1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



529 



ly drawn out? At all events, that seems to 

 dovetail better with j'our argument later on. 

 Now, it is possible that j'ou are right — that 

 you can get more actual money by creating- 

 a vacuum between the brood and honey than 

 you can bj' Hershiser's plan of keeping 

 brood and honey together all the time. 

 This is a "nice point," as the lawyers 

 would sa3\ and I should like to hear from 

 our practical comb-hone}' producers. To 

 produce comb honej' for exhibition purposes 

 is one thing; to produce comb honey for the 

 purpose of getting the most monej' is an- 

 other proposition entirelj'. — Ed.] 





A French journal says a good filler for 

 furniture made of mahogany or other dark- 

 colored wood can be made by melting to- 

 gether 500 parts of beeswax and 125 parts 

 of resin, and adding 125 parts of Indian 

 red. It is very useful in plugging up 

 holes or splits in furniture made of such 

 woods. 



" I love to steal awhile away" has been 

 sung to another tune at the instance of 

 General Manager France. The Ajuerican 

 Bee Journal says: "Mr. France reports 

 having caught three persons guilty of steal- 

 ing from an apiary of one of the members 

 of the National, on May 16. They were 

 given to the 25th to settle, or take results 

 of the enforcement of the law. Two of the 

 three, before the day was gone, came and 

 settled, and it was thought the third would 

 do so very soon." But there still remains 

 the disagreeable feeling of being consid- 

 ered a thief in the ej'es of the community. 



A French journal, devoted to the interests 

 of bakers, says, "In a little valley border- 

 ing on the Rhine the cutting of agates fur- 

 nishes employment for a numbc" of persons. 

 Before cutting these stones they are soaked 

 in honey for eight hours, and then in sul- 

 phuric acid for three hours. This opera- 

 tion gives to the stones a beautiful cloudy 

 appearance which is greatly admired in 

 the finished product. The grape sugar 

 contained in the honey, by its combustion 

 in the sulphuric acid, produces this discol- 

 oration. Every agate-cutter uses every 

 year about 100 lbs. of honey in his work- 

 shop. 



yk 



An exchange says a shipment of 600 bar- 

 rels of honey recently left Mexico for New 

 York. Last year Rambler showed that 

 these large quantities of honey are design- 



ed for European markets, and simply touch 

 at New York on the way. It hardly seems 

 likely that so large an amount would be 

 thrown on that one market, even as large a 

 city as New York is, without our New 

 York correspondents reporting it. But there 

 is no disguising the fact that our neigh- 

 boring republic on the south presents a vast 

 field for the bee-keeper, and that it is be- 

 ing fast developed for that purpose. The 

 correspondence at this office alone shows 

 that. 



\ii 



The editor of the American Bee Journal 

 gives us the following useful hints which 

 every writer for bee- journals should ob- 

 serve. I've been wanting to say the same 

 thing for a good while; but I rather dislike 

 to tell folks what seems to be self-evident. 

 The editor says, "The correct use of bee 

 terms, at least a few of them, is a matter 

 of more or less perplexity to those not fa- 

 miliar with them. An ^^^ in a cell hatches 

 out into a larva. Larva is the singular, 

 larvcp the plural; one larva, two or more 

 larvcr. Larval is the adjective; as, 'bees 

 in the /arz^a/ state;' N'licleus is the singu- 

 lar, nuclei the plural; one nucleus, two or 

 more nuclei. When used as an adjective, 

 nucleus is the word — nucleus plan, not nu- 

 clei plan of increase, no matter if a hun- 

 dred nuclei are used." Some of our most 

 experienced writers puzzle us at times by 

 using 7iuclei and micleus interchangeablj'. 



A correspondent of the American Bee 

 Jojirnal says "the question whether bees 

 are beneficial to orchards is somewhat 

 problematical. Bee-men, who are quite ac- 

 curate observers, are positive about it, and 

 are, of course, in favor of the bees' useful- 

 ness to horticulture. Fruit-growers, on the 

 other hand, often claim to find crops just 

 as good, or even better, without the aid of 

 the bees." Some 3'ears ago it was claimed 

 by some that vegetable life is sometimes 

 spontaneous. To prove it a certain culture 

 of boiled stuff was put into a bottle which 

 was then hermetically sealed. In a few 

 days, sure enough, the culture teemed with 

 life But that proved nothing more than 

 that the boiling did not eliminate the first 

 germs of life or else the bottle was not so 

 closely sealed as to exclude germs. So 

 with orchards. Considering the universal- 

 ity of the bee, what fruit-man can say th;it 

 none have been in his orchards? Or if he 

 knows there have been none, how can he 

 prove that his crop would not have been 

 larger if bees had been busy on the blos- 

 soms? If design in nature is evident any- 

 where, it is in the adaptation of the bee to 

 the work of pollination. But that other in- 

 sects may assist in that work is not denied. 

 But what are they? and what reliance can 

 be placed on them as can be on the bees? 

 The writer in question shows very nicely 

 how the blossom attracts the bee, and how 

 the bee in turn scatters the germs of life 

 from blossom to blossom. The experiment 



