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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



April 7, 



in the brood-chamber and crowd the honey in there, rather 

 than to build comb in a new place. In 189J: he got more ex- 

 tracted than comb, but a lot of the extracted-honey colonies 

 starved in winter and the rest had to be fed in spring, making 

 the advantage over comb honey more apparent than real. 

 Bait sections were filled, no matter where they were put in the 

 super, being usually the only ones filled. For good work in 

 sections, especially in the hands of any but an expert, he 

 thinks a flow of three to four pounds per day is needed. 



A Bobber-Stopper. — A simple and ingenious instrument 

 to stop robbing is given by M. Pirson, In Rucher Beige. Take 

 a cigar-box (any similar box will answer, even a paste-board 

 box) ; remove the lid and one of the sides. At one end make 

 a hole about }(, inch square, so that oue bee at a time can 

 pass, and cut out of the bottom a strip perhaps 4 Inches by K- 

 Place it at the entrance of the hive, closing any part of the 

 entrance not closed by the robber-stopper, and the robbers are 

 afraid logo in the large hole. If a single one enters the small 

 hole it will be dispatcht. 



Disturbing Bees in Winter. — Editor Hutchinson copies 

 C. P. Dadant' article from the Busy Bee, in which he strongly 

 argues the damage arising from winter disturbance, then 

 calls up the discussion in the first number of the Review pub- 

 lisht, in which were given many Instances where bees had 

 been disturbed during the winter repeatedly, moved from one 

 part of the country to another, hives opened In cellar, bees 

 fed, etc., and no harm done. Well, it's some comfort to know 

 that one doesn't really need to kick 'em around much in wiu- 

 ter, anyhow. 



Sweet Clover. — Prof. Cook is taken to task in Gleanings 

 for his sweet clover views. The editor says : " My, oh my ! 

 where has Prof. Cook been these years ?" Mr. Boardman and 

 a dozen others can show him that stock prefer it to other 

 fodder ; the Ohio Experiment Station that were once down on 

 it, favors now Its introduction, and in some parts of the West 

 hundreds of acres of it are grown, and hundreds of tons of it 

 cut for fodder. He ends up by saying : " Where nothing else 

 grows It is a Godsend. I should almost as soon expect to hear 

 Prof. Cook say the world Is not round as to argue against 

 sweet clover." 



Cleats vs. Handholes for Hives. — The Straw man of 

 Gleanings gloats over the fact that two such men as Mr. 

 Boardman and Mr. Doolittle agree with him In preferring 

 cleats to handholes for handling hives, to which the editor 

 replies: "lam half Inclined to believe that you and Mr. 

 Boardman are right ; but keep this to yourself. We make 

 the handholes because they are cheaper, take less room in 

 crating, and because bee-keepers generally are satisfied with 

 them. I suppose the fact is, the average bee-man does not 

 lug his bees in and out of the cellar as much as you and Mr. 

 Boardman do, and t hat I s why he doesn't complain." 



Variation in Bees.— J. E. Crane, In an Interesting article 

 in Review, declares that variation in bees as to their different 

 characteristics. Is fully as great as among other domestic ani- 

 mals, and as valuable. He instances difference In temper, 

 comb-building, promptness in working In supers, daubing 

 with propolis, gathering pollen, swarming, etc. He Instances 

 one colony that had the peculiar trait of tearing down their 

 brood-combs in spring apparently out of pure cussedness, and 

 after they had done so for the third spring he knockt out the 

 trait by changing the queen. The moral of it all Is that there 

 is a fine field for Intelligent and progressive bee-keepers to 

 greatly improve their stock by proper selection. 



Somewhat Voracious Mosquito-Hawks. — The voraci- 

 ousness of mosquito-hawks or dragon-flies that fill the air by 

 tens of thousands around apiaries In localities near the sea in 

 the South, catching and devouring bees by wholesale is some- 

 thing frightful according to the editor of the American Bee- 

 Keeper. On several occasions he caught two that were eat- 

 ing bees, allowed one to eat all that was eatable of the other ; 

 " then turning the long, slender posterior of the still eager 

 gourmand to its head. It would Immediately proceed to con- 

 sume its own body with the same apparent avidity and relish 

 that It had shown for its earlier victims, the bees." So those 

 Florida fellows are not without their own troubles. 



Plain and Tall Sections are not favorably considered In 

 the Canadian Bee Journal. The editor says go slow and look 

 on for a season. He says " it is unreasonable to suppose that 

 the bee-space, secured through an attachment to the separator 

 instead of the section, would give a better-filled section." 



Thinks bee-keepers who adopt this style of section will be dis- 

 appointed and lose money. S. T. Pettit calls the plain section 

 "a silly fad." If the bees are crowded as he usually crowds 

 his to get well-finisht sections, the cappings would be fastened 

 to the fence. "This talk about less peep-holes and better- 

 finisht sections is all nonsense." He objects to a tall section 

 that the foundation is more liable to sag and curl out of shape 

 than In a square one ; may look a little better, but there will 

 be no more money In It in the end. 



Bee-Keeping for Farmers. — D. N. Ritchey is very em- 

 phatic in the belief that every farmer should keep bees, and 

 says a farmer who hasn't one or more colonies Is not up to the 

 times, which is a little rough on T. B. Terry and other leading 

 agriculturists. He thinks not five per cent, of the farmers 

 have honey on the table as food, and he probably might have 

 made the percentage much smaller without distressing the 

 truth. A notable statement Is this : " I can show you farm- 

 ers living by me who had not had a crop of clover seed for 20 

 years, until I moved here and bred my bees to such a size 

 that they can work on the red clover ; and now they are get- 

 ting large yields of the very best of seed." — Busy Bee. 



Plain Sections are somewhat discust by Hasty in the Re ■ 

 view. Apparently taking It for granted that they will be filled 

 out more plumply than the others, with almost certainly no 

 collusion with Doolittle he falls into the same line of argu- 

 ment, picturing the not over-skillful Bridget as with case- 

 knife In hand, she cuts out the honey. " Half the time the 

 knife wanders away from the wood. Besides the main square, 

 several thin slices of comb have to be stackt on one side of the 

 plate, to the serious detriment of looks." Where the outside 

 row of cells is not sealed, even a child can see where to cut. 

 The edges of the cake are all nicely rounded off to start with, 

 and will remain so. He concludes that plain sections will look 

 best at grocer's and the other kind on the table, and " good 

 looks on the table are all our customers are willing to pay for 

 when once their minds are directed to the matter. And those 

 of us who sell largely to consumers are likely to do some mis- 

 sionary work right In that spot." 



Plain Sections — A little set-to in Review between Doo- 

 little and the editor. Referring to that beautiful picture in 

 the Review of the four plain and four old-style sections, in 

 which the plain ones were so much better fillet' out next the 

 wood, Doolittle says he decided at ouce he preferred for his 

 own use one of the old-style sections because It would cut out 

 more easily, look better on the plate, and not drip so much. 

 He thinks also that the two lots of sections were not built by, 

 the same strain of bees. Hutchinson doesn't know about the 

 bees that built the two lots, and admits he'd choose for his own 

 use same as Doolittle, but gets back at him in good style by 

 saying, "the time when we, as producers and sellers of honey, 

 wish a section to look the most attractive, is when It sits on 

 the counter and there is a man with 15 cents in his pocket 

 standing in front of it and trying to decide whether it Is best 

 to have the money and the honey change places." He also 

 considers it very Important that the comb should be well filled 

 to the wood to secure safety In shipping, and even In handling 

 after it reaches the grocer. 



Cleome Pungens, or Giant Spider-Plant. — Rarely does 

 one see any notice taken of bee-keepers' interests in seed 

 catalogs, but here is a notice of one of the novelties in flower 

 seeds of several years ago. In the catalog of R. Scott & Son : 



"This is one of our native annuals, but little known and 

 yet well worthy of general cultivation. It Is a robust plant, 

 growing vigorously four to five feet high, unaffected by wind 

 or weather, and flowering profusely and continuously for 

 months. In fact, it \i s, perpetual bloomer ; it begins to flower 

 when only a small plant, the spikes continuing to increase In 

 size as the plant grows, until they reach upward of two feet 

 In length. The flowers are very showy, with long, slender 

 stamens ; single petals measuring an inch across, and of a 

 bright rose color. As the spikes grow and the lower flowers 

 drop off, the curious seed-pods are formed — the plant matur- 

 ing ripe seed while still In full bloom. These long, slender 

 seed-pods, reaching out In every direction, are carried upon 

 still longer stipules, giving the effect of a many-legged spider, 

 with the bright bunch of flowers as the head. As a back- 

 ground, in a group or scattered among shrubbery, Cleome 

 Pungens is very effective ; It grows freely from seed sown in 

 the open ground, thrives luxuriantly, and blooms all summer, 

 no matter how unfavorable the season may be. It is also one 

 of the very best honey-producing plants. The bees delight In 

 It, and cluster about it constantly while the flowers are open, 

 which is after 5 o'clock in the afternoon and before 10 a. m. 



