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-.-Jib Hon EY 

 •AHD HOME, 



-INTERESTS 



TublishEdyTHE^l^OoYCo. , 



""sPh" PER\tAR'^'\9 "Medina- Ohio •' 



Vol. XXXI. 



MAR. J 5, 1903. 



No. 6. 



^Q^JDrCCMiLLER, 



Shall I be obliged to get a Spanish dic- 

 tionary in order to understand any thing 

 A. I. Root says, next time he comes to 

 Marengo? 



Basswood-trees are advertised, p. 209, 

 "6X12 inches." Does that mean they're 

 6 inches high and 12 inches through, or 

 t'other wa}'^? [I give it up. — Ed.] 



Bro. Doolittle's visitor, p. 186, asks, 

 " Do I understand j'ou to say that there is 

 a lot of queens running about among the 

 bees, at time of swarming? " and the reply 

 is, "No, not that." But isn'f there a lot 

 running about at time of swarming, in those 

 cases where a lot is found in an after- 

 swarm? 



Sweet cloves, p. 199, 5^6';;/^ to be thrown 

 out of the list that includes alfalfa, buck- 

 wheat, etc., and classed as fit only to be 

 grown on waste land. Now you quit that, 

 Mr. Editor. You know very well that in 

 some places sweet clover holds up its head 

 with alfalfa, and it is constantly growing 

 in favor. [All right. I will include sweet 

 clover.— Ed. ] 



Here's the wav it is given in a German- 

 French bee journal: At the exposition in 

 St. Louis, in the State of Colorado, in 1904, 

 Mr. Swink,the largest owner of bees in Amer- 

 ica, will have 5,000,000 bees in 640 hives, and 

 he intends to furnish them the necessa- 

 rj' flowers for their harvest. [The editor 

 of the German-French bee journal who com- 

 piled this remarkable statement possibly 

 has only a smattering of English, and was 

 unfortunate enough to mix fact and fiction 

 together. — Ed.] 



In response to your desire, Mr. Editor, 

 to know what your readers want, let me say 

 that, in the copy of Gleanings that you 



send me, I'd like a fair proportion of ques- 

 tions and answers. Those who are more 

 experienced than I may afford to skip them, 

 but I never dare to skip one for fear there's 

 something in it that I don't yet know. 

 Then don't forget the pictures — and the 

 footnotes. But if any footnotes get scattered 

 in among these Straws, please let them be 

 respectful. [All right; but if you put chips 

 on your shoulder for me to knock off, I am 

 likely to knock them off. — Ed.] 



You ASK, Mr. Editor, referring to that 

 tent business, p. 184, "But why shouldn't 

 the workers get into the habit of getting in- 

 to the tent as well as through the perforated 

 metal? " For the same reason that the 

 workers don't come into the tent where the 

 drones do; because it isn't the regular en- 

 trance, and is opened only at set times 

 when it is desired to have the virgins and 

 drones fly. [But if it is open only at set 

 times, why shouldn't a queen follow in the 

 wake of the crowd of the workers, wasting 

 her time in trying to get out at the regular 

 entrance? And it is likely, if she fails at 

 this entrance, that she will go to the one at 

 the rear. — Ed.] 



J. W. Baldwin says, p. 199, that mother- 

 wort is not given in the ABC. Look again, 

 friend Baldwin ; it's there, in its proper 

 place, between milk- vetch and mountain 

 laurel. The editor wouldn't answer you 

 whether feeding bees makes them lazy, but 

 3'ou needn't worr}' about that. You'll have 

 to study up some prett}' bad plan of feeding 

 if you succeed in making them lazy. [But 

 it is not true, doctor, that there is danger of 

 feeding, when there is honey in the fields to 

 such an extent as to make the bees actually 

 lazy ? that is, they look to the feeder rather 

 than to the field. A. I. R. concluded, from 

 an experiment that he conducted once, that 

 he made one or two good colonies actually 

 lazy right in the height of the honey-flow. 

 —Ed.] 



That S921.60 in the treasury of the N. A. 

 B. K. A. has a healthy look. [Whatever 

 m^ly be said of Mr. Secor's course, in the 

 way of criticism, the fact stands out clear 

 and strong that he has carefully husbanded 

 the funds of the bee-keepers put into his 



