

'l*'>i> 



OEOROE W. YORK, Editor. 



39th YEAR, 



CHICAGO, ILL,, APRIL 13, 1899, 



No, 15, 



^S\l>\i/\iAiAi/\iAi/\i/ii/\i/Vi/\tAiAiAl/ViAl/\i/^^ 



IIM 



f^ The " Old Reliable" seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. ^^ 

 :^ By " COGITATOR." ^ 



NOT ENTHUSED OVER EUCALYPTUS. 



Mr. Prj-al's talk and pictures about the eucalyptus trees 

 (page 129) are very interesting- indeed ; and yet I do not find 

 myself getting enthused about them inuch. If a tree looks 

 like a beanpole, and if we have to say to a fellow, " This is 

 an excellent medicine." in order to make him eat the honey, 

 'pears like that bee-folks might go further and do better in 

 the matter of tree-planting. 



FEEDING EVERY TENTH HIVE. 



Page 132. What shall we say about Mr. Aldrich's plan 

 of feeding- everj- tenth hive, and making the bees store honey 

 for the other nine ? I should have doubts abotit their doing 

 so much storing readily, and fears that bees so overworkt 

 in the fall might " peter out " before spring. Still, I am 

 conscious that these may be empty and needless apprehen- 

 sions. I don't knoii' much about it. 



A TRICK OF THE HONEY-COMMISSION MEN. 

 There is an idea dropt by Mr. McNay. on page 132, that 

 ^we can hardly afford to let slip. Send a commission man 

 honey outright and he puts it in the back part of the store, 

 to sell -when he gets other things cleared up. Make him pay 

 }-ou a good advance on it, and (just as naturalh') he sets 

 about selling it at once, because he -wants to get his money 

 in hand again. See? Quite honest men have been "known 

 to look out for their own interests, don't you mind ? 



FREQUENT FLIGHT-DAY'S .4ND GOOD STORES. 



You're just like all the rest of us. Comrade Dadant ; 

 crowing loudly before we're out of the wintering woods. 

 Frequent fiight-daj'S are indeed the best thing we can pos- 

 siblv have to get thru the winter on, except one. And that 

 one thing is " pizen on us " this winter. Not for many 

 years has the quality of the winter stores been so poor as 

 this time. If spring should prove late and trying manj' of 

 us will suffer, I fear. Good plan to count our mercies, how- 

 ever. Had this winter been as destitute of flight-days as 

 some winters are, many localities would scarcely have had a 

 bee left \>y this time. 



.\ queen's SPRING EGG-LAYING. 



Whoever has stood before a tired audience, burdened 

 with the duty of interesting them notwithstanding their 

 weariness, can sympathize with Mr. Doolittle as he began 

 the brilliant address reported on pages 133, 146 and 165. 

 We're all glad that the •' scare streaks " up his legs didn't 

 make him sit down. When a really competent lecturer talks 



on the rudiments of a thing he is pretty sure to let out'some 

 facts which those advanced in the art can feed on with in- 

 terest. Probably not one in a hundred of us knew that the 

 queen begins in the spring by laying about ten eggs a day 

 for awhile. If Cogitator had been driven to a Yankee guess 

 he would have guest about half-a-dozen eggs the first day. 

 and a couple of hundred the second. But of course Doolittle 

 is right. In the observation of little things he is one of the 

 most accurate observers. 



DIFFERENCE IN TASTE OF HONEY. 



As to the question of the taste of Italian honey vs. the 

 taste of the other kind, which Mr. Bevins sails into so val- 

 iantly (page 134), 'Tater would incline to go further, and 

 deny the alleged facts in toto. Different races, strains and 

 colonies differing in pretty much every imaginable way, 

 now for the better, and now for the worse, the bees a fellow 

 is enthusiasticallv in favor of store (of course) the best- 

 tasting honey for him. That was a sharp shot of B.'s where 

 he reminds his antagonist that very many flowers hang bot- 

 tom side up, so the heaviest nectar would settle into reach, 

 instead of out of it, if any such separation went on. 



PROOFS OF gs;nuineness (!). 

 In the ninth boil-batch page 138, Holtermann 'hits the 

 bull's-eye (or say the cow's) with that milk story. Leaving 

 propolis on the sections to prove genuineness next door to 

 proving butter by the hair in it — and milk by that cow- 

 dung flavor often gentlv alluded to as the "taste of the 

 barn." 



ODOR OF TAR FOR FOUL BROOD. 

 Won't do to trust one swallow for a summer, but if 

 many swallows get the same results as Loyalstone, on page . 

 138, we shall have something new of distinct value in fight- 

 ing foul brood. Just powerfully impregnate was designed 

 for foundation with the odor of tar. 



THAT " EAR-WAX FOR STINGS " STORY. 



Ear-wax the best remedy for .stings, eh, only so apt to 

 be unattainable. Page 140. Let me suggest, Mr. Her- 

 mance : If all the bee-folks should warm your ear, by tell- 

 ing you what they think of your whisky remedy, it would 

 melt out wax enough to give j-ou a start»in the ear-wax sup- 

 ply trade. 



THE QUESTION OF FACING HIVES. 



That boy Miller, on page 166, was being switcht not for 

 facing- hives the wrong way, but for teaching that the 

 direction made no difference. And, lo, he thinks to get off 

 by showing that a big bee-man (the biggest one of all, in 

 fact) considers facing quite important. No, my boy, if you 

 could get Doolittle and Cogitator to plaj' the two-ram act, 

 that wouldn't help you any. Furthermore the chances are 

 that the)' won't butt. Doolittle lives in a very cool climate, 

 high altitude, and prettj' well north ; and if he decides that 

 the days when sunshine right square in front does harm are 

 so very few tliat the days when direct sunshine does good 

 greatly overbalance them, 'Tater won't denj' it. And if 

 'Tater finds very few summer days when the sun after 11 

 is any good, and many days when it is a sweltering nuisance, 

 I don't believe Doolittle will put down his wooly pow and 



