15oG 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15 



should be hai'd times next summer, and ev- 

 eiy thing should fall in price, honey will 

 necessarily go down with the rest. 



ARE BEES KEFLEX MACHINES? 



We hope to begin soon the publication of 

 a translation of the paper by Von Buttel- 

 Reepen, a German scientist and practical bee- 

 keeper as well, on the questinn "Are Bees 

 KeHex Machines?" Themaiter isnll in type, 

 and the first installment will be pul)lishe"d as 

 soon as the proofs are O. Iv'd. While this 

 paper is scientific it is intensely interesting 

 as well as practical, and, as we said before, 

 we are of the opinion it will help to solve 

 many a practical problem that cijq fronts the 

 bee-keeper who is after the dollars and cents 

 as well as the pleasure he can get out of the 

 business. 



poison will crre all forms of rheumatism ; 

 therefore in reading these sensational ac- 

 counts in the papers we should make due 

 allowance for the desire to make a sensa- 

 tional story regardless of fact. 



WHAT TO FEED BEES IN COLD WEATHER. 



Almost every year, when (^old weather 

 comes on, we are asked how to feed bees in 

 mid-winter. We advise giving a comb or 

 combs of sealed stores, as liquid feed in cold 

 weather excites the bees too much. We 

 would not break the cluster to insert this 

 comb, but, rather, lay it flatwise on the top 

 of the brood-nest, separated by a couple of 

 sirlps of wood f ori inch thick. Where the 

 b;ood-nest will not afford sufficient room, an 

 extra story should be put on, and some good 

 warm packing material should be placid 

 over the whole. When combs of sealed stores 

 are not obtainable, wooden pie plates or 

 wooden butter-dishes filled with Good candy 

 may be placed on top of the brood-nest. But 

 do not make the mistake of pla(-ing this can- 

 dy directly on top of the frames, for the heat 

 and moisture of the cluster will cause it to 

 run down, thus killing the colony. Cakes of 

 hard rock candy may be laid on the frames 

 without being placed in any cimtainer; but 

 the average person will be able to make his 

 own Good candy by mixing powdered sugar 

 and honey to a stiff dough easier than he can 

 make the hard crystalline rock candy. 



THE newspapers AND BEE-STING CURES. 



The newspapers are coming to be more or 

 less filled with stories about remarkable bee- 

 sting cures for rheumatism. Some of them 

 are doubtless on the fake order, because they 

 furnish the basis of a "bee story." In times 

 when matter is scarce, reporters seem to find 

 the bee a splendid subject. Formerly they 

 used to tell wonderful stories about the so- 

 called manufactured comb honey; but since 

 it is no longer possible to retail that kind of 

 nonsense and have the public believe it, they 

 are now dealing with more sober facts. But 

 the trouble is, a large class of readers, on ac- 

 (^ount of the sensational way of putting a 

 fact, will be disgusted rather than convin<'ed 

 that there is any merit in the bee-sting poi- 

 son as a cure for rheumatism. If the truth 

 were stated, it is only in certain cases and 

 under certain conditions where relief is af- 

 foi'ded. It is too sweeping a statement to 

 affirm that hypodermic injections of bee- 



THE foul-brood SITUATION IN CANADA. 



A LITTLE question arose among some of 

 our subscribers in Canada as to whether the 

 facts were correctly given in our columns in 

 regard to the foul-brood situation in Canada. 

 In order that we might have the exact facts 

 from an official source, we wrote to Mr. N. 

 Monteith, Minister of Agriculture for the 

 Province of Ontario. Plrst, we enquired the 

 number of apiaries that had been examined, 

 and the number in which foul brood had 

 ])een found. It had been further stated that 

 the inspectors, having exceeded the limit of 

 the funds appropriated by the legislature — 

 namely. $1200— had been called off, leaving 

 the work unfinished. The following letter 

 from the Minister of Agriculture explains: 



Bar Sirs:—' am in receipt of your letter of the 29th 

 uit . In which you ask for aslatenuent of the work per- 

 formed by the Auiary Inspectors in Ontario during the 

 past season The expenditure for this work was ap- 

 proximately $2300. and the details are as follows: 



Total visits paid 733 



number of apiaries examined 663 



hives in apiaries examined 14,993 



apiaries showing signs of foul brood 261 



It should be borne in mind that the inspectors were, 

 in almost every case, working in suspected districts, 

 and the relative proportion of infected apiaries should 

 not, therefore, be regarded as applying to the Prov- 

 ince as a whole. 



The insptction work was continued until about Nov. 

 Isi, after which date, principally on account of the 

 shortage of the hotey crop, it was not > onsidered ad- 

 visable to prolong the work. N. Monteith, 



Toronto, DlC. 3. Minister of Agriculture. 



A WORD TO THOSE WHO HAVE WATCHED 

 US GROW. 



]\lANy of our readers, especially those who 

 have been with us almost from the very be- 

 ginning, and have watched us grow, will be 

 glad to read the publisher's statement given 

 on p. ]54y of this ihsue. We feel that what- 

 ever material progress Gleanings has made 

 is due very largely to our subscribers who 

 have so kindly furnished us gleanings and 

 heads of grain from many fields. When A. 

 I. Root, the founder of this journal, first 

 started it he had in mind the making of a pa- 

 per that would be the work of practical men, 

 their fingers possibly daubed with bee-glue 

 while writing on the cover of a bee-hive an 

 article for Gleanings. We have tried to en- 

 courage and develop just such writers. The 

 fact that the journal has grown from a little 

 quarterly of 1 6 pages to an illustrated spmi- 

 monthly of 60 pages, with an actual circula- 

 tion of 34,000, shows what has been done in 

 all these years. The editor desires at this 

 time to express his thanks to those of our 

 friends who have taken such an active inter- 

 est in making the journal whal it is. 



While A, 1. Root has long since retired 

 from the active field of apiculture and api- 

 cultural journalism, his infiuence is felt in a 

 larger and more important way in the de- 

 partment of "Our Homes " It is true, pei'- 



