162 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



FiiB. 15 



ey that the queen can not find a place to de- 

 posit eggs. I have been very reluctant to 

 accept this as an explanation ; but other 

 bee-keepers assure me such is the case, and 

 some of them say our red-clover strain is 

 worse than any other in thus filling- every 

 empty space with honey. I have sug-gested 

 getting- hybrids, or, better still, some of the 

 Syrian or Holy Land bees, that are such 

 persistent raisers of brood in season and out 

 of season ; but the objection is made that 

 they swarm so much the remedy is worse 

 than the disease. All agree the red-clover 

 bees are the fellows for honey if we could 

 only keep up the population of the hives. 

 Throwing- out the honey with the extractor 

 seems to be the only remed}% and some seem 

 to think the great objection to producing 

 comb honey here is the filling of the brood- 

 nest with honey so no young bees can be 

 reared. The temperature for the last 15 or 

 20 days has been from 75 to 85, day time, 

 and 65 to 75 at night. With 500 colonies in 

 one yard there has been considerable trouble 

 with robbing, a great part of the time, 

 whenever we attempt to take out and put 

 back the combs in extracting. We usually 

 take out from 75 to 100 combs (not taking 

 any with unsealed brood), before doing any 

 extracting. After these are emptied we 

 take out a similar lot, putting the emptied 

 comb in their places. A tent is put over the 

 hive when lifting out the combs and brush- 

 ing the bees off. There are altogether too 

 many bees here in one spot to manage 

 queen-rearing successfully. 



TEMPERANCE, HEALTH NOTES, ETC., IN 

 'CUBA. 



A very good friend of mine said, "Now, 

 Mr. Root, you must not go and write up all 

 the good things about Cuba, and put a 

 rosy coloring on it all, and say nothing 

 about the bad. Be honest and fair, and 

 tell the bad as well as the good." 



Perhaps his timely injunctions are need- 

 ed, especially as my disposition is toward 

 "thinketh no evil," and, besides, it does 

 seem unkind, and out of place, to mention 

 unpleasant things when every one has 

 been so kind and courteous. For instance, 

 a beautiful little woman (a bee-keeper's 

 wife) apologized for giving me a bedroom 

 that was so filled up with crates of nice 

 comb honey I could hardly get into bed; 

 and I did have to turn edgewise to get to 

 my wash-bowl and pitcher in the morning. 

 I might have grumbled at such accommoda- 

 tions, and complained of the "homes" of 

 Cuban bee-keepers; but what would these 

 people, or any body else, have thought of 

 me? I will tell you what I said, and I said 

 it honestly^ too. 



" My good friends, years ago, when al- 

 most a boj', I had dreams of great piles of 

 beautiful comb honey, and very likely I 

 shall dream of such things to-night; and 

 the beauty of it is now and here, that, 

 should I wake up and look about me, I shall 

 find these extravagent dreams have all 

 come to be a reality. Don't you worry 



about putting me to sleep in a place with 

 such surroundings." 



Now in regard to temperance in Cuba. 

 Not only do almost all the stores in Havana 

 sell drinks, but all the stores in the country 

 towns sell drinks, and furnish coffee and 

 refreshments. In Paso Real there are near- 

 ly a dozen stores (general stores we would 

 call them in the North). These all sell 

 drinks, and sell to everybody, black or 

 white; man. woman, or child. Anj'body 

 who has a nickel can get a drink. This is 

 bad, and no doubt much money is paid for 

 drinks that should go for food or to clothe 

 the naked children; but to my great sur- 

 prise I have not yet seen any one the least 

 bit drunk in Cuba. If I am right, there 

 is no tax or license on intoxicants. If one 

 wants to get drunk he can do it with very 

 little money. I can only guess why intem- 

 perance is not worse with the bars all down, 

 as it were. First, there are no screens, and 

 no secrecy about these drinking-places. It 

 is all in ope7i daylight. No one goes behind 

 the counter or into any back room. 



Secondly, there is very little beer sold, 

 comparatively. In Havana there are a few 

 places that advertise beer, but little or none 

 in the country and country towns. The com- 

 mon drink is some sort of red wine, served 

 in little glasses. This wine, I am told, is 

 brought from Spain, in the "garafones" 

 pictured and described on page 903, Nov. 1. 

 I have never tasted it, and don't know how 

 intoxicating it may be. 



There are police, or home guards, all over 

 the land, on the trains, in city, town, and 

 country; but I can not see that they have 

 much if any thing to do. Perhaps their 

 constant presence is a restraint to disorder. 



Again, we hear much of the Cuban coffee 

 — the "drip" coffee that friend Poppleton 

 told us how to make eight or nine years ago. 

 Now, this is the finest ccffee (if one wants 

 coffee) I ever tasted; but the average Cuban 

 does not drink a great quantity of it. 



When I first came here I had some of my 

 old trouble in ths tropics — a tendency to 

 chronic dysentery — and I began to worry 

 for fear I could not get my favorite diet of 

 toast and scalded milk; but I soon found it 

 was no trouble at all. At almost any res- 

 taurant they would come to the table with 

 tw^o tea-kettles, one in each hand. First 

 they would pour into a large tumbler scald- 

 ed milk until you indicated with your fin- 

 ger how high up on the glass; then coffee 

 half an inch, or a whole inch, as you de- 

 sired, was put in to fill up. Now please 

 stick a pin right here — I want to digress. 



Some years ago I told you of a new 

 "health fad " — going without 3-our break- 

 fast. A book has, in fact, been written 

 about it, and lots of good people tell us this 

 simple thing would almost run doctors out 

 of business. Huber has, for the last two 

 years, had only two meals a day from pref- 

 erence, and says now he likes that way 

 better. Well, almost all Cubans have been 

 living this way for years past, for centu- 

 ries for aught I know, and the greater part 



