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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Aug-. 31, 1899. 



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

 By " COGITATOR." 



APIS MELLIFERA IS HER NAME. 



When Ann and Horatio went to be married, 

 Approachinf.' the altar they luckily tarried — 

 And some one found out that her name was not ri^ht; 

 "Twas Anna, not Ann, on her baptismal nigrht — 

 Ho's — Anna I I 



'Spects we also shall have to hosanna the chap who 

 first found out that the honey-bee — her name — is not Apis 

 mellifica, but Apis niellifera. We've used the wrong name 

 for a good part of a lifetime (without realizing how much 

 we were losing by it), but let's have it right if it takes a 

 leg. Some time about the dawn of the 21st centur\' we'll 

 get to the end of these abominable, and seerainglj' useless, 

 changes of scientific names. See Editorial Comments, 

 page 456. 



MISS PICKARD PERHAPS THE PICK OF THE PILE. 



I suspect Miss Pickard is right, that the latter half of 

 this century has seen more development of apiculture than 

 all the centuries gone before. Many daughters have done 

 — apiculturally — but in keeping 111 colonies of bees at an 

 out-apiarv she rather seems to lead them a lap or two. 

 Page 4+9.' 



THE DADANT QUINTET. 



And the opening picture, page 465, is one of the very 

 best we have had lately — two men who look as if they were 

 going to smile, and three boj-s, to whom as yet life is too 

 earnest to smile at. Altho we can't always look very deeply 

 into boys' hearts by looking at their faces, it looks as if the 

 Dadants had lawful rights to a quietly proud smile. 



THE DEAD BROOD MYSTERY. 



Tha't California dead brood, ^which isn't foul brood, 

 must be quite a recondite mysterj'if Prof. Cook, after sev- 

 eral years of experience with it, can't tell for sure whether 

 it is starvation or not. I'll say oif hand (like other folks 

 who don't know what they're talking about) that it isn't star- 

 vation. Short rations help it on, or perhaps hinder the 

 bees from resisting it successfully (same thing in regard to 

 foul brood exactly), but starvation is not going to kill any 

 considerable of brood after they are capt over. Page 450. 



Hello ! here seems to be the same thing it) Minnesota. 

 as told on pag^e 518. 



ISLAND-REARED QUEENS AND RATTLESN.\KES. 



And so Rambler has little inclination toward island- 

 reared queetis. Page 451. I merely wonder why they don't 

 come in vogue. Or does in-breeding do more harm than 

 purity can possibly do of good ? And Rambler also speaks 

 as if rattlesnakes were unusually plenty this j'ear with him. 

 I wonder if there is such a thing as a general rattlesnake 

 revival. Here for many years there were none. The local 

 wise man said ash leaves kept them away. (Plenty not far 

 distant.) Then again for manj' years, beginning not far 

 from 1860, rattlesnakes were disagreeably plenty. Then 

 again for a good many j-ears there were few or none. This 

 year we have rattlesnakes again. 



GLUCOSE MIXTURE AND POOR HONEY. 



From Herman Moore's excellent essay, page 454, I will 

 repeat again this telling sentence : " The sale of a pound of 

 mixture (glucose and something else) has defrauded the 

 honest apiarist out of the market for ten pounds of genuine 

 honey." And Tater would add that the apiarist may also 

 commit the same fraud upon himself by selling a pound of 

 honey which, altho genuine, is poor. 



MY ENEMY, THE HONEY-BARREL. 



I must try to be fair with my enemy, the honey-barrel ; 

 and if Editor Hill, page 458, has shipt several carloads of 

 honey in cans, and several in barrels, and the cans lost tlie 

 most by leakage, I'll say it surprises me, and possibly I 

 ought to be more than surprised — reconstructed. However, 

 if the leakage on all the lots was but a trifle, the signifi- 



cance of the experience would be small after all. Guess 

 I'll remain among the hostiles, and read that editorial on 

 page 473 some more, until I hear from some other fellow. 



ITALIANS STILL "GRIP" THE M.iJORITY. 



On the question whether to Italianize or not (for honey 

 alone) the 30 senators at present count out: For keeping 

 the blacks, 3 ; for hybrids, 3 ; on the fence, 2 ; for Italianiz- 

 ing, 22. Some of us have been- thinking that the Italian 

 was losing its grip, but this doesn't look like it. Page 459. 



A CHANCE TO POP INTO POPPY-LORE. 



Dr. Peiro's bees are only like everybody else's bees 

 when they revel in the poppies, and seemingly- wish they 

 could devour them completely. Page 461. Here's a not- 

 yet-taken chance for somebody to find out something. We 

 don't expect bees to get very enthusiastic about pollen 

 merely ; and these don't hold still enough to be after 

 honey; and opium-eaters (at least human opium-eaters) are 

 languid in their manifestations. 



ODOR OF NAPHTHALINE FOR FOUL BROOD. 



Odor of naphthaline always present in tlie hive for foul 

 brood. Worth thinking of for very badly infected loca- 

 tions. Editor Cowan, page 468. Does not X-;// anything, 

 but prevents development. 



A COMMENT ON THE PROGRESSIVE SERMON. 



And what shall I saj' about the progress sermon of L. 

 J. Templin, page 468? Good. But we hear it pretty often, 

 for one thing. Guess it's mostly so, that when a man can 

 no longer progress, nor even cheerfully let other people, 

 it's a good thing for Death to come along. One thing he 

 didn't tell us about is the common and pestilent chap who 

 wants the multiplication-table to progress also — or at least 

 divers other things which have reacht. or nearly reacht, the 

 ultimatuiu. We are all in danger of forgetting, in this pro- 

 gressive whirl, that there is any such thing as ultimate 

 truth. 



PROGRESSING UPSIDE DOWN. 



Yes, here it is again ; those young Wisconsin bees, 

 page 470, have got the Modern Progress : and so, of course, 

 they must stand t'other end up in the cells from what old- 

 fogy young bees do. If their human prototypes could only 

 get themselves somewhere where they could never gnaw 

 out — it might not be so well with them, but it would be bet- 

 ter for the rest of us. 



A CASE OF OUTSIDE IN THE INSIDE. 



My ears prickt up like those of an interested rabbit, at 

 the succulent and queer new idea of setting frames of 

 young brood at the outside of the hives. Page 471. Badly 

 taken in. It means outside in the inside, not in back be- 

 side the outside. 



QUEENS REARED BY A OUEENLESS COLONY. 



Dr. Miller's reasoning, quoted page 471, strikes me as 

 very good, and also important. That when a full colony 

 suddenly becomes queenless they will rear a lot of poor 

 queens from too-old larva;, but not at first. Let them 

 sweetly and entirely alone, and they'll come out with a 

 good queen. Poor ones reared later because at that time 

 they have only too-old larva;, and they have queens " on 

 the brain " too much to stop with the first batch. 



And the reproof of Dr. Miller for assuming equal stand- 

 ing with one who had reared queens by tVie thousand seems 

 to me a little too strong. Mr. Hutchinson says he used the 

 method a year or two. Pin that down, and it might be that 

 he reared his first year's queens that way, and a few the 

 second year — hardly into the thousands as a beginner in 

 the queen market — and the years are too few. Bees are 

 versatile creatures, and the conditions under which they 

 work are variable also, and therefore it takes experience 

 spread over many years to be anything like sure on such a 

 question as whether they will start more queen-cells the 

 second, third and fourth days — more than possible that 

 there is both a red side and a blue side to the shield. A 

 queen-breeder is apt to rush the season : a honey-producer 

 is more apt to see bees in entirely normal conditions. 

 Started a little too early, and with colonies not quite strong 

 enough, and what Mr. Hutchin.son narrates is not far from 

 what I should expect. I'm not sure of my ground, but have 

 a decided impression at least, that in a honey-flow, with the 

 colony tiproariously strong, and multitudes of eggs and 

 brood in all stages, thev sometimes don't start cells at all 

 for a day or two— instead of all the first day, as Mr. H. gen- 



