1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



258 



To Encourage the Use of Honey is a theme 

 that deserves some hard thinking. How to do it — that's the 

 question. In one of my exchanges I recently read this pai;a- 

 graph touching on the subject : 



If the bee-lceepers, through their associations, could es- 

 tablish agencies in the great central markets for the sale of 

 their honey by which consumers could be convinced of its 

 purity, an increased demand might be made for the extracted 

 product, and through it as well a larger consumption of the 

 comb honey. The use of honey is not what it should be, and 

 would be encouraged by such a move. 



To be "convinced of its purity " — that's what consumers 

 want. There's no trouble to sell honey if once you can thor- 

 oughly convince the consumer that you have the genuine 

 thing. That's why the home market is better than any other 

 —you deal with people who know you, and you have less work 

 to do in the "convincing" business. 



True, " the use of honey is not what it should be ;" and he 

 who creates or enlarges a demand for the pure article is a 

 benefactor not only to bee-keepers, but to consumers as well. 



Why would it not be a good plan for all the large honey- 

 producers in a certain neighborhood to select the best man in 

 their number, and send him to some large city for the express 

 purpose of retailing their crops during the fall and winter ? 

 The honey could be graded, and a common label or stamp 

 used, guaranteeing purity and satisfaction. I believe a good 

 trade could thus be worked up in many cities, which would 

 annually take large quantities of honey to supply. 



I would like to see this plan tried, as outlined above, if 



thought worthy. 



■*—-»■ 



Life is Too Sliort. — The Genesen, 111., News gives 

 some excellent advice in one short paragraph. Read it, and 

 then never " go a-skunking :" 



Life is too short to spend it in hating people. There are 

 so many people in the world that are pleasant. Don't pause 

 to hate ; but if you find a man you can't get along with — the 

 music of whose voice you cannot win — just let him alone. 

 You can easily supply yourself with a friend in his place. 

 Don't think about him, for wrath, even if unexpected, works 

 disaster to you. Rage and hate burn you up inside, and make 

 you old. Anybody prefers a pretty squirrel to a skunk ; yet 

 who would spend half his life running around after skunks 

 and kicking them because they are not squirrels ? 



^rr)or)Q tJ^e Bee-Papers 



Conducted by " GLEAXBR." 



BOTTOM-BOARD FEEDING. 



C. Theilmann speaks enthusiastically, on page 201, of 

 the plan of tilting up the front of the hive and pouring the 

 feed in at the entrance. If I remember rightly, Dr. Miller at 

 one time reported using this plan on a large scale, and was 

 well pleased with it, till he found out by close watching that 

 too many dead bees were carried out at every such feeding. 



THE PUTUKE OF BEE-KEEPING. 



The Review is somewhat taken up with this question. 

 L. A. Aspinwall thinks improvements will enable specialists 

 in bee-culture to remain such, the chief desiderata being "the 

 prevention of swarming and a perfect system of wintering in 

 the open air." Eugene Secor thinks the survival of the fittest 

 will solve the problem, and that "flowers will continue to 

 secrete nectar and apicultural enthusiasts will continue to be 

 born." C. P. Dadant says that so long as crops are raised, 

 honey can be produced, or else farming itself would become a 

 side-issue. To this. Editor Hutchinson makes the rather 

 gloomy rejoinder, " If all the natural sources of honey are 

 cut away, and the crops that we raise are not honey-producing, 

 then where are we ?" But bee-keepers are a hopeful set, and 

 we may expect that new plants will come into the farmer's 

 program that are honey-producing, such as crimson clover and 

 Lathyrus sylvestris, which are now having quite a boom. 



J. F. GATES' MANAGEMENT NOT FOE TRANSFERRING. 



This is favorably mentioned by Mr. Abbott on page 206, 

 but is in no way intended, as might be gathered from Mr. 

 Abbotts' remarks, to take the place of transferring. Mr. 

 Gates does nothing in the line of transferring, but keeps his 

 immense box-hives with their colonies from year to year, and 

 that's all he does keep from year to year. He gets no honey 

 from these box-hive colonies, only swarms. The swarms are 

 put into small hives to give all the honey possible, but are not 

 kept over winter. The plan is well worth thinking over. 



WHITE AND ALSIKE CLOVER. 



W. J, Cullinan complains on page 187 that " pastures are 

 grazed so closely as to afford even the persistent and low-grow- 

 ing white clover but little chance to bloom." There must be 

 false economy on the part of the stockmen, for if clover is 

 grazed too close to bloom, it is grazed too close for its greatest 

 total yield as pasture, and proper grazing is usually considered 

 as a good thing for the bees because it lengthens the season of 

 blooming. His remarks on Alsike are good, and his estimate 

 of the increased yield of seed over red clover are strongly 

 endorsed by Waldo F. Brown, in Prairie Farmer, Mr. Brown 

 thinking Alsike will yield nearly double as much seed as red. 



PREVENTING PROPOLIS ON TOP-BARS. 



On page 191, J. W. Hoffman thinks the sticking of pro- 

 polis on top-bars would be prevented by covering the top-bars 

 with tin, but he doesn't give any reason for thinking so. 

 Before going into anything of that kind largely, I should 

 advise a trial on a small scale. If he could see the pounds of 

 propolis I've scraped off tin, I think his faith in the scheme 

 would weaken. 



GERMAN BEES SAME AS BLACKS. 



G. H. Allen, page 191, speaks of his gentle German bees 

 and his neighbors' irascible black bees. Lest some beginner 

 might think of getting German bees as something new, it may 

 be well to say that Germans and common blacks are all tha 

 same. 



VIRGIN MOTHERS PRODUCING FEMALES. 



Without meddling with the other questions in the same 

 paragraph, I'll tell Mr. Abbott where he can find an answer to 

 his last question on page 222. Turn to American Bee Jour- 

 nal, Vol. I, page 121, and you will read : " Prof. Von Siebold 

 demonstrated clearly that not only do living larvas occasion- 

 ally issue from a portion of the unimpregnated eggs of the 

 silk-worm, and develop as moths — some male, others female ; 

 but that in various species of butterflies the virgin females 

 regularly lay eggs which, not partially only and occasionally, 

 but uniformly and without exception, produce females." 



HANDLING BEES IN COLD WEATHER. 



"Bee-Master" takes J. A. Green to task for wanting to 

 brush bees when they don't readily fly. They may not need to 

 do anything of the kind in Canada, but farther south it some- 

 times happens that a man does want to do that very thing. 

 No matter if it would be better not to have to do it, if the 

 occasion comes to need it, it's a good thing to know how. 



THE TRUE TEST OF PURITY OF QUEENS. 



On page 181, H. F. Coleman revives a topic that has been 

 much discussed. It may be well to recall that a very large 

 number did not agree with Mr. Coleman's views. Admitting 

 that the true test is the royal progeny, how are we to judge 

 by that? For at the time of the controversy it was stoutly 

 maintained that there was no such thing as a queen that would 

 invariably duplicate herself ? Pure Italian queens imported 

 vary from light to very dark. Will Mr. Coleman tell us how, 

 by looking at a young queen, he can tell whether it's mother 

 is all right ? 



THE BRITISH BEE JOURNAL HAS BIGHTS. 



I Wish Bro. Abbott wouldn't be too restrictive, and would 

 allow the British Bee Journal to feed in the open air if it 

 wants to. (See page 222.) Granted that in the majority of 

 cases it isn't the best way, still if said journal were not so 

 many miles away I think it might show pretty good reason for 

 it at particular times. Here's a nice, warm day when bees 

 are busy flying, but there isn't a thing for them to do but try 

 to rob from each other— there have been several such days 

 this spring; there are no neighbors' bees within reach— why 

 isn't it a pleasant thing to give them something to do ? To be 

 sure, the strong colonies get the lion's share— so they do if 

 they're working on flowers, but you're not feeding to supply 

 the needy. Is it certain that such bees will wear out faster 



