May 11, 1899. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



291 



resort, as I cannot say that I have ever been entirely satis- 

 fied with the result. In trying- to find a new outlet for my 

 crop I even shipt some to Europe. What induced me to do 

 so was the hig-h prices obtained there. While on a visit to 

 Switzerland two years ago, I saw extracted honey sell for 

 24 cents a pound, but my attempt was not entirely success- 

 ful. I had sent basswood honey, but most people did not 

 like its strong- taste. I think the result would have been 

 different if I had shipt clover honey, as I had at first in- 

 tended doing. 



We have seen the price of honey getting lower year 

 after year, until it is very near the point where the price 

 obtained will hardly cover expenses. I attribute it to the 

 fact that production has been greatly increast with the bet- 

 ter knowledg-e of apiculture, while the consumption has not 

 kept pace with it. How to find a remedy for this state of 

 affairs is a problem that is very important to the bee-keep- 

 ing fraternity. A more equal distribution of our crops 

 after securing them, and more reliable reports of the yield 

 in different parts of the country, would, I think, help us 

 greatly in ans-wering this hard question. And I indulge the 

 hope that the honey exchange, which is being tried in Cali- 

 fornia, may be found to work well, and its operation be ex- 

 tended thru the whole country. 



Jefterson County. . GuSTAVE Gross. 



[Concluded uext week.] 



1 Ml terthouglit. I 



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

 :^ By " COGITATOR." ^• 



PERCENT OF WAX IN COMB HONEY. 



Of course I see Mr. Aikin's invitation, on page 227, to 

 get down on my knees — and play checkers. Thank you, 

 Mr. A ; but I do not kneel at g-ames — except possibly when 

 seeking to win a queen — and there are no queens in check- 

 ers, I believe. Well, I honestly got it that you claimed it 

 took three pounds of wax to fill the sections holding 25 

 pounds of surplus. You didn't say so. What you did say 

 was reasonably clear — two pounds below and one pound in 

 the sections — and yet I didn't " catch on." At the time I 

 penned that criticism I think I must have been forcing my- 

 self to write when my mind was not in condition for any 

 such business. 



A CASE OF KEEPING ALL COLONIES WEAK. 



Singular that Prof. Cook, who has done so much to 

 popularize the motto — " Keep all colonies strong " — should, 

 on page 194, come to the front with the advice to keep all 

 colonies weak (in famine times in a warm climate) ; but it 

 looks as if he was right in this reversal of the doctrine. 

 That young queens reared in famine times would be better 

 than the old ones is not quite so clear, but may be all rig-ht 

 if the apiarist " knows the ropes." 



BEES ON PEACHES ALL NIGHT. 



Mrs. Axtell's observation that bees at work on peaches 

 some times seem stupid, and often stay all night on the 

 fruit, is of interest. It is well known that the leaves and 

 kernels of the peach carrj' considerable poison ; yet we 

 should hardly expect the fruit to contain enough to stupefy 

 bees. Whether she would have succeeded in g-etting- peach- 

 juice and white-sugar syrup mixt by feeding the latter 

 when they were gathering the former — well, next time 

 she must try it ani^ report. You see they might abandon 

 the peaches if they had syrup enough to store. Page 195. 



TIME NEEDED FOR GREAT REFORMS. 



I wonder if Doolittle isn't drawing it too fine, on pag-e 

 196, when he says that the effort that the thief puts forth in 

 gaining his swag is not labor. Some of our brothers and 

 sisters in the craft, who workt hard last summer, may take 

 this grain of comfort, that it wasn't labor (produced noth- 

 ing). But I suspect Doolittle is about right in his main 

 contention. In this one matter he's a little " off," I think, 

 seeming to blow cold on anti-adulteration efforts. Bee-keep- 



ers alone, without joining'- teams with the rest of humanity, 

 could abate the adulteration evil to a great extent. As our 

 interests all lie in that direction, it \ocMs,\\Ve 3. practicable 

 scheme. A scheme that cannot succeed till it has a major- 

 ity of the entire electorate enlisted looks, if not impractica- 

 ble, at least rather remotely practicable. Big job to rig-ht 

 our political and financial evils — even as it's a big job to 

 put down the liquor evil. All these thing's will be set right 

 some day ; but to say. Stop catching that one lark till the 

 sky comes down and we get all the larks — well, that's the 

 style of some people, but not a wise style. 



FEELS LIKE DOFFING HIS HAT TO A HIVE-MAKER. 



I feel like taking off my hat to Mrs. Griffith (pag-e 206). 

 To make in one day six hives all ready to paint by sawing 

 and reconstructing dry-g'-oods* boxes is a remarkable 

 achievement for a woman coming 70. I am not a woman, 

 and not 70: but I am such a mechanical " non-possum " 

 that I fear I should require a whole day to make one — and 

 then it wouldn't be a good one. And I'm not advising the 

 sisters to follow Mrs. G.'s method of providing a supply of 

 hives, unless they feel strong'-Iy inclined that way. 



LETS SCOLDING BEES ALONE. 



On the question whether to knock down persistent 

 scolders or not (page 202, paragraph 9), my experience 

 favors letting them alone. Rather seldom do I get peace 

 by killing them. Kill three, and directly there'll be four or 

 five. 



THE V-EDGE HOFFMAN — \ HIVE-LEVER. 



Comrade Davenport's argument against the V edge of 

 the projection on the Hoffman frame seems to be valid. 

 Bees quickly put on propolis enough to make it as thick as 

 the corresponding edge is. Then it catches bees fully as 

 badly as all square edges would, and cannot be cleaned 

 nearly as well. Page 209. But I laught when I heard him 

 say of his pet hive-lever and hook, that its main advantage 

 was that it could be hung on the edge of the hive. Probably 

 he didn't mean exactly that. 



TO PREVENT SWARMING MUST PREVENT QUEEN-CELLS. 



I guess Edwin Bevins is right, that to prevent swarm- 

 ing we must prevent queen-cells. With these once ten- 

 anted, nothing short of a long spell of very bad weather 

 will cause them to be torn down. 



KEEP POULTRY OUT OF THE APIARY IN WINTER. 



W. W. McNeal sets us a wise saw when he tells us^not to 

 let fowls use the apiary as a loafing-ground in winter. They 

 thump around the hives to such an extent that many bees 

 come out of the cluster and perish. Page 211. 



CANDYING OF GOOD, WELL-RIPENED HONEY. 



H. P. Wilson thinks that " g'-ood, well-ripened honey is 

 slow to candy." Probably rig-ht, if the strict meaning of 

 the words is adhered to ; but some may use those words in 

 the sense that good, well-ripened honey doesn't candy at 

 all. If that idea should be pusht, there would be a numer- 

 ously-attended row in our camp directly. Page 212. 



QUEENS REARED IN SMALL COLONIES. 



I see on page 213 the Chicago convention wrestled with 

 the question why queens reared by just a few bees are in- 

 ferior — too cold — too small a supply of food. Perhaps I can 

 add a little (to the theory, that is.) The queen-larva is cap 

 able of taking a larg-e share of its food by absorption, right 

 thru the pores of the skin. In so far as it feeds in this way 

 it can select — or perhaps " filter " would be the bette/ word 

 — taking the richer parts of the jelly and leaving the gross- 

 er ; and thus the great lot of jelly left is not entirely waste, 

 as it looks to be. Diminutive colonies never supply jelly in 

 such plenty — it's " eat what's set- before you, and eat it all." 



THE HONEY-DEW DR. MILLER DRINKS. 



I'm afraid Dr. Miller's example, in using granulated 

 honey-dew in preference to sugar in his coffee, will not be 

 followed largely enough to create a market. Interesting to 

 see that there is such a honey-dew product that can be so 

 used by a good judge. 



COWS E.ATING SWEET CLOVER ROOTS. 



I think the most unique and interesting thing in the 

 beedom boil of page 218, is the sweet clover paragraph — 

 those cows that for weeks pulled and ate sweet clover roots 

 from the plowed ground. Nature is not inclined to waste 

 its weapons. There are no thorns on roots; and if any 



