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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



as well as bee-keeper to sell on commission. 

 When a commission man is honest, usually 

 very little dissatisfaction arises. We say usu- 

 ally, for sometimes an honest man selling 

 on commission is called a knave and a ras- 

 cal when the facts do not sustain the charge. 

 Time and again we have been called on to 

 act as arbitrator, and sometimes we have de- 

 cided in favor of the bee keeper and some- 

 times m favor of the commission man. In 

 one or two instances when decision was ren- 

 dered for the latter we were put in the same 

 category as the commission man, both of us 

 being called knaves. That is what we get 

 sometimes for endeavoring to do a favor by 

 acting as mediator. — Ed.] 



Chopping out here and there is to be seen 

 an increasing feeling that a bee-keeper should 

 have legal control of his territory to make 

 the business at all stable. Much of it in last 

 Review, and the editor says: "No condemna- 

 tion can be too severe for the man who will 

 crowd in upon occupied territory." Just so; 

 and the same thing can be said of stealing; 

 but we wouldn't think of getting along with- 

 out a law against stealing. "The time may 

 come," says he, "when these matters will be 

 adjusted legally, but not in our day, and ev- 

 ery one ought to do every thing possible to 

 prevent this pi'actice of ci'owding." Why 

 not in our day just as much as in any other 

 day, except that bee keepei's are not yet 

 awake enough on the subject? Years ago I 

 brought a hornet's nest about my ears by 

 suggesting such a thing as legal control of 

 bee-territory, and stood alone. Now I am 

 not alone, and there ai-e many signs of awak- 

 ening. When bee-keepers and bee- journals 

 stop frowning upon the moi'al wrong of 

 crowding, and urge legislation, as in all oth- 

 er matters of right and wrong, it will not 

 take long to have such legislation secured. 

 Thanks are hereby extended to Gleanings 

 for views already tending in that direction. 



Editor A. C. Miller, American Bee-keejK'r. 

 says, "Every State should have a law com- 

 pelling bee-keepers to color to a dark shade 

 all syrup fed to bees," which "will at once 

 disclose sugar-syrup honey when it is offered 

 for sale." I'll second that, Bro. M., if you 

 will make i1? black (perhaps a certain propor- 

 tion of lampblack) or some other distinct 

 color that the bees could by no possibility get 

 from natural sources. Aside from your ob- 

 ject it might help to settle some unsettled 

 questions. [The national pure-food law will 

 make it very hazardous business for any one 

 to put out sugar honey. Some chemists say 

 they are now able to detect that product un- 

 erringly, and they are right, for we have put 

 them to the test. At tii'st we feared that su- 

 gar honey might get on to the market and 

 thus cause distrust among consumers. But 

 later years have shown there is not much 

 danger from that source, even without the 

 pure-food law. We know of two or three 

 cases where bee-keepers have attempted to 

 put out the sugar honey and palm it oil; as 

 the genuine product from the fields; but they 

 soon found it did not pay, and acknowledged 



as much to parties who brought the informa- 

 tion to us first-handed. Tnere is not the 

 least objection to putting lampblack or any 

 other coloring-matter in sugar syrup, pi'ovid- 

 ing such coloring-matters are not injurious 

 in themselves; but the effort to get such laws 

 from our legislators may act like a boom- 

 erang, giving the legislature and the public 

 the impression that there is a good deal of 

 such honey on the market. This false im- 

 pression would affect our markets adversely. 

 In the first place, we question the wisdom of 

 such a movement; and, in the second place, 

 we do not think there is a need for it. — Ed.] 



"After clipping, open the fingers on 

 top of the frames, allowing the queen to 

 crawl off' quietly by hei'self," p. 392. Don't 

 you fool yourself; if she is an up-to-date 

 queen, and happens to notice that it is a be- 

 ginner who has been marring her flyers, she 

 will crawl up instead of down every time; 

 and if you don't look out, first you know 

 she will be on top of your hat or left shoul- 

 der. Take a leaf or something of the kind, 

 and when she starts crawling up your hand 

 let her crawl on the leaf, and then quickly 

 lay the leaf on top the frames. If the wind 

 happens to be blowing, leaf and all will go 

 — dear knows whei'e — and it will be fun to 

 see the panic you're in until you find that 

 queen again. "Been there?" Of course 

 I've been there. But I don't let that leaf 

 get away nowadays. [No trouble, doctor, 

 at all, if she be held as directed, and so plac- 

 ed that her head will point down between 

 the frames. When the hold is released she 

 will hurry out of sight, as a queen-bee is 

 naturally timid, and, if pointed right, she 

 will go down between the frames rather than 

 crawl up the sleeve — at least we have never 

 had a queen crawl up the arm, much less get 

 lost in the grass after clipping. But perhaps 

 we do not understand the entire method you 

 use. — Ed.] 



"There may be nv re cool cellars than 

 warm ones, but we cua handle a cellar that 

 is too cool better than one that is too warm," 

 p. 383. JNow you've struck the nail right on 

 the head, Mr. Editor. But the last word has 

 not been said yet. I have seldom met the 

 problem you mention, an outside tempera- 

 ture of 60 or 65, for rarely is there such an 

 outside temperature when bees are in the 

 cellar. But I have had trouble with the out- 

 side temperature at 45; and you may count 

 on trouble ivhenever the tev^ierature is the 

 same inside and out, whether that tempera- 

 ture be 30 or 60°. The point is, it is not the 

 temperature so much as the impurity of the 

 air that makes the trouble; and whenever 

 the inside and outside temperature balance 

 thei'e is no ventilation of the cellar. [Else- 

 where Mr. Holtermann wishes he might have 

 some sort of clockwork arrangement that 

 would run a fan in the chimney We have 

 been giving the matter some thought, and 

 are of the opinion that some sort of gear- 

 work could l)e arranged in connection with 

 a heavy weight to run a fan, possibly all 

 night, or at most with three windings a day. 



