?u 



GLEANmGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



June 



at least, that bees would not, as a rule, win- 

 ter well with no protection over the combs. 

 After this we adopted the soft loose chaff ; 

 but during the severe winter, many times 

 this seemed to give too little ventilation for 

 heavy colonies. Now, if we use forest- 

 leaves, I think we shall have it about right. 

 I am inclined to think I should prefer them, 

 however, put loosely into the hive instead 

 of in sacks of burlap ; but as they would be 

 very inconvenient to handle in this shape, 

 perhaps the loose burlap cushions tilled with 

 forest-leaves will be about, what is needed. 



SOME GOOD SUGGESTIONS FRO.II 

 FKIEND EWIIVG. 



LET THE BUYER TEST THE QUEEN. 



fjjHERE has been a great d ?al said in all tlie bee 

 papers and books about he trade in queens. 

 The scientiflo bee-men have condemned the 

 dollar-queen trade in unmeasured terms, and many 

 of the practical breeders have enlisted on the same 

 Bide; but in spite of all this opposition in high quar- 

 ters, the great judge, public opinion, has steadily 

 given the decision in favor of them. Now, to dispose 

 of this subject, and prevent the apprehended dan- 

 ger of degeneracy in the stock by this trade in un- 

 tested queens, why not make every buyer his own 

 tester? Both the queen-breeder and purchaser 

 would be the gainer by such arrangement. About 

 the only test in the matter is to ascertain whether 

 the queen is purely mated. Beyond this there is no 

 safeguard against a dishonest breeder. He can, if 

 he will, force queens, and produce short-lived, ten- 

 der 'weaklings. The buyer has to trust to the hon- 

 esty and skill, in breeding, of the seller. Where the 

 whole country has become Italianized by extensive 

 breeders, there is not one queen in six — probably 

 not one in ten — that is not purely mated. If the 

 queen-breeder has only to wait till his young queens 

 are fertilized, and then ship, he can afford to sell 

 them for a dollar; or if his stock is extra, and has a 

 very high reputation, it will command more. In 

 place of keeping his queens for probably a year to 

 test them, suppose he ship them, as soon as fertiliz- 

 ed, to the purchaser, and allow him to test the 

 queen. If she proves a fine bee, he is the gainer by 

 getting a young queen In all her prime, and both 

 parties are gainers. If the queen prove to be a hy- 

 brid, unfertile, or is lacking in any of the qualities 

 that constitute a tested queen, let the buyer mail 

 her back to the breeder at the buyer's risk, or at the 

 risk of the breeder, as they may agree, and have an- 

 other queen shipped. By adopting this plan, all 

 queens would be virtually warranted, and yet sold at 

 the lowest figures, and the worthless queens be 

 weeded out. 



BEES FLYING 90 MILES AN HOUR. 



In March Gleanings, Doolittle's theory of bees 

 flying 90 miles an hour is again alluded to. A mo- 

 ment's reflection will show the faUacy of such a test 

 of speed. The cars were running at a speed of 30 

 miles an hour when the bees were released, and 

 kept up with the train, flying in circles over it, mak- 

 ing three times the speed of the cars. The train 

 rushing through the air causes a vacuum, which is 

 immediately filled by pressure of the atmosphere 

 from the rear, the side, and from above; the bees 

 held in this vacuum will be kept above the cars with 



scarcely an effort, and can circle In the vacuum as 

 they are borne forward by the pressure of the at- 

 mosphere from behind; and if the train ran a hun- 

 dred miles an hour they could easily retain their 

 position directly over it. In fact, they would be 

 held there while they kept on wing in small circles, 

 with no power to escape. 



STENOGRAPHIC WRITING. 



Making Gleanings is harder and more exacting 

 work than running those 400 colonies of bees, the 

 factory, lunch-table, and all thrown in; and I know 

 whereof I speak; but you say in March No. that you 

 can not afford a short-hand writer to assist in this 

 accumulating work. With all due deference to 

 your opinion, I don't think you can afford to do 

 without one. With a stenographer you could do 

 three times the amount of work that you can per- 

 form with your own hand, and with infinitely less 

 exhausting labor. Holding the unbroken thought 

 on the pen's point is the great labor as well as the 

 great art in book-making and correspondence. One 

 of your smart girls would learn in six weeks or two 

 months, by taking a careful daily lesson, to take 

 down in stenographic characters a slow dictation; 

 and with a little further practice she would be able 

 to write as fast as you would wish to dictate care- 

 fully. And while you were reading, and preparing 

 comments for another letter or article, she could 

 have her notes copied for the press, and read them 

 to you. By this labor-saving method you could pre- 

 pare copy in one-third the time, and with more sat- 

 isfaction. It would be like laying aside the hand- 

 saw and jack-plane for the buzz-saw and machinery 

 in hive-making. 



My bees are lively and strong, with scarcely a cor- 

 poral's guard of mortality to the hive this winter, 

 and have been carrying in pollen every warm day 

 this month. The box-hive and log-gum men are 

 generally tearful. E. E. Ewing. 



Highlands, N. C, March 24, 1883. 



I believe, friend E., that people generally 

 agree with you in regard to letting each' 

 man test his own queens. That is, those 

 who purchase prefer to do their own testing. 

 The plan of warranting cpueens has not 

 given very good satisfaction. It seems to 

 me that the best way is to sell the queen 

 for so much, and let that end the matter. 

 If the purchaser does not find the goods up 

 to what he expected, he probably won't 

 trade with that man very much more, and 

 in this way dishonest breeders soon kill out 

 their trade. This rule, I believe, follows 

 wath all kinds of merchandise. Or, in oth- 

 er words, dishonesty proves to be a very 

 poor policy. One who has for years sent out 

 a good grade of queens at one dollar each, 

 finds he is full of business, and there are now 

 great numbers of queen-breeders who are 

 building up a nice business, and accumulat- 

 ing a nice property by selling queens at one 

 dollar each, without any warrant more than 

 I have given above. — I agree with you, that 

 there must be some mistake about bees fly- 

 ing 90 miles an hour, or, at least, so it seems 

 to me. In riding in a buggy I have often 

 kept up with bees, and without driving fast 

 either, when they were going to and from a 

 buckwheat field that lay in the direction that 

 I was driving. I would suggest, they flew 

 from 10 to 15 miles an hour— probably the 

 former rate when they were coming in with 



