850 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1 



2. No objection except the expense and 

 time. Never think of giving a colony more 

 stores than it can possibly consume before 

 the next honey- flow. Twenty-five pounds 

 of sealed stores for outdoor wintering, and 

 fifteen or eighteen for indoor, is ample. If 

 you feed the bees until you jam every comb 

 with honey you will leave no winter-nest 

 for the bees to cluster in, and that would 

 be a positive detriment. Bees, to winter 

 well outdoors, should have a sphere, or 

 space, spanning three or four combs in the 

 center of the brood-nest, that has no hpney 

 in. When extreme cold comes on, the bees 

 will cluster down in the cells, and wedge 

 up into a very small compass. If there is 

 a whole inch of comb honey between the di- 

 vided clusters, you will probably find every 

 one of the divided clusters dead before 

 spring. 



3. Let the bees have all the brood they 

 will rear— the more the better. But I would 

 not encourage brood-rearing after settled 

 cold weather, as the bees, in their attempt 

 to cover the brood, will become chilled, and 

 the number of newly hatched bees would 

 not begin to make up for the loss of other 

 bees that are scattered over the brood, try- 

 ing to protect it.- — Ed.] 



much bear fur. They sometimes struggle 

 to get up into it in the attempt to sting. 

 But the strands of ordinary broomcorn, 

 when applied sidewise, knock the bees off 

 their feet, without the suggestion of bear 

 fur.— Ed.] 



UNFINISHED SECTIONS; BAIT SECTIONS. 



Having read the discussion both ways, I 

 wish to ask if there would not be as many 

 unfinished sections if the second super is 

 placed above the full one as if placed be- 

 low. 



If at the commencement of the honey-flow 

 you should give the bees two empty supers, 

 which would you bait, if not enough baits 

 for both, the yard-man being absent for a 

 month? R. A. Hardy. 



[No, there would be many more unfinish- 

 ed sections if the empty super were put un- 

 der the one partly filled. The very pur- 

 pose and object of putting an empty super 

 on top is to avoid having so many unfinish- 

 ed sections. Bait the lower super. — Ed.] 



STILL ANOTHER BEE-BRUSH. 



I think the best bee-brush j^et is a com- 

 mon whitewash brush. It is soft, does not 

 injure the bees, and is easy to clean. 



Arthur Heinkel. 



Mauston, Wis., Sept. 3. 



[A %vhitewash brush would make an ex- 

 cellent one; but I do not think it would 

 sweep the bees off the comb quite as satis- 

 factorily as an ordinary Cogg shall brush 

 or a brush made of broomcorn, the strands 

 of which have been properly thinned out. 

 To use such a brush, it should be laid flat 

 against the combs and given a side sweep. 

 Do not attempt to use such a brush as you 

 would sweep dirt ofi" the floor. Of course, 

 a whitewash brush would have to be han- 

 dled that way. And right here a little trou- 

 ble arises in angering the bees. The ends 

 of the strands seem to remind the bees of so 



A GLIMPSE OF THE GRAND CANYON, ON THE 

 SANTA FE ROAD. — SEE PAGE 846. 



Please imagine, dear reader, that the el- 

 evation on the further right-hand side of the 

 picture is 13 miles from the tableland away 

 across at the left hand. Then imagine 

 that the crevices between these great rocky 

 cones go down in many places a straight 

 mile. Some faint idea of the enormous dis- 

 tances may be formed when you realize 

 that the shrubbery at the lower right-hand 

 corner is composed of pretty fair-sized trees. 

 The crevices between these rocky pyramids 

 are canyons that might make almost a day's 

 walk. These stratified rocks are colored 

 with almost all the tints of the rainbow. If 

 you will look closely you will see the strata of 

 rocks, one layer on top of another, and the 

 color changes with each layer. Some of them 

 are as white as chalk; others are red like red 

 chalk. Again, there are white and clouded 

 layers like marble. Many of the minerals 

 glisten in the rays of the sun likebroken glass 

 or flinty rocks; and as you go down the can- 

 yon you are constantly met with optical il- 

 lusions such as I have described elsewhere. 

 You feel as if you were fenced in and can't 

 go any further. But a crevice soon opens 

 out; and where you did not suppose it was 

 possible there was room for any thing, there 

 are acres of rough ground. 



One unfortunate feature that stands in 

 the way of making new explorations is, 

 there are almost no springs where good 

 drinking-water may be found. In many 

 places in the desert we found cavities in the 

 rocks that held water from the rains; but if 

 there are any such around the Grand Can- 

 yon I did not hear of them. In fact, it is 

 dangerous in many ways for people to go 

 out alone in exploring this vast gorge. The 

 week before our visit, two young men lost 

 their lives in trying to swim across a com- 

 paratively quiet place in the river when at 

 the bottom of this great canyon. They 

 wanted to go over to make some explorations 

 on the other side, and they felt sure they 

 could do it safely. 



I am sorry the above picture does not 

 give any glimpse of the trail which we fol- 

 lowed in going down to the river. But friend 

 Hutchinson succeeded in getting a most ex- 

 cellent picture showing a part of the trail 

 and the tents down at the foot of the trail. 

 He will doubtless give the picture in the 

 Review. 



