19CJ 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



9F<t^ 



there come a warm spell, or our usual ' In- 

 dian summer,' by boring a hole in the top 

 of the hive, if there is none already there, 

 and placing^ a feeder on top, covering- all 

 with a hood, box, half-bushel, or something 

 of that kind." 



"What shall I use for this feeder? I 

 have none." 



" If you do not have a feeder, a suitable- 

 sized tin basin or pan will answer every 

 purpose for such feeding. After having the 

 feed in the pan, pull up some rather short 

 grass and scatter it over the top of the feed 

 for a float, to keep the bees from drowning, 

 and set up a piece of section material in 

 such a way that the bees can climb on it 

 over to the feed. Above all, be sure that 

 all cracks under and about your cover are 

 bee-tight, otherwise j'ou may have a bad 

 time with robber bees, especially should it 

 come off quite warm." 



" Can I not put ofl' feeding till winter just 

 us well? " 



" No I — thousand times no/ It has been 

 put ofl' already too long. Allow me to 

 impress on your mind, so it will always 

 staj" there, that from September 20 to Octo- 

 ber .^ is quite late enough to feed bees." 



" But suppose there come no warm days 

 — what then? " 



" If this should happen, and 3'ou find the 

 bees are nearly or quite destitute of food 

 when winter sets in, take the box hives to 

 the cellar, turn them bottom side up, and 

 every three or four days sprinkle a few ta- 

 blespoonfuls of honey over the bees and 

 combs, having the honey a little more than 

 blood warm." 



*' Will the size of the colony make any 

 difference? " 



'* Yes. If anj' are large colonies, or any 

 seem to require more, use as much as half 

 a teacupful each time, but do not use so 

 much that they will not take it all, as that 

 which runs down in the hive and staj's there 

 will sour, and cause the bees not to winter 

 so well." 



" What will be the chances if I can not 

 feed them this fall? " 



" Bees have been successfully wintered 

 by feeding them while in the cellar in the 

 way I have told you; but the chances are 

 that a loss of feed and bees will be the re- 

 sult. Still, if I were in your place I would 

 trj' it if no warm spell occurs, as you will 

 gain in experience, even if you lose the 

 bees." 



" Would it do to leave them till winter, 

 and then set them in a warm room under 

 netting, to feed? " 



" I should prefer not to try it, though j'ou 

 might one or two, if you wished to. B^rom 

 my experience in the past, such a procedure 

 would cause them to become uneasy and to 

 go to breeding, thus consuming large quan- 

 tities of food, which would in all prob.ibil- 

 itv cause diarrhea, resulting in death. 

 There is a chance for such occurring where 

 fed in the cellar, but not as much as in a 

 warm room." 



" Well, I must go now. Good day." 



Do not fail to read Dr. Kellogg's article 

 in this issue. 



The last issue of the Bee-keepers' Review 

 is quite a California number. I have en- 

 joyed reading the editor's impressions of 

 that beautiful country. It is fair, conserv- 

 ative, and truthful. In reading it over I 

 kept saying to myself, " Yes, that is so ; " 

 and, strangely enough, I had never taken 

 the pains to tell our own readers, just be- 

 cause I did not think of it. Well, if you 

 want to know about California send to W. 

 Z. Hutchinson, Flint, Mich., for his Octo- 

 ber number. 



Dr. J. H. Kellogg, whose article we 

 take particular pleasure in publishing, 

 says, "Honey is practically cane sugar 

 already dif;ested." When Prof. A. J. Cook 

 made a similar assertion some twenty years 

 ago he was almost persecuted — called a 

 heretic, and was denounced in no mild 

 terms. "Digested nectar," said his oppo- 

 nents, "is unscientific, and unsavory in 

 sound;" but since the years have flown by, 

 there is more and more evidence to show 

 that honey is indeed "digested nectar," or 

 sweet alread}' digested, and hence is more 

 readilj' assimilated than the cane sugars of 

 commerce. 



Dr. Kellogg, of the great Battle Creek 

 Sanitarium, is one of the highest medical 

 authorities in the world, and this statement 

 bears with it great weight. If I mistake 

 not, our physicians all over the country ad- 

 mit that honey is one of the most wholesome 

 sweets that one can eat; and some family 

 physicians have recommended honey in pref- 

 erence to cane sugar for their dyspeptic 

 patients. 



FORMALIN adulterated; WHY IT HAS POS- 

 SIBLY FAILED. 



A LETTER from Prof. F. C. Harrison, of 

 the Ottawa Experiment Station, the one 

 who first brought to the notice of the bee- 

 keeping world the use of formalin gas for 

 the treatment of foul-broody combs and col- 

 onies, appears in the September issue of 

 the Canadian Bee Journal, in which he says 

 that formalin is a very much adulterated 

 article; that a good deal of the commercial 

 stuff put out for formalin is very weak, and 

 would prove entirely inadequate for disin- 

 fecting badly diseased combs if used no 

 stronger than the directions call for when 

 the pure article is used. 



This, I have no doubt, will be news to 

 many of our subscribers, and it may ac- 

 count for the partial and complete failures 



