to secure the repeal of the laws in 

 the various States classing sweet clover as 

 a noxious weed, and therefore to be cut 

 down by the street commissioner or road su- 

 pervisor. The time will come, of course, 

 when these laws will be repealed, but not 

 until bee-keepers bestir themselves a little 

 more actively than they have been doing. 

 The majority of our experiment stations, I 

 think, are on record as saying that sweet 

 clover is an excellent fodder; that it is not 

 a noxious weed ; that it grows only in waste 

 places, and is always killed out by cultivation. 

 The trouble with some farmers is that 

 they are a little in the position of the dog in 

 the manger. If they imagine that their 

 neighbor bee-keeper derives some benefit 

 from a certain plant, or from their alfalfa 

 or clover fields, they feel that they have 

 been robbed. When they see bees working 

 on sweet clover they want it cut down, and 

 therefore are instrumental in getting it rec- 

 ognized as a weed.— Ed.] 



THE LESSER WAX-MOTH ; INFORMATION 

 WANTED. 



U. S. Department of Agriculture, ) 

 Bureau of Entomology, Division of Apiculture, r 

 Washington, D. C, Sept. 13. ) 

 Mr. E. R. Root:— It has come to my no- 

 tice that the lesser wax-moth, Achroia gri- 

 sella, has been found in this country, and I 

 ai'n anxious to learn how widely it is distrib- 

 uted. I shall appreciate it very much if any 

 of the readers of your paper who have any 

 specimens of this moth in their apiaries will 

 notify me of that fact and send samples of 

 either larvae or adults. I shall be glad to 

 send on request a return frank to any per- 

 son wishing to mail any ^ecimens to me, 

 which will make it unnecessary to pay post- 

 age. In order that this moth may be dis- 

 tinguished from the common wax-moth, 

 Galleria mellonella, 1 will give a brief de- 

 scription. 



The adult moths are little more than half 

 the size of the common moth, and with 

 wings spread they measure about § inch. 

 The fore wings are considerably darker than 

 the hind, and a very characteristic feature 

 is the swiftness of movement of the insects. 

 The tunnels are similar to those of the com- 

 mon moth, but smaller in diameter, and the 

 cocoon at the end in which the pupa is found 

 is considerably smaller. Wherever found in 

 America they are due to importations, since 

 this is a European species. Bee-keepers 

 need not fear this moth any more than the 

 larger one, for it is well known that there is 

 one sure prevention for moths; and the rule 

 of every bee-keeper, whether troubled by 



moths or not, should be, "Keep all colonies 

 strong." This will, of course, not keep the 

 moths away from stored combs. This moth 

 is also said to thrive well in dried apples. 

 There is an excellent illustration of both 

 bee-moths in the A B C of Bee Culture, p. 

 54, but the name is misspelled in the text. 

 E. F. Phillips, 



Acting in Charge of Apiculture. 



H. G. QUIRIN. 



The Queen-breeder, Honey-producer, and Sup- 

 ply-manufacturer. 



BY E. R. ROOT. 



I suppose it is hardly necessary for me to 

 introduce H. G. Quirin to our readers— the 

 man who has advertised so extensively, and 

 who lives at Parkertown, near Bellevue, O. 

 Some two or three months ago an extended 

 write-up of him and his business appeared in 

 one of the Cleveland papers. Some of the 

 statements of the reporter were reasonably 

 correct; but when he came to figure out Mr. 

 Quirin' s earnings for a year he made them 

 so big that it threw the alleged profits of 

 Standard Oil clear into the shade. Raising 

 queens and producing honey was, according 

 to the reporter, the greatest snap in the 

 world, for Mr. Quirin was getting rich, hand 

 over foot. 



I happened to visit Mr. Quirin soon after 

 this newspaper article appeared. He admit- 

 ted that a reporter had come to see him; 

 that he reared without help 3000 queens. 

 Where the reporter made the mistake, he 

 said, was in figuring the average price se- 

 cured for his queens at $2.00. If he pro- 

 duced 3000 queens in a season that meant in 

 the neighborhood of $6000 for his queen busi- 

 ness alone. The honey-production part of 

 the business made this sum swell to nearly 

 $8000 per annum according to the newspaper 

 man. What are the facts? Mr. Quirin is a 

 young man of German extraction, rather un- 

 der medium height, but of wiry build. He 

 is a tremendous worker; in fact, I never saw 

 a man in any business, unless it was a mold- 

 er working by the piece, who would work at 

 the race-horse speed Mr. Quirin did. He 

 would visit and work at a tremendous pace. 

 It evidently did not pay him to walk from 

 one part of the yard to the other— he simply 

 ran. If a hive happened to be in his way, 

 rather than take time to go around it he 

 would jump over it— if it were not too high. 

 Yes, I saw him run with his hands loaded 

 down with supers filled with comb honey. 

 All his movements around the hives were 

 very rapid, except in removing the cover or 

 in taking out the frames. When he started 

 to shake the bees out of the supers of comb 

 honey he would leave Mr. Heddon or any 

 one else clear in the shade. The bees would 

 rattle out of the supers like so many beans- 

 just had to. 



It is true he rears about 3000 queens with- 

 out any help whatever, from the grafting of 

 the cells clear up to the addressing and mail- 

 ing. He has 450 strong colonies of beea 



