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tr Si°°p[ryear^''\@ "Medina- Ohio- 



Vol XXXI. 



OCT, I, J 903. 



No. 19 





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^r.C.CMlLLER. 



That cellar of James Hilbert's, p, 798, 

 seems to be about perfection. 



Pollen from sweet clover is lighter than 

 that from white clover, and more inclined 

 to yellow. 



"A NEW QUEEN usually should be g-iven 

 to a colonj' after the main honey- flow," p. 

 809. That will be understood by some as 

 advising- to remove all queens after the hon- 

 ej'-flow and replace with new ones. You 

 don't mean that, do j'ou? 



"Venezuela as a bee country," p. 799. 

 When I read, " Rightly speaking, there is 

 no government in Venezuela," I didn't need 

 to read any further. I'm not going to Ven- 

 ezuela. Before having lawless human be- 

 ings as companions, I'd much prefer the 

 quails, ground-squirrels, and jack-rabbits 

 in the wilds of California. 



Rain water, says the German, Steigel, 

 is the right thing to use in melting wax. 

 Well water, especially that where yellow 

 clay or red sand abounds in the soil, con- 

 tains iron, and this browns the wax, no 

 matter how carefullj' the melting be done. 

 [Yes, there is something in it; but not all 

 well water is bad. — Ed. J 



Foul brood, we are told, smells like an 

 old glue-pot. But most of us don't know 

 how a glue-pot smells. Couldn't 3'ou give 

 us some other comparison? [There is 

 nothing else that smells so nearly like foul 

 brood in its advanced stages as the cabinet- 

 maker's glue-pot when the glue is warm. 

 I could not describe the odor; and there- 

 fore suggest that \ou step into a furniture- 

 store or any cabinetmaker's shop and ask 

 to smell of the proprietor's warm glue. — 

 Ed.] 



In France, according to government fig 

 ures given in U Apiculteur, for the ten 

 years ending with 1901, the average num- 

 ber of colonies was 1,608,412; honey per 

 colony, 10 pounds 11 ounces; wax per col- 

 onj^ 3 pounds. The small yield of honey 

 and the large proportion of wax (28 pounds 

 of wax to every 100 pounds of honey) sug- 

 gests that the brimstone-pit is still in fash- 

 ion. 



Mr. Editor, you say, p. 792, "The de- 

 positing of propolis in Marengo is much 

 worse than in Medina, ' ' and in that way you 

 account for the greater accumulation be- 

 tween top-bars. No, j'ou'll find very little, 

 if any, propolis between top-bars — wax, 

 pure wax, propolis galore elsewhere, but 

 wax between top-bars. [I knew I saw pro- 

 polis galore, and very likely it was "else- 

 where "than in the places referred to. — 

 Ed.] 



You TELL US, Mr. Editor, p. 796, H. R. 

 Boardman has a way of keeping honey liq- 

 uid indefinitely, but don't tell us how. If 

 you know, tell. [But we do not know. I 

 suspect that the method of keeping the hon- 

 ey in this liquid condition is a secret with 

 Mr. Boardman. He makes a specialty of 

 bottling honey for the wholesale and retail 

 trade. Why should he give away a secret 

 that is worth to him many dollars, for as a 

 secret it is better than a patent? — Ed.] 



Sylviac reports in D ApicuUeur an ex- 

 periment with a nucleus in which he es- 

 tablished the maximum daily ration of a bee 

 in winter at .028 gram. Well it is for us that 

 a bee doesn't do its maximum in ordinary 

 wintering; for at the rate given, a colony 

 of 20,000 in four months would require 148 

 pounds of honey! [There is something a 

 little ofl; in Sylviac's "science." True 

 science ought to be mingled a little with 

 the practical. A little calculation such as 

 3-ou have made would have soon shown him 

 that something was wrong. — Ed.] 



That Sunday at the Grand Canyon that 

 A. I. Root tells about, p. 810, was an un- 

 usually long day. When asked to join the 

 exploring party, I said, " I'm no conscience 



