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$i£spER\tAR^'\® "Medina-Ohio- 



Vol. XXXL 



MAR. I, J 903. 



No. 5. 



Br.C. C.Miller. 



Mr. Editor, it's bad enoug-h for you to 

 try to " work '' me; but when you sick W. 

 W. Brockunier on me, p. 160, you're going 

 too far. 



I THINK several queens have been report- 

 ed like that one on p. 133. I have had just 

 one. She kept laying all right, but never 

 an Q^^ hatched. I killed her. 



D. I. Wagar, in binding Gleanings, p. 

 158, gauges the punching by using a pre- 

 viously punched number. He may like bet- 

 ter a punched piece of tin as a gauge. 



I THOUGHT— still think — that we ought to 

 have had a new election for a General Man- 

 ager. But I believe in submitting to the ma- 

 jority, and the thing now to do is to push 

 forward unitedly together. 



Hon. Redfikld Proctor, U. S. Senate. 

 Have you written him, urging additional 

 appropriation? See page 136. [It may be 

 too late to write now; but it will do no hurt 

 to send a letter, at all events. — -Ed.] 



A GOOD IDEA, that of J. P. Lytle, p. 156, 

 to have a strip on the bottom of the hive to 

 support the bottom-bars of frames with new- 

 ly transferred combs. If not prevented in 

 some way, heavy transferred combs are 

 sure to make bottom-bars sag. 



Studying Utah bulletins has made J. A. 

 Green rather blue about alfalfa — p. 139. A 

 good dose of the Colorado bulletin will cheer 

 30U up, Jimmie. [Get a stack of those bul- 

 letins and hand them out, Jimmie, to those 

 ranchmen in your neighborhood. — Ed.] 



Butterflies swarming on alfala-blos- 

 soms and blossoms blasting. Isn't it pos- 

 sible the butterflies lay eggs in the blos- 

 soms, and the larvjt get in some lively 

 work? [Very possible. Prof. Cook refers 

 to the same matter in this issue. — Ed.] 



Dr. Eastwood suggests fences to get 

 brood-combs built straight, p. 159. Colvin's 

 comb-guides were used for that purpose 

 more than 40 years ago, but were cast aside 

 long ago. [But foundation was not in use 

 at that time. Possibly that would make a 

 d i ff erence. — Ed. ] 



A WORD to beginners. Whatever else you 

 may believe or not believe, set it down as 

 one fixed article in your creed that the 

 queen is the all-important factor in a colo- 

 ny, and that the time and trouble taken to 

 rear the very best will yield immense re- 

 turns on the investment. 



The answer to I. D. Giver's question, 

 p. 150, is true, but the question might be 

 answered more fully by saying that for ex- 

 tracted honey it works all right to raise 

 three, four, or all the frames of brood above 

 excluder, leaving queen below, and if all 

 are raised he may have no swarming. 



C. M. Aarons can not get a laying-work- 

 er colony to accept any kind of queen, page 

 155. Let him try a virgin just out of the 

 cell, or not half a day old. Remember, too, 

 that it is not a single worker that's laying, 

 but a large number are at the miserable 

 business. They probably just quit when a 

 better layer starts in. 



C. H. W. Weber I know to be a very solid 

 sort of German, so I put a good bit of faith 

 in his experiment with formalin for foul 

 brood, p. 151. Just as I said in a Straw 

 some time ago, if formalin kills every thing 

 in the comb, then we can save our foul- 

 broody combs. [The experiment of Mr. 

 Weber is certainly interesting. We shall 

 hope to try it if given an opportunity this 

 summer. — Ed.] 



"Two BUNCHES of bees are never as 

 good for wintering as the same number in 

 one cluster," page 154. Right. And the 

 one cluster will winter, probably, not quite, 

 but very nearly, as well if a thin board is 

 shoved down through the middle of it. 

 Thafs just the way it is when two nuclei 

 are properly lodged in one hive. I've many 

 a time seen them in the cellar in winter 

 clustered just like a single cluster with the 

 division-board between them. 



