1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1133 



July; and if I were to go through my 700 

 colonies to-day and cut out all the wax, both 

 drone and worker, that has been built since 

 April 1st I'm sure I should not get 7 lbs. of 

 wax out of the 700 colonies. And it can not 

 be the fault of the bees either, as most of 

 my bees are supposed to be great-grand- 

 children of Root's famous $200 queen, and 

 my colonies have from 9 to 17 combs of 

 brood per hive. If the bees and bloom will 

 do their part, friend Burr's manangement is 

 all right for Cuba. I agree with him in his 

 way, excepting the spacing to seven frames. 

 I find eight better, as, with only seven, some 

 kinds of honey do not get fully ripened be- 

 fore being sealed. 



Last year one of our prominent bee-keep- 

 ers told me that the guasima gave lots of 

 honey. At the same time, I had 150 colo- 



A VISIT AT THE SWARTHMORE QUEEN- 

 REARING YARDS, SWARTHMORE, PA. 



A Glance at the Man and his Manner of Work- 

 ing ; John Hooker. 



BY E. R. ROOT. 



As announced in our issue for Sept. 1, 

 among other bee-keepers I visited in the East 

 was E. L. Pratt at his apiary at Swarthmore, 

 Pa. I was accompanied by Mr. W. A. Sel- 

 ser, and later was joined by Mr. John Hook- 

 er at 4422 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. Mr. 

 Hooker has for many years been one of the 

 leading bee-keepers of Great Britain, a con- 

 tributor to the columns of the British Bee 

 Journal, and a personal friend of such men 

 as Thos. Wm. Cowan, the late Frank Che- 



A PARTIAL VIEW OF THE SWARTHMORE BABY-NUCLEI MATING-YARD, LOOKING TOWARD THE. 



MAIN YARD. 



nies starve to death under guasima- trees 

 that were just as full of bloom as they could 

 be, and not a bee on them. 



The year before, I was visiting a bee- 

 keeper who was writing an article on the 

 eight-months' honey-flow of Cuba, while he 

 was feeding his bees from six to eight 

 months of the year. 



Punta Brava, Cuba, July 17, 1905. 



[A part of the conflict in opinion comes, 

 no doubt, from the difference in locality. 

 A plant, for example, that will yield honey 

 in one place may yield none a few miles 

 away. — Ed.] 



shire, and other bee-keepers of note in Eng"- 

 land. Mr. Hooker, who is residing tempo- 

 rarily with his son in Philadelphia, heard I 

 was to visit Mr. Pratt, and, thinking that I 

 might possibly be at his place on that day, 

 had taken the trolley, with the result that 

 we all met together in a little informal con- 

 vention to discuss queen-rearing, and the 

 Swarthmore system in particular. 



Mr. Hooker, who has long been an admir- 

 er of the Pratt system, has been the means 

 of introducing it to a great extent in Eng- 

 land among his fellow-countrymen, where 

 Swarthmore is, perhaps, better known than 

 even in this country. But Mr. Selser and I 



