^1 



• DELVOTEID 



'To-Bele.^- 



•AND Honey- /ft 



•INTE.F^EST6 





'-. .hedUTHfAll^OOl'Co. 



i£L2 PERV'EAK""\@"nEoiNA- Ohio • 



Vol XXXI. 



AUG J 5, 1903. 



No. 16 





I AM SURE Wilmon Newell will take it 

 kindly if I suggest what I believe to be an 

 improvement on his entrance-closer, p. 675. 

 Simph' a piece of wire cloth with folded 

 edges, large enough to cover the whole of 

 the entrance, and project an inch upward, 

 and then a piece of lath to nail over it. It 

 costs less, and gives more air. 



After one has been stung a number of 

 times, you say, Mr. Editor, p. 668, "While 

 the pain is just as acute, the swelling and 

 consequent fever do not appear — at least to 

 only a verj* moderate extent." I think it 

 may be added, for the comfort of the novice, 

 that the acute pain does not last nearly so 

 long after one has had enough stings. 

 [Exactly.— Ed. 1 



Referring to wired frames, George W. 

 Strangway asks (page 675) what I have to 

 say with regard to Mr. Doolittle's chat on 

 page 426. Sound — just as I would expect 

 any thing to be from Mr. Doolittle. But I 

 don't see a word in it to hint that Mr. Doo- 

 little has failed to get straight work with 

 wired frames, nor, in fact, any thing to 

 show variance between us. 



Difference in locality is a real thing, 

 no matter how much it is laughed at. Mr. 

 W. K. Morrison, p. 562, says, " When the 

 swarming season arrives, the second cham- 

 ber with drawn combs is added /rt);« below. 

 This is a damper to the swarming fever." 

 In this locality the swarming season does 

 not arrive till after work begins in sections. 

 Very rarely does a colony think of swarm- 

 ing before, most of the colonies not getting 

 the fever till the season is well along. 



This year I have had a number of brood- 

 combs filled with honej* that would have 



been better in sections. I got the honey 

 transferred into sections by giving these 

 combs of honey instead of empty combs 

 to shaken swarms. So far as I could see, 

 these combs of honey were filled just as 

 fast with brood as if empty combs had been 

 given, even if the whole brood-chamber was 

 filled with honey. If the honey was sealed 

 I did some uncapping; but that maj' not 

 have been necessary. 



I wonder if ye editor speaks by the card 

 (page 675) when he says smoke from sound 

 hard wood is less pungent than that from 

 rotten wood. 1 always supposed that the 

 sounder and harder the wood the sharper 

 the smoke. [Yes, I was speaking from 

 practical experience of a few days before. 

 I had been testing some new smokers, try- 

 ing various kinds of fuel, and noted the 

 fact particularly that hard wood did not 

 give the volume of smoke that was given off 

 by porous rotten wood. In fact, all rotten 

 wood is porous — more so than ordinary hard 

 sound timber. If you will come to Medina 

 some time I think I can make your eyes 

 and nose smart more from rotten wood than 

 from any hard wood you can scrape uo. — 

 Ed.] 



A CONFESSION of change of views with 

 regard to colonies that "never think of 

 swarming" is made by the editor, p. 559. 

 Well, I have also a confession to make. 

 I've chased so long and so hard after the 

 will-o'-the-wisp non-swarming that I have 

 become somewhat winded; and although I 

 am still keeping up the chase, it is with a 

 slackened pace; and this year I've done 

 more at shaking swarms than for several 

 years past. Although not half of them 

 were satisfied to make no subsequent effort 

 to swarm, that doesn't count so very much 

 against the plan, for this has been the 

 worst year for swarming I ever knew. [It 

 appears we are now pretty nearly of the 

 same mind, although a month or so ago we 

 were quite far apart in our views. — Ed.] 



W. K. Morrison, p. 672, says "the best 

 distance to space the frames is \% inches 

 from center to center. Even 1>8 is suffi- 



