388 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



June 22, 1899. 



cover, and if no water will leak or can be shaken out, the)- 

 are all right for honey. I have said this was done before 

 the rings were dipt, for the reason that after they are dipt 

 in the wax, and the cover has been screwed down tight on 

 them, and then taken oflf, I found in a few instances a trace 

 of honey would escape if the same rings were used without 

 being dipt again. 



The wax should be boiling hot when the rings are put 

 in, and they should be simply dipt, and not soakt or cookt 

 in it. Paraffine might answer as well as wax, but it takes 

 such a small amount of wax that the difference in price 

 would hardly amount to anything unless a very large 

 amount of honey was to be put up. 



I think there is no doubt but what some kinds of fruits 

 and vegetables contain acids that also act on rubber so 

 that it does not keep the contents of the jar air-tight, and I 

 believe it would pay those who seal fruit by means of a rub- 

 ber ring, and have trouble because the fruit " works," as I 

 have often heard it called, to give this matter of dipping 

 the rings in hot wax a trial. 



This matter is, tho, of but very little interest to me, for 

 I haven't one of those " queens " that are able to put up 

 fruit, and the last two j-ears I have sold what little ex- 

 tracted honey I produced direct to the consumer. Last sea- 

 son I sold at the yard about 1,800 pounds, and could have 

 sold more. It was sold at a low price, but it brought me 

 more than it would if I had shipt it to some city market, or 

 more, counting my time, than I could have gotten for it 

 from grocers. Southern Minnesota. 



I lie "Old Reliable " seen through New and Unreliable Oi^sses. 

 By "COOITATOR." 



HOLDING THE BREATH TO PREVENT STINGING. 



As to that impenetrability theory, on page 294, let every 

 one who inclines to accept the truth of it experiment on his 

 own skin with a tine needle (not so sharp as a bee-sting, 

 but mayhap 'twill answer just as well), and if the needle 

 refuses to go in while you are holding your breath, perhaps 

 the bee-sting will also snub up and refuse to penetrate. But 

 Mr. Raymond is all right. Breathe gently or not at all 

 when your face is close to cross bees ; and in extreme cases 

 turn j'our head away when you must expire. 



Per contra, when bees are not particularly cross, I 

 sometimes use my breath instead of a smoker to make them 

 " git furder." 



There is a rationale to the hum in that clipping, and it 

 is this : Most stings which laymen get they bring upon 

 themselves by striking or puffing ; and if they were trying 

 any experiment that would keep them from doing exasper- 

 ating things, they would not be stung at all. Some like 

 the old Scotch wizard's magic drop which, held in the 

 mouth while one could count a hundred, made angry hus- 

 bands mild. 



SHALLOW KXTRACTING-FRAMES. 



"Tater doesn't think much of shallow extracting- 

 frames, but he's aware he doesn't know much about them — 

 also aware that in a free country others have a right to sit 

 up with them if they want to. If they are to be used, it is 

 fortunate, as Mr. H. H. Porter has found, on page 302, that 

 there is an extractor kept in regular stock that will hold two 

 of them in each basket. As to objections, besides those 

 which readily occur to the mind, bees often hold five or six 

 inches of the lower center of the comb " empty swept and 

 garnisht " in hope that the queen will come up and lay 

 there. With a shallow comb there would only be a little 

 honey in the ends, it seems to me. 



WINTERING BEES — SMELTING WORKS. 



Mr. Lovesy's contribution to the wintering problem, on 

 page 302, may be important. Some things relative to win- 

 tering we are already pretty well at agreement about — as 

 the transcendent importance of good stores, and the desir- 

 ability of occasional flights ; but it is still disputed as to 

 ■where pure air stands in relative importance. Those who 

 reason down from human sanitation to bees naturallv in- 



cline to one side, while those old practicals who have win- 

 tered bees by burying them incline to the other — even 

 if they don't sa)' right out that pure air is of no more im- 

 portance to a bee than it is to a bedbug. Well, Mr. Lovesy 

 is a man among bee-keepers, and his settled judgment and 

 observation is that bees will not winter at all verj- near to 

 smelting works which pollute the air with ill gases, and 

 very poorlj- at considerable distances — even as far distant 

 as his own home is. This seems to show that the bee is 

 more sensitive to impure air than human beings are. Did 

 he lose half the inmates of his home every winter he would 

 be getting out of that. Of the bees he usually loses about 

 half, while at out-apiaries remote from smelters they win- 

 ter much better with the same preparation. 



GIVING SWARMS DIRTY COMBS. 



On page 295, Dr. Miller is all right, that combs of sim- 

 ple dead brood (in a region where there is no foul brood) 

 may be given to new swarms ; yet it would be well to set 

 " Ohio " right as to how to give them. He proposes to hive 

 the swarm directly on them, which is not " orthodox." To 

 hive a swarm on, use preferably the best combs at hand for 

 outside combs, and frames with starters or fragmentary 

 combs for middle. Let things stay in that shape till near 

 evening of the second day ; ilien put in your dirty old ones 

 in place of the previous combs or starters. If you want to 

 give a full set of dirty combs, make about three spells of 

 putting them in, on different days. 



SICTION-CLEAXING EXPERIMENTS. 



C. Davenport seems, to be at his best, on page 293, 

 where he gives his manifestly considerable experience in 

 cleaning sections. Queer that so many use sandpaper, and 

 all his sandpaper efforts were failures. Quite likely he is 

 right, that the propolis of some regions is much more sticky 

 and difficult to adapt a machine to than that of other re- 

 gions. Also, I would add, the propolis of September is 

 much more dauby than that of July. And probably, too, 

 some have reported success when they have not cleaned 

 more than a dozen sections as a basis for their report. And. 

 so it is rapidly revolving nutmeg-grater for edges, and 

 rapidly revolving knives for flat surfaces. Why not give 

 up the kinds of super that let bees get at any flat surfaces? 



SQUARE CANS VS. BARRELS FOR HONEY. 



G. W. Wilson (page 290) would fain have barrels instead 

 of square tins because they are easier to handle. Founding 

 too much on his reason. A couple of square tins boxt is 

 not nearly so hard to handle as a red-hot cooking-range ; 

 and if it's the best package I guess we had better contrive 

 to handle it somehow. 



DIFFERENCE IN HONEY AND BEES. 



" Many men of many minds." I like the plump impu- 

 dence witti which W. H. Eagerly says there is as much dif- 

 ference in the honey of different strains of bees as in the 

 butter of different breeds of cows. Pag-e 292. 



AN EGG-SC.\TTERING OUEEN. 



" When a queen scatters her eggs pinch her head."' 

 Henry Alley, who says this, is one of the oldest and fore- 

 most authorities on queens. Her majesty should lose no 

 time in deciding that she can do a little better on a pinch. 



A QUEER SPRING AND BEE. 



When Prof. Cook reports from California that early 

 flowers are late and late flowers early, I guess we shall have 

 to admit that the spring of '99 was a queer spring. And 

 also queer is that bee with one eye centrallv located. Page 

 307. 



FL.4VOR OF BASSWOOD HONEV. 



When we strike a new scheme that's surely going to be 

 gay, how sure we are to omit some little item necessary to 

 success. Mr. Gross, page 290, furnishes an excellent illus- 

 tration. He saw extracted honey sell for 24 cents a pound 

 in Switzerland, and thereupon sent some. Didn't occur to 

 him that folks in Europe are not accustomed to the flavor 

 of basswood honey. 'Tater thinks that that strong mintv 

 flavor he speaks of in old basswood honey is caused by being 

 extracted too soon. Thick, t/ioroly-r'i-pe basswood honey is 

 delicious when it is old. 



AGAVE AND ITS HONEV. 



" Nasty " color and mean smell are considerable draw- 

 backs for an ornamental plant. A fluid dram of nectar 

 drawn at one time from four flowers an inch across is 

 "some." These meditations are on the agave plant as 



