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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



I*ei'taliiing to Bee Cultxire. 



We respectfully solicit the aid of otir friends in conducting 

 this department, and would consider it a favor to have them 

 send us all circulars that have a deceptive appearance. The 

 greatest care will be at all times maintained to prevent injustice 

 being done any one. 



WT will be remembered, that in the Ilum- 

 J«| bug and Swindle column of March 

 '— ' Gleanings we printed a little circular 

 from our old friend II. II. Flick, and to-day 

 we received the following letter from W. T. 

 Falconer, successor.to Merriam and Falconer, 

 of Jamestown, N. Y.: — 



A. I. Root:— Inclosed find letter which explains it- 

 self. Have you received a similar letter, and what 

 do you propose to do about it? Of course, I don't 

 propose to pay, but may be put to some trouble and 

 expense. Can we combine and employ some at- 

 torney in case a defense has to be made? Please 

 drop me a card or letter in reg'ard to this. Sorry to 

 encroach on your valuable time, but would rather 

 have your opinion in regard to this matter than that 

 of any lawyer, as you are versed in it from begin- 

 ning to end. W. T. Falconer. 



Jamestown, N. Y., April 18, 1883. 



Below is the letter referred to by friend 

 Falconer: — 



Messrs. Merriam <i- Falconer:— We have been em- 

 ployed by H. H. Flick, Esq., to recover damages 

 from certain persons who have been infringing on 

 his patent, referred to in the herewith iucloaed cir- 

 cular. He has been engaged for some time in procur- 

 ing testimony to establish his claims. He has learned 

 that you have infringed on his patent; and before 

 instituting suit, we write you to say that if you are 

 disposed to act fairly, the matter can be satisfactorily 

 arranged, both as to past and future sales and man- 

 ufactures. COFFROTH & RUPPEL. 



Somerset, Pa., April 16, 1883. 



You will observe, friends, that Mr. Flick 

 has induced a law^ firm to take up his " pat- 

 ent," and proposes to institute a system of 

 blackmail, if nothing further. This same 

 letter, almost verbatim , has been forwarded to 

 US by several other bee-hive manufacturers. 

 You will observe, that friend Flick is going 

 to try to make out that he holds a patent on 

 putting sections inside of any large frames. 

 The idea is most absurd and ridiculous. It 

 is almost equal to getting a patent on using 

 hives two stories high , as some one claimed he 

 had done a few years ago. If any one cares 

 to take the trouble, he will find that our old 

 friend Richard Colvin, of Baltimore, Md., 

 described such an arrangement in the Agri- 

 cultural JReport as long ago as 18G3, and it is 

 quite probable that the arrangement was 

 In use a long time before that. My advice 

 here is, that if we can learn that Mr. Flick 

 has ever obtained money from any innocent 

 person in the way in which he has now 

 started out, that we, as bee-keepers, club to- 

 gether and set some respectable lawyer at 

 work and ascertain if there is a means to put 

 such chaps as he in some place where they 

 will be prevented from obtaining money oh 

 false pretenses from innocent bee-keepers. 

 My attention has been called to a recent 



attempt to blackmail in Cleveland, O.. and 

 the guilty party is now in the Ohio Peniten- 

 tiary, at hard labor foj- three years ; and if 

 I am correctly informed, the above lawyers 

 could also be prosecuted for trying to scare 

 people, if they are in the conspiracy. Our 

 friends who have been long in the bee busi- 

 ness will remember how we have had men 

 blackmailing bee-keepers for using division- 

 boards, enameled sheets, cloth cushions, 

 two-story hives, etc.; and you probably 

 have heard of the result of this. Men 

 who were not informed have paid over 

 their hard-earned money to these scamps, 

 who then went away laughing in their 

 sleeves. It seems to me that we as bee- 

 keepers are now sufficiently well informed, 

 and also sufficiently well off (thank God!) to 

 resist all this work, by combined effort. 

 Now let them come on with their patents on 

 using sections inside of a large frame, or 

 sections made of one piece of wood, or any 

 thing else of a similar character. If they 

 can stand it, it seems to me that we surely 

 can. I have thought best to copy the fol- 

 lowing from Mr. Colvin's article, found on 

 pp. 532 '3, Ag. Report for 1863. You remem- 

 ber that-friend Colvin was one of the first to 

 assist in the importation of Italian bees. 

 Later, many of you will also remember, 

 some trouble was experienced when the Ital- 

 ians were first introduced, from the fact that 

 they would not go up into the honey-boxes 

 as readily as the black bees. In comment- 

 ing on this peculiar trait of the Italians, Mr. 

 Colvin writes : — 



The difficulty of inducing the bees to work in these 

 surplus -honey receptacles is greatly obviated by 

 placing them over the brood-chamber and having no 

 "honey-board" or intervening partition between 

 them and the brood-chamber. A successful remedy 

 for preventing the queen from going up into the re- 

 ceptacles to deposit eggs, and the consequent stor- 

 age of pollen therein by the workers, thereby in.iur- 

 ing the quality and appearance of the surplus hon- 

 ey, may be found in using movable frames in sec- 

 tions, or otherwise, made about 154 inches in breadth 

 on their tops, and placing between these frames thin 

 perforated partitions, or comb-guides. The space 

 thus allowed for the combs being too thick for one 

 brood-comb, and two thin for two, the workers build 

 but one, the cells of which, being too deep for brood- 

 cells, present, together with the prespnce of the 

 comb-guides, such uninviting quarters for her royal 

 ladyship that, in the storHge of over a ton of honey 

 in such receptacles, I have not had a single instance 

 of egg-laying in receptacles thus arranged. The 

 frames or sections may be made of such size as to 

 contain any desired quantity of honey within their 

 capacit.y. If several sections are used in one frame 

 they should be made to lit e.xactly, so that they may 

 be easily and quickly removed by a little pressure. 



It is interesting to note that friend Colvin 

 also used something equivalent to our sepa- 

 rators ("comb-guides" he calls them), even 

 though it is avv^ay back at such an early date. 



By the w^ay, friend Falconer, I want to 

 thank you for your concluding sentence. It 

 gave me a sort of stirring-up, and reminded 

 me of the responsibilities that rest on my 

 shoulders, or should rest there. If these 

 things continue, I think I shall have to gath- 

 er up all of my old books and papers, and 

 have them so classified and arranged that I 

 can, with the assistance of an excellent 

 memory, turn to these things with a little 

 more readiness than I do now sometimes. 

 Many of you know with what enthusiasm 

 and zeal I hunted up and gathered together 



