336 



THE BEE-KEEFERIS- HK^lEW. 



men and women there to be admired ; and the 

 man with bouI so small as to cast such an impu- 

 tation on that gathering, was unworthy of a place 

 among them." N, B. K., 169. 



Seems to make a heap of difference in our 

 valuation of a company of people whether 

 we ourselves are members of the crowd, or 

 merely look on from the outside. 



"It is true that if left to itself this plant 

 (sweet clover) will run out sand burrs, wild sun- 

 flower and ragweed." E. Whitcomb, N. B. K., 

 170. 



L. L. Allspaugh, .^ . B. K., 172, thinks it 

 pays him to put colored labels on sections of 

 honey exposed for sale in a show case. 



Mrs. Hallenbeck says that this year the 

 only planting for honey that will furnish 

 bees with their winter stores is planting dol- 

 lars and cents in the grocers' money box. 

 N. B. K., 173. 



And here is the editor again on stimula- 

 tive feeding. 



" A tablespoonful of syrup at the right time, 

 and in the right manner, is worth more than a 

 teacupful given improperly, and at the improp- 

 ertime." N. B K.,174. 



He says a teacupful is his largest feed for 

 stimulative purposes — seldom giving so 

 much as that. The adverse result of R. L. 

 Taylor's experiment with spring stimulation 

 he lays to a great deal too much being fed. 

 Perhaps this is worth thinking of. 



J. B. Case, of Port Orange, Florida, says 

 the first artificial queen- cups he ever used 

 were put empty in a colony preparing to 

 swarm ; and the queen laid in nearly every 

 one of them. He also warns us that the evils 

 of in-breeding are brought on much more 

 rapidly when we get excited about using 

 best queens, and best drones, and frequent 

 requeening — unless we look quite a little out, 

 I suppose. N. B. K., 175. 



" Our practice for the past five years has been 

 to pack for winter on six and seven frames, and 

 have never had one starve yet." The editor; N. 

 B. K., 137. 



" Pliny alone, of classical authors, says that be 

 has heard that in distant lands the juice of the 

 bamboo [canej was used instead of honey." F. 

 L. Mahaffy,N.B. K., 140. 



My, what a difference it would make in 

 our market if we could only turn the wheels 

 of civilization backward till we reached the 

 point where no one knew anything about any 

 other sweet than honey ! 



THE GENERAL ROUND -UP. 



Like the good lady who tried to mop up 

 the rising tide from the floor of her sea-side 

 shanty, and had to give it up at last, so am I. 

 The tideof ^. B. Js four times a month, and 

 Gleaning s-es twice a month has swamped 

 me ; and a whole lot of available things 



must be abandoned, to get down somewhere 

 near to the present date. Sorry ; but so it 

 has got to be. 



This skips the great debate of few frames 

 versus many frames in the brood chamber. 

 I guess that debate has left things about as 

 it found them — many of the brethren still 

 sure that to put in more frames would sacri- 

 fice a heavy percentage of their surplus ; 

 and quite a few many- frame users still sure 

 that reducing the number of frames would 

 add little or nothing to their surplus, and 

 work mischief in other directions. 



Quite a bit ago a little bug was put in my 

 ear, to the effect that Gleaning <■ had discon- 

 tinued its Tobacco Column. My eyes had 

 not been filed sufficiently sharp to notice it. 

 I was quite crestfallen : but thought the 

 news too old to tell at that date— and, lo, 

 Sept. 15th, the column bobs up again, look- 

 ing just as natural as if it had never been 

 missing. 



John Handel, dealing with wintering bees 

 in dug-outs, gives his experience that drain- 

 age must be perfect for good results — sure to 

 be spotting their hives before spring if sur- 

 face water gets in. And ventilators, either 

 sub-earth or direct, only work in windy 

 weather, when they do more harm than good. 

 Gleanings, 902. 



Most of us thought that percolation (in 

 making syrup) was a sort of filtering pro- 

 cess, or at least something akin to that ; but 

 quite lately Dr. Miller is level in his conclu- 

 sions that very slow movement of the water 

 among the little grains of sugar, giving 

 plenty of time and repeated contacts for 

 perfecting the saturation, is all there is of it. 

 If a tube a mile long could be filled with 

 sugar, and laid so nearly level the fluid 

 part of the contents would move slowly, and 

 only slowly, no sponge or flannel or muslin 

 would be needed probably. See Gleanings, 

 903. 



Vogel, one of the leader of beeology in 

 Germany, thinks that there are only two dis- 

 tinct varieties of bee, the German and the 

 Egyptian ; and that Italians, Cyprians, Car- 

 niolans and all others, are but old and estab- 

 lished crosses of various degree. Gleanings, 

 90(). Is it not still more probable that the 

 yellow bee that served as prime factor in 

 those crosses is at present extinct? This 

 would make the Egyptian also a cross. I 

 suppose Vogel would say that his success in 

 reconstructing apparent Italians out of Ger- 

 man and Egyptian was against my theory. 



