1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



471 



if needed, and pretty generally I don't wait to see whether it's 

 needed before pulling it down. 



I never wear gloves, because I'd rather stand the few 

 stings I get than to have the discomfort and inconvenience of 

 gloves. 1 don't think bees sting once on the hands where 

 they do twice in the face, and I think I'd rather have two 

 stings on the hands than one in the face. But I have handled 

 some bees so cross that if a pair of gloves had been handy, I'd 

 have put them on. 



The doing without a veil with some bee-keepers looks a 

 good bit like stubbornness. A veteran for whom I have high 

 respect was one day with me, and I offered him a veil. Oh, 

 no ! he never used a veil ; couldn't get him to touch one ; but 

 I noticed he kept the smoker puffing about his head all the 

 time, and I thought if he'd been working with those bees he 

 would have saved time by wearing a veil. 



Evert One to His Own Way. — Messrs. McArthur and 

 Bevins may as well let-up on the controversy about killing 

 bees. They'll never agree. Two elements enter — profit aud 

 pain. One thinks the profit so great that he ignores the pain. 

 Another thinks the pain so great that he ignores the profit. 

 One man may be as kind-hearted as the other, but they meas- 

 ure differently. 



Overstocking. — I gave a very decided nod of assent when 

 F. L. Thompson said on page 437, "Overstocking is some- 

 thing of which little is known, and reliable data are greatly 

 wanted." The fact is that it's exceedingly hard to know any- 

 thing at all about it, and if you should come to something like 

 a conclusion one year, the next year may knock your conclu- 

 sions all endwise. I feel pretty sure that my home-apiary is 

 badly overstocked this year with 60 colonies, and yet next 

 year double that number might do well. One phase of the 

 matter isn't always considered. This very day I was talking 

 with a man who knows so little about bees that he told me he 

 fastened up the entrance to a hive so that not a bee could get 

 out, in order to prevent a swarm leaving. Well, that man 

 has beaten me in average yield of surplus, 10 to 1. And too 

 many will say that his management must be better than mine, 

 when the Simple explanation is that 10 times as many bees are 

 on my territory as on his. Where 50 colonies will starve in a 

 poor season, 5 might yield a good surplus. 



M. Hamet is spoken of on page 488 as "an intelligent 

 and progressive French bee-keeper." A man of prominence 

 and influence he certainly was, but some whom he bitterly 

 opposed in their efforts to introduce movable-frame hives, that 

 could, as he expressed it, " be taken to pieces like a puppet 

 show," would hesitate to call him " progressive." He stub- 

 bornly remained a box-hive man most of his life. Whatever 

 is " progressive " in French bee-keeping, is very largely due to 

 a Frenchman of whom we Americans feel proud — Monsieur 

 Charles Dadant, of Hamilton, 111. 



Yellow Bees. — B. F. Harford says on page 449 : " I 

 will risk the conclusion that the yellow bees are all right in 

 each and every respect, although Dr. Miller and others are of 

 the opposite belief." I don't know exactly what I may have 

 said to which Friend Harford refers, but there's nothing in 

 my belief that hinders me from thinking that his yellow bees 

 may be the best in the world. Being yellow doesn't make bees 

 bad, and it doesn't necessarily make them good. Where great 

 pains is taken to breed for color, there is danger of Its being 

 at the expense of more valuable qualities, and yet there may 

 be such a thing as retaining all the best qualities along with 

 bright color. Marengo, 111. 



See " Bee-Keeper's Guide" offer on page 479. 



Small Nails for Spacing Frames. 



BY CHAS. A. F. DOERR. 



Referring to my article on page 389, Dr. C. C. Miller, on 

 page 422, asked me to answer some questions in regard to 

 the matter, as follows : 



1. " Will he please tell us whether the top, bottom and end- 

 bars are all the same width, one inch?" Why, Doctor, to 

 secure an accurate spacing of the frames by this method, the 

 top and bottom bars must be of the same width, one inch. 

 That the end-bars are just one inch wide, is not absolutely 

 necessary, but I make them so, because the frames are then 

 easier to put together, so that they are square in every way, 

 and not wry. This is very important — not to get troubled 

 with brace-combs. 



2. " What is the thickness of the top-bar ?" As I make 

 my frames (Gallup) out of common laths, such as are used in 

 house-building, all the bars have the same thickness of these 

 — 5/16 to % of an inqh. In making a Langstroth frame, I 

 think the top-bar should be thicker in order to prevent sag- 

 ging. 



3. "Please tell us why the two nails on one side of the 

 frame are not both at the same end." This very same idea 

 struck me two days after sending my former article, and I at 

 once made a set of frames, at the same time putting the spac- 

 ing nails as near the ends of the bottom and top-bars as would 

 be advisable ; hived a swarm on them, and compared this new 

 frame with its elder brother (or were they sisters?). The 

 younger was much the superior of its elder, as the frames can 

 now be taken out of, and put into, the hive without injuring 

 the neighboring frames in the least. 



4. " How far apart must the frames be pushed so you can 

 easily put another frame between them ?" If all the frames 

 are square in every way (not wry), J^' to ^ of an inch will do. 



As to brace-comb, I think it Is very important that all 

 hives stand perfectly level ; that the frames are made rectan- 

 gular ; that top and bottom bars are not wry. If this is the 

 case, the frames will hang perpendicularly in the hives, the 

 combs can be built perpendicularly in the frames, and they 

 can be exchanged as you please, and yet the surfaces of the 

 combs will remain about the same distance apart. I believe 

 many are negligent on this point. Maywood, 111. 



Somethiug on Nectar-Secretiou — Paralysis. 



BY JAMES CORMAC. 



Mr. L. S., of Aurora, 111., asked Dr. C. C. Miller how long 

 white clover {Trifolium repens) has to bloom before it yields 

 honey (see page 393). L. S. said that it was in full bloom, 

 but the bees did not work on it. The Doctor replied that at 

 Marengo, June 3, it presented the same conditions, and 

 further, that there was a lack of rain, but did not believe it 

 was from that cause. The same conditions prevailed here in 

 Iowa, but no lack for rain, as we are now and have been well 

 supplied. Vegetation, for the past 20 years, has never been 

 more luxuriant. It is from the want of moisture for the past 

 two years, and from the same cause elsewhere, where rain did 

 not fall in sufiiclent quantities last year ; also too close pas- 

 turing during the season. 



The year 1894 will be long remembered as one of exces- 

 sive heat and great drouth — almost an entire failure in rain- 

 fall for months ; vegetation withered and became as sear as if 

 stricken with frost; even large, stately trees succumbed, and 

 were killed outright. Hot winds scorched and dried up almost 

 all vegetation in many localities. 



All vegetable growth Is, by aggregation of cells, filled with 

 starch composition, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, with two 

 equivalents of water. This starch is stored in the roots, 



