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EDITOR. 



VoiniV. Jnne2],1888. No. 26. 



IToii I%'eT«T Hear the bf e complain. 



Nor hear it weep uor wall ; 

 But, if it wisli, it can unfold 



A very painful tail. 



Xlie Honey Crop of Caliiornia 



is now reportfd to be only two-thirds of an 

 average product. Our first reports said that 

 it was large, but gave no comparison. 



:^Ir. Jo«<«i>li .ncCaail (late of McCaul 

 & Hildreth Brothers), has again opened the 

 "Bee- Keepers' lli'adquarters " at 191 Duane 

 Street (near Greenwich), New York, and 

 invites all apiarists who go to New York, to 

 give him a call. 



Mr. <j>. M. I>ooUttIe, we regret to 

 learn, has been confined to his residence 

 lor a week or more, with lumbago, or 

 "crick in the back." Tlie only easy posi- 

 tion he lias found so far, is being propped 

 back in a rocking chair. This must be 

 "misery" for our energetic friend. We 

 hope that complete relief will soon be 

 foun'd, and that "Kichard will be himself 

 again," before many days pass. 



Major Voii llriiMchka, the inventor 

 of the honey extractor, is dead. He died in 

 Venice on May 11, 1SS8. This we gleam 

 from the L'ApicoUore for June, which is 

 just received. Major Hruschka was a re- 

 tired Austrian otticer, and the invention of 

 the honey extractor ficcurred in this way : 

 His apiary was in Italy, and one day when 

 the Major, who was a most observing and 

 critical bee-keeper, was in his apiary, his 

 little boy came there to him. The boy had 

 a small tin pail tied to a string, which he 

 was swinging, boy-like, around and around 

 in a circle, holding the end of the string in 

 his hand. 



The indulgent father gave the youth a 

 small piece of comb filled with honey, put- 

 ting it into the little pail. The boy, after 

 awhile, began to swing the pail again as 

 before, with the honey in it. A few mo- 

 ments after, he became tired of that amuse- 

 ment, and put the pail down to talk to his 

 father, who took it up, and, by chance, 

 noticed that the honey had left the comb 

 and settled down into the pail, leaving the 

 comb perfectly clean tliat had been on the 

 outside of the circle when the boy was 

 swinging it around. The Major wondered 

 at the circumstance, and, turning the comb 

 over, bade the boy swing it again, when, to 

 his great astonishment, the other side of 

 the comb also became perfectly clean, all 

 the honey being extracted and lying at the 

 bottom of the pail. 



During the following night Major Von 

 Hruschka, after going to bed, commenced 

 to think the circumstance over ; he thought, 

 and thought, and his thoughts troubled him 

 so much that on the morrow he commenced 

 a series of experiments which resulted in 

 his giving to the world the first honey ex- 

 tractor, which, by whirling, something like 

 his son whirled that little tin pail, gave him 

 the pure liquid honey, extracted by cen- 

 trifugal force, leaving the honey-comb en- 

 tirely free from the litiuid sweet, which he 

 gave again to the bees to fill ; allowing him 

 the pure honey for making wine, mead and 

 metheglin, or honey cakes, as desired, 

 without employing the troublesome and 

 primitive method in use up to that time, of 

 mashing up the conibs containing the honey, 

 pollen, and sometimes brood, too, to let the 

 honey drain through the cloth in which it 

 was placed— giving what was formerly 

 known as " strained honey." 



Sqaieexiiig' Itlowd Iroiii a 'Fiii-> 



nip.— Those fellows who wager a thou- 

 sand dollars without knowing what they 

 are talking about, as Mr. Evans did (see 

 page 388), are usually the kind of persons, 

 financially, who " have nothing to lose." 



Mr. H. M. Moyer, of Hill Church, Pa„ 

 writes thus on June 18, 1888, to the Manager 

 of the National Bee-Keepers' Union : 



I have read that article of yours on "the 

 Wiley lie," on page 388. It Is entirely too 

 much to stand that wager of Mr. Evans. I 

 will give three dollars if you will compel 

 him to pay thfit thousand dollars into the 

 treasury of the Bee-Keepers' Union. He is 

 beaten, and should now pay it, just as Mr. 

 Root would have had to pay if beaten. 



Yes ; he ought to pay the money, but had 

 he been worth it, that wager would never 

 have been made. Men who know the value 

 of money do not make such wagers, unless 

 they are drunk or craxy. Mr. Evans was, 

 no doubt, sober, but luny on morality and 

 honesty— a pessimist ! 



You may as well try to squeeze blood 

 from a turnip as to get money from such an 

 idle boaster as the man who wrote on page 

 388 that characteristic letter which calls 

 sacramental wine " the essence of hell." 

 He is evidently a worthless "crank." 



Coni1> Surlace. — In last week's issue, 

 on page 407, Mr. Weidman makes some cal- 

 culations on the number of cells in a frame 

 105:i'xl0^4 inches. As he comes to conclu- 

 sions very different from those universally 

 i-eceived, we fully intended to have added a 

 foot-note to the article, calling attention to 

 an evident error he had fallen into. But on 

 account of sickness and consequent ab- 

 sence of our principal assistant, giving us 

 extra cares, it was omitted. We will now 

 give it attention here. 



Mr. Weidman, in trying to correct Messrs. 

 Doolittle and McNeill, makes a sad blunder 

 himself. In one inch of comb there are 

 about 37 cells— each cell averaging a trifle 

 less than one-fifth of an inch— or .54 on both 

 surfaces of one inch of comb. By an error 

 Mr.W. has doubled this again, and so all his 

 calculations are doubled ! 



ISe-\v live IJook.— We have received 

 from the publisher, L. Upcott Gill, 170 

 Strand, W.C, Londim, England, a copy of 

 "The Book of Bee-Keeping," by W. B. 

 Webster. It is a pamphlet of 98 pages, and 

 covers the whole ground of the modern 

 " management of bees," Mr. Webster being 

 a first-class expert of the British Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Association. It is gotten up cheaply to 1 the plant want to know wliat I am " raising 

 W,. " , , J . r^ ,- 1 , 1 those thistes for." i will write more about 



fill the popular demand of Engjish cot- jj i^ter. 1 have had 10 swarms this spring. 



Cliapnian Iloney-Plant and 

 'n'liitc Clover. — S. Burton, Eureka, 

 Ills., on June 15, 18S8, writes : 



The Chapman honey-plant seed that I ob- 

 tained in the si)rini; "f 1887, is doing finely 

 now. It is from 4 to fi feet high, and is 

 heading for bloom. Will it bloiiin more 

 than once from the old root ? All who see 



tagers for a cheap manual of bee-keeping, 

 and sells for a shilling. It gives, in a con- 

 cise form, what to do in the apiary, and how 

 to do it, but the methods and implements 

 are not such as are used in America, except 

 in a few particulars. 



but none the past week. The white clover 

 will be scarce until the new crop comes 

 from the seed, which is abundant, and 

 which, I think, will bloom in July. 



It is a perennial, and blooms yearly from 

 the same root until killed. 



Silver L.inins- to the Clouds.— 



Win. Malone, of Newbern, Iowa, writes thus 

 about the present discouraging season : 



Have you seen the silver lining to the 

 clouds so much talked of in 1882? I have 

 not, but expect to do so very soon. Bees 

 are svvarmine, but are nut gathering any 

 honey yet. The lindens will bloum in about 

 ten days— tlien you will hear from Iowa. I 

 am not discouraged, for 1 have not forgot- 

 ten the season ot 1883. We shall have a big 

 honey fiow soon, and " Don't you forget it !" 



It will be welcomed by every apiarist. It 

 now looks as though linden and a fall crop 

 were our only hope for honey this year. 



:TIon><. Alexander JTiileM, founder 

 of the Society of Apiculture of Eure and 

 Loir, died in the .58th year of his age, on 

 April 2.5, 1888. He was an advanced api- 

 arist, and a genial gentleman. 



