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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



May 26. 



An End-Spacer at the Bottom of the frame is strougly 

 recommended by the American Bee-Keeper. A staple driven 

 into the end of the bottom-bar, projecting y-inch, so that in 

 rapid handling there will be no danger of crushing bees or 

 queens between the end-bar and wall of hive. 



Liime Good for Sweet Clover.— J. E. Crane, in Review, 

 strongly endorses the idea that lime is needed for sweet clover, 

 by saying that at the great marble quarries at Rutland, Vt., 

 sweet clover grew in great luxuriance on the heaps of waste 

 where to the depth of 20 feet there was nothing but marble, 

 or pure lime. 



Breeding Out the Swarming Instinct.—" If the desire to 

 incubate has been so nearly bred out of some breeds of fowls," 

 says J. E. Crane, in Review, " why may we not breed out the 

 disposition in bees to swaroQ ? I believe it can be done ; and 

 with far less labor and time than the desire in fowls to incu- 

 bate has been eradicated." 



Comb of Buckwheat Heavier than Clover. — "When we 

 take the same brand of foundation and supply it to bees gath- 

 ering clover honey, and to bees gathering buckwheat honey, 

 we find invariably that there is a very much larger amount of 

 added wax in the case of the buckwheat than in the case of 

 the clover," says Prof. Shutt, in Canadian Bee Journal. 



Strength of Flavor in Honey depends somewhat upon the 

 yield, according to E. E. Hasty, in Review. The quantity of 

 essential or flavoring oil seems to be about the same whether 

 the secretion of honey be much or little. Same with coloring 

 matter. So in a heavy yield both color and flavor will be light, 

 and vice versa. Basswood honey is sometimes yellow by scant 

 secretion, and apple honey over-flavored and bitter. 



Section-Cleaners, so far, have generally been of sand- 

 paper, which soon clogs and demands renewing. .J. E. Crane, 

 In Gleanings, thinks there might be a solid cylinder of emery, 

 a cylindrical spring-wire brush, or a cylinder with knives so 

 set as to wind around it like the threads of a screw, which last 

 would not be likely to clog, or if it did it could be easily cleaned 

 with the point of a knife while revolving very slowly. 



Cane vs. Beet Sugar.— Dr. Miller asks in British Bee 

 Journal whether definite experiments have been made as to 

 relative value of the two for feeding bees. The editor says 

 although no experiments have been specially made, it is gen- 

 erally accepted as a proved fact in England that the chemicals 

 employed in making beet sugar are injurious to bees, and 

 strongly advises the use of none but refined cane-sugars. 



A Conspiracy seems to be hatching in the brain of the 

 Noter and Picker of the Canadian Bee Journal, who has evi- 

 dently noted this Boiler as one to be pickt upon, and he is try- 

 ing to poison the mind of that innocent youth, E. E. Hasty, 

 Inciting him to deeds of darkness by speaking in some heathen 

 tongue such words as " exterminateannihilateredueehimtoa- 

 shadow." Such things in a civilized country are dreadful ! 



Basswood.— "I find by going over ray diary that my bees 

 have averaged fully 5(_l pounds per colony from basswood 



alone, each year, during the past 25 years I never knew 



of but one season when basswood did not furnish some honey, 



and that was the last When the secretion is at its best, I 



doubt whether there is such a thing as overstocking a good 

 basswood locality, if 1,1)00 colonies were located all in one 

 place."— G. M. Doolittle, in American Bee Keeper. 



Apple-Bloom is highly valued by G. M. Doolittle. as it is 

 by many others. It comes at a time when it tells greatly on 

 the development of the colony, making it ready for the white 

 clover harvest. As Quinby says: "This season often de- 

 cides the prosperity of the bees for the summer." The best 

 year Doolittle ever had for apple-bloom was 1877, and that 

 year he got his biggest crop of honey, averaging 166 2 3 

 pounds per colony, spring count, mostly comb honey. One 



day in apple-bloom he timed the bees. At 8 o'clock the num- 

 ber of bees that entered the hive in a minute averaged 43 ; at 

 10 o'clock, -1:9 ; at 1 o'clock, 51 ; at 5 o'clock, 43. A hive 

 that was weighed gained 8 pounds 2 ounces through the day, 

 and lost 3 pounds 2 ounces by evaporation through the follow- 

 ing night, making a net gain of 5 pounds of honey for the- 

 day's work, showing that the nectar was very thin. — Bee- 

 Keepers' Review. 



A Little Scrap About the Plain Section takes place in 

 the Canadian Bee Journal between Editors Root and Holter- 

 mann. The former doesn't want his firm clast as a swindle by 

 pushing what Holtermann calls "a decided humbug." Holter- 

 mann replies he only meant it was "apiece of nonsense or 

 folly." Root asks the statement to be pointed out where he 

 said a section without bee-ways would In itself give fatter 

 combs, or that a tall section is better '.filled out than a square 

 one. To this request no reply is made. 



Do Not Overstock Your Field. — Suppose within range of 

 your bees throughout the summer there are 4,000 pounds to 

 be gathered, and 80 pounds per year are necessary for each 

 colony for their own use. If you have 50 colonies, and there 

 are no other bees in the neighborhood, your bees will live 

 through but afford no surplus for you. If, however, you have 

 only 25 colonies, and these can gather all the honey, there 

 will be 2.000 pounds of surplus for you. Something to think 

 about. — Bieuenzucht und Honiggewinnung. 



Cane vs. Beet Sugar. — "There have been cases of dysen- 

 tery in this county during the past winter, the bees were able 

 to take flights almost daily up to end of January, showing that 

 either cheap beet sugars are often used in preparing bee-food, 

 or that, if cane sugar is used, the food is very badly prepared. 

 I always make my bee-food from cane-sugar, besides feeding 

 up a number of colonies for procrastinating bee-keepers in 

 order to save them, and have not had a single case of dysen- 

 tery," says Wm. Loveday, in British Bee Journal. He thinks 

 America is just the place to make definite experiments as to 

 using beet sugar for winter, where bees are confined four or 

 five months in cellars. Isn't most of the sugar used for win- 

 tering in this country beet sugar ? and isn't cane better ? 



Measurements of Comb-Bases. -The editor of Gleanings 

 (p. 357) says they have a micrometer that measures " the ten- 

 thousanth part of an inch as easily as you would measure off 

 eighths of an inch on a foot-rule," and he has been measuring 

 septums. He thinks the bees do thin the base of foundation 

 slightly. Prof. Beal's measurements, as given in Review, 

 made the base of extra-thin .0056, drawn foundation nearly 

 .0100, Bingham no-wall .0043, and natural about .0067. 

 Editor Root's measurements made the base of natural comb 

 only about half as much, averaging from .0030 to .0036, and 

 he thinks Prof. Beal must have used comb that was built when 

 honey was coming in very slowly. Extra-thin Mr. Root found 

 .0050 to .0061*, about the same as Prof. Beal, and thin foun- 

 dation running 11 feet to the pound .()i)71. He thinks the 

 drawn foundation can be made with much thinner base by 

 using the natural instead of flat base. He liopes they will be 

 able to make the IS-feet-to-the-pound foundation with base 

 .00311, which will defy connoisseur or micrometer to detect 

 the difference between it and the natural product of the bee. 



Drawn-Out Combs, or unfinisht sections, to be used over 

 again, are discust somewhat fully by Dr. C. C. Miller (Glean- 

 ings, page 342.) While leaving a loop-hole for possible re- 

 treat by saying that he is ready to change his opinion upon 

 sufficient evidence, he combats vigorously the idea previously 

 held by the editor of Gleanings that for good results the cells 

 must not be more than ?g-inch deep, and challenges proof that 

 B. Taylor ever intended leveling for any other purpose than 

 to remove whatever of the edge might be objectionable, and 

 claims it is a waste to cut down a cell, no matter how deep, 

 after such objectionable part is removed. "One reason given 

 for having cells not more than J^-inch deep is that, when 

 deeper, the comb is tough. If there is any difference, ought 

 not the part of the comb last made be the most tender ? Then 

 why cut away that, leaving the toughest part? Another is 

 that with cells more than 'iinch deep, the honey is not as 

 thick and of as nice quality. .. .If it is true that a cell ?g' or J£- 

 deep is better than a deeper one just because of its depth, I 

 don't for the life of me see how it is possible to get away from 

 the logical conclusion that the greater the depth the poorer 

 the honey, and the less the depth the better the honey, the 

 best honey of all being produced on the Michigan no-wall 

 foundation." 



