168 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



ready filled with comb. Review is to be 

 complimented for harvesting two such plums 

 in one issue. Taylor, like myself and many 

 others, wishes to supply his home market 

 with both comb and extracted ; and his par- 

 ticular scheme is to take his extracted honey 

 from unsealed sections, and use the empty 

 sections next year. Most of the dark sec- 

 tion honey he thus throws over into the ex- 

 tracted tank, and uses it for bee feed next 

 spring. Hardly answer for those who have 

 to lean as heavily on the fall yield for a main 

 crop as I do. " He that is able to receive it, 

 let him receive it." I'm thinkingof a funny 

 little cartoon in the Chicago Herald. A 

 boodle Councilman is got up as a musician, 

 and compelled to play on his viol a new bal- 

 lad entitled, "Nothing in it for Me." He 

 plays it — but mumbles underneath his 

 breath, " Don't believe I was made to play 

 this pop'lar music." Next big ship friend 

 Taylor sends over I hope there'll be some- 

 thing in it for me. 



A Generous round- Up 



The American Bee-Keeper opens its May 

 editorial with a raid on the habit of calling 

 fellow bee-keepers "Brother." The main 

 reason assigned is that the word often does 

 not agree very well with the spirit manifest- 

 ed. Now see here. Brother A. B. K., 1 have 

 noticed the same practice among lawyers 

 pleading on opposite sides at the bar. They 

 seem to use it as a gentle corrective for the 

 ever-present temptation to get by the ears, 

 which their profession brings. Don't we 

 need the gentle corrective too ? To the 

 (.John Bull) dogs with those foreign papers 

 in which they never say, Brother ! 



"The more I read the denser the fog that be- 

 clouds my brain." T. H. Stephens, Apicultur- 

 ist, IS. 



Lots of bee boys in the same fix. Our per- 

 sonal experience and our reading should bal- 

 ance each other. All experience and no 

 reading is a poor plan — too much like the 

 dark ages. Excessive reading beyond our 

 experience is just what comrade S. indicates, 

 fog and bewilderment. Yet whining and 

 sputtering about the fog will not dissipate 

 it. Climb up Practical Hill on your own 

 hands and feet until you get above the fog. 



Alley, on the 20th page of Api. says a lot 

 of things about testing a young (jueen by the 

 looks, some of which are not generally in 

 mind. He thinks the manner of depositing 

 eggs, and the cant of the eggs as they lie in 

 the cell disclose certain facts in regard to 



the quality of the queen. (Might tell us 

 some more about "them 'are" so we can 

 understand it too.) And if the hole out of 

 which the young queen has crawled is small 

 or ragged she should be killed at once — only 

 a compromise between a queen and a work- 

 er. 



On the honey selling question editor Leahy 

 is a man after my own heart. He kept his 

 town of 2,000 people "supplied" with hon- 

 ey. That is to say a few tumblers (at 18 cts.) 

 stood in each grocery ; and once in a while, 

 at long intervals, a tumbler sold. By and 

 by he got a crop of 7,000 pounds, and sup- 

 posed of course he would have to ship it to 

 some big city. How big was the best offer 

 he could get ? It was 6J4 cents. The thought 

 came to him. Our people would buy large 

 quantities at that price. Why not let 'em 

 — and save the risks— and cost of shipping 

 packages ? He yielded to the thought, can- 

 vassed the town with samples (not at6);{ 

 though, but at 8 and 9) and the first night 

 had to stay up till midnight filling the pitch- 

 ers and things — and carried the money to 

 the bank in a bag. See Progressive, 46. 



In Progressive GO, Mr. Doolittle gives two 

 methods for preventing after swarms which 

 he thinks reliable, one for the cases where 

 the old colony is moved, and one for the 

 cases where the old colony, not being moved, 

 retains part of the old bees. The former is, 

 Get entirely rid of the old bees for 12 hours, 

 and then give the youngsters a fertile queen ; 

 and "betweenst 'em " they'll polish off the 

 young pretenders. This is probably O. K. 

 The other method is, Discover the young 

 queen piping the night before they intend to 

 swarm ; shake off all the bees next morn, 

 and carefully destroy every queen cell. Here 

 I would put in a faint protest. I don't know 

 that the plan is unreliable ; but I should ex- 

 pect that quite a sprinkle of them would go 

 anyhow, if the queens had been piping 12 

 hours or more. What I do know is that in my 

 own efforts I have succeeded in preventing 

 the after swarming, and got for my pay a 

 fearful percentage of totally queenless col- 

 onies. 



R. C. Aikin improves the Doolittle plan of 

 getting perfect combs built (by weak col- 

 onies) by having plenty of drone comb in 

 one outside frame. Then more combs will 

 be correctly built before a change will be 

 made to drone size. Progressive, G7, 



D. L. Tracy, of Denver, makes a success 

 of preventing foul brood by the use of dilute 



