1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1077 



forward confidently for results in other fields, 

 like pickled brood and bee paralysis as Dr. 

 White gets time to investigate in these lines. 



PARCELS-POST. 



There is hardly any thing that would help 

 our common people so much as a parcels 

 post such as most European people are favor- 

 ed with. We now are limited to four pounds, 

 and must pay 32 cents per pound for sealed 

 mail, 16 for merchandise, 8 for books and 

 magazines, and 4 for papers. Our rural ser- 

 vice can not carry parcels, and so is carried 

 on at a great loss. It is probable that the 

 $30,000,000 loss could all be saved, and a 

 clean one hundred million more were all the 

 plans arranged for the people rather than 

 for the express companies. The National 

 Grange is working for this, and the admin- 

 istration favors it, as it does every thing 

 that helps the people. Let us all "cry aloud 

 and spare not." Let the motto be, less post- 

 age, never more than 5 cts. per pound, and 

 at least a 25-pound package. It is believed 

 by some that a one-cent rate per pound for 

 any package, with a limit for letters, would 

 pay and leave no deficit, with the right 

 management. Let us try it. I hope that we 

 shall all talk it, and demand it of our Con- 

 gressmen. 



BEE. K&EPING 



IN THE ^OUTHV£5T 



LOUIS SCtiOlL 



Good news from the South, Mr. Editor. 

 Texas has a pure-food law — no longer a part 

 of the dumping-grounds for adulterators. 



Save the bits of wax and melt them up. 

 Just so much extra profit which is going to 

 waste in entirely too many apiaries. 



Save the waste honey, and the washings 

 from cappings, extractor, uncapping and 

 other honey-cans, etc., and make into vine- 

 gar. Use clean rain water in the washings. 

 This is another waste which would arnount 

 to much extra profit if saved. 

 ^t 



The sumacs of Texas, Dr. Miller, are not 

 very much unlike Rhus (jlabra, with their 

 large white panicles or spikes of small flowers. 

 This is what Mr. Chambers meant in Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal. The fiowers are small, but 

 there are great white plumes of them— p. H08 



The higher prices of wax, and the great 

 loss of colonies this spring, have caused a 

 thorough sorting of combs by those bee-keep- 

 ers who are up to the times. There ought 

 to be fewer drone combs, and crooked and 

 defective ones now, and those left behind 



should be all the best to be had. In conse- 

 quence of this there's been a drop in wax 

 prices. 



Combs infected with larvaj of the wax-moth 

 are set out in the sun against some obstacle 

 so that there are no sheltered parts under 

 which the "worms" may hide from the sun. 

 Then watch them ' ' hike out, ' ' and ?tie sun 

 gets them, leaving the combs free of the pest. 

 Don't leave the combs out too long or in too 

 hot a sun or they will melt. Hundreds of 

 combs have been "disinfected" in this way 

 in our yards. 



.^ 



The end-bar projections of the shallow 

 Hoffman extracting-frames are not a nuisance 

 when uncapping, and they are most valuable 

 in the hive for fast manipulations. A little 

 knack in bringing the knife in and out of 

 play when uncapping can be easily acquired, 

 and will become so natural with the operator 

 that the projections or spacers are never in 

 the way. Twelve years of experience has 

 taught me this, and I have uncapped combs 

 in all kinds of frames. 



Doolittle and Clark, page 889, are right. 

 There are strains of extra-yellow bees that 

 are hardy and hustlers. Out of a yard of 43 

 colonies, the 7 best ones are the yellowest in 

 the apiary, and will average 100 pounds of 

 both comb and extracted honey each. The 

 best is filling its sixth thirty-pound super now. 

 They are all daughters of one golden mother, 

 but not entirely pure Italian, having just a 

 sprinkle of Holy Land blood in her. It is 

 not enough to hurt for breeding-purposes, as 

 her daughters have all come up to her notch, 

 and some better, as honey-gatherers, and from 

 color and appearance they would be called 

 pure goldens. They are a little more cross, 

 but it's the honey I am after. 



A PURE-FOOD LAW IN TEXAS. 



The editor will have to quit calling the 

 South the dumping-ground for adultei'atfid 

 stuff, for Texas has a pure-food law right in 

 line with other States. This law was creat- 

 ed by the last legislature, and conforms to 

 the United States pure-food law. The pure- 

 food bill is known as House Bill 5, creating 

 a pure-food commission, with an appropria- 

 tion of $5000 a year, located at the College of 

 Industrial Arts, Denton, Texas. The bill 

 provides for the appointment, by the Govern- 

 or, of a pure-food commissioner, with a sal- 

 ary of $2000 a year; a deputy commissioner, 

 with $1200 a year, and a stenographer for 

 the office at $600 a year. The act is to pre- 

 vent adulteration, fraud, and deception in 

 the manufacture and sale of articles of food, 

 drink, paints, and drugs. By adulteration 

 is defined the mixing with any substance any 

 thing which dejireciates its strength and pur- 

 ity; the addition of a cheaper substance; the 

 abstraction of a constituent or ingredient; 

 selling an imitation for another article; if 

 any is diseased, decomposed, putrid, infect- 



