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Vol XXXL 



MAY 15, J903. 



No. JO. 



Dr.C.CM/LLER, 



In discussing the causes of brace-combs 

 in section-supers, it should not be forgotten 

 that too little room may be a cause. Prob- 

 ablj- an}' colony may be forced to build burr 

 and brace combs by sufficient crowding-, in 

 time of heavy flow. [You are right. — Ed.] 



Paper tied around a hive, and then a 

 close-fitting winter-case over the whole, 

 pro%ed a failure at Medina in wintering 

 bees, while chafi'-packed colonies beside 

 them wintered well (p. 371). But, Mr. Ed- 

 itor, if I understand correctly Arthur C. 

 Miller, his plan was not the same as yours, 

 for he had no case outside the paper. [That 

 is true; but the conditions were more near- 

 ly alike than perhaps appears from my 

 footnote. This matter will be referred to 

 in our next issue by Mr. A. C. Miller. — 

 Ed ] 



Go SLOW about that raw-honey business, 

 p. 380. So much mischief has been done 

 by putting raw honey on the market that it 

 is dangerous to give any encouragement for 

 experiments in that direction. Besides, 

 would it be feasible for the baker to use up 

 all the honey so nearly at one time? Don't 

 bakers use honey throughout the year? 

 And would there be such a great gain after 

 all over the plan of having the honey ripen- 

 ed in the hive ? If the baker is sharp, 

 he'll hardly want to pay full price for the 

 water in the raw honey, to say nothing 

 about the flavor. 



That plan of melting cappings in the 

 oven to get out the honey, p. 381, suggests a 

 plan that I have used with satisfaction. 

 Simply put the cappings in something to 

 let the honej' slowly' drain out. "Knew 

 that before?" Of course, you did. But 

 you remember that, after draining a while, 

 the honey dried on the cappings so it 



wouldn't drain any more. Well, my trick 

 was to set the cappings down cellar before 

 beginning to drain. In fact, the extracting 

 was done down cellar, and it makes a nice 

 cool place for the work. Most of the honey 

 would drain out of the cappings before it 

 was injured by thinning, and the last of it 

 would become very thin with the moisture 

 of the cellar, allowing the cappings to be 

 washed clean without diluting the honey 

 more than was absolutely necessary. But 

 it wouldn't work in places like Colorado, 

 where they keep bread in the cellar. 



You hesitate, Mr, Editor, p. 379, as to 

 what you're going to use to paint the in- 

 sides of your bees green. You say bluing 

 for blue ; now, use bluing sparingly, so 

 as to make light blue, and feed to yellow 

 bees, and the combination of blue and yel- 

 low ought to make green. Indeed, unless a 

 very dark blue be used to make them blue, I 

 should expect a tint of green in it. [It is 

 true, that a combination of blue and yellow 

 makes green. If a bee is filled with yellow 

 nectar (and nearly all nectar is on the yel- 

 low order), the transparent bands will 

 show yellow. If it is filled with a blue 

 nectar it will show a blue, because those 

 bands are white — not yellow, as you sup- 

 pose. The yellow bands we so much ad- 

 mire are yellow because of the color of the 

 fluid back of them. I will try your experi- 

 ment, however, to see whether the blue will 

 turn green in the bees. But I should not 

 expect it. — Ed.] 



Mr. Albert Gale is a man for whom I 

 have respect, but I wish he wouldn't use 

 his influence in the direction of confusion 

 of language by using such expressions as 

 one quoted from him on p. 373, "six hives 

 threw off thirteen colonies." Wicked as a 

 certain Ohio editor is "along that line," I 

 think he must gag at least a little at a. hive 

 throwing off a colony. [The quotation from 

 Mr. Albert Gale was an extract from a 

 foreign publication. We do not feel the 

 same liberty about revising or editing ex- 

 tracts that we do in the case of manuscripts. 

 Why, doctor, I had to revise your manu- 

 script this very day. Indeed, you "gag- 

 ged" me very much bv telling about using 



