452 



TME m^mmmiQmn mmm ji@itiRiH.siu. 



Hot Stimmer. — It is now quite gen- 

 erally predicted that the rest of the summer 

 is to be hot all over the couutry. The hi- 

 diana Pharmacist predicts it upon the fol- 

 lowing theory, which has been advanced by 

 others : 



The weather seems to run in cycles of 

 about seven years, that is, when we have a 

 hot summer, it is always followed by a cold 

 one, and it takes about seven years to reach 

 another equally hot. It will be remembered 

 by many that the summer of 1867 was very 

 hot, and so dry that during August the 

 grass crumbled under the feet when trod 

 upon. The summer of 1868 was noted for 

 its coolness, the thermometer very seldom 

 getting above 85°, and we did not reach the 

 top wave of thermality again until 1874, 

 when it was extremely hot. The following 

 summer was cOld to a remarkable degree. 

 From then on the summers grew gradually 

 warmer until 1881, which was excessively 

 hot and very dry, no rain falling for over 

 nine weeks, and there were more sun- 

 strokes that summer than there has been in 

 all the summers since. 



The summer of 1882 was quite cold, a few 

 flakes of snow fell on the morning of July 

 4, followed by hail in the afternoon, and 

 during the rest of the month and through 

 the month of August the temperature was 

 so low that overcoats were necessary for 

 comfort, particularly at night. The sum- 

 mers since 1883 have grown warmer and 

 warmer, and last summer was a moderately 

 hot one, but unless all signs fail, the com- 

 ing summer will be the climax of the cycle, 

 and a hot, dry season may be expected. So 

 far this spring the signs nave been against 

 the theory here advanced, but possibly the 

 coolness ot the spring may be succeeded by 

 a regular old scorching summer whose tem- 

 perature will rival sheol for hotness. 



Small Sections tor Comb Honey 



etc.— G. B. Olney, Atlanta, Iowa, on June 

 31, 1888, writes : 



The 5-cent packages described on page 

 393, appears to be too cumbersome, and it 

 takes too long to get them into sliape. I 

 take a board the thickness that I want, and 

 the length of the inside of the frame ; set 

 the saw to cut halt through, when I cut half 

 the width of the saw on each end, doing the 

 same with a board for perpendicular pieces. 

 I set the jack-plane bit to cut 1-33 of an 

 Inch, and plane off all I will need in a very 

 short time. I dampen and strighten them 

 out, put foundation starters on the long 

 pieces before I fasten the parts together, 

 and after they are formed I have an orna- 

 ment and useful article. 



A Mr. J. E. Stoner sent me a sample of 

 Alsike clover hay, with a note, stating that 

 his stock of all kinds eat it well. They 

 leave no stems as they do with red clover 

 and timothy, and his bees are working on 

 it splendidly. He has 13 acres of Alsike, 

 and wants more of it. 



I went to a fellow not long since, pre- 

 sented a loug-standing-bili and met with 

 this answer: 



"Come and git your hives, bee's and all. 

 I don't like them ere kind of hives, know 

 how. I'm goin' to make a new kine, some 

 with draw's in, an' 8om glass in, so I k'n 

 see what 'um doin'." I thought to myself, 

 what a good subject you are for Lizzie 

 Cotton. 



The white clover is yielding some honej 

 when it stops raining long enough to let it 

 stand up. The corn tields are getting very 

 weedy, owing to so much wet weather that 

 farmers cannot work it. It has been very 



discouraging thus far this spring, being dry 

 early, and tlie squirrels took the corn as 

 fast as it came up. Some farmers replanted 

 the fourth time, but by using poison and 

 shot-guns freely, and all the boys with 

 snare-drums that could be found, we man- 

 aged to have some corn growing. What 

 would some men think ot this extra work if 

 perchance it would be done for the honey- 

 bee ? 



Yes, indeed. While every kind of busi- 

 ness has its drawbacks, that of keeping 

 bees is no more liable to them than any 

 other ; neither is it an exception to the rule. 



Nearly every novice, as soon as he enters 

 the business, assumes to " know it all," and 

 wants to get up a new hive. He knows 

 more in one day than all before him in the 

 business have been able to learn in a cen- 

 tury. It is a disease which attacks nearly 

 all who embark in the business. 



Cans for Extracted Honey.— A 



correspondent in Ulster County, N. Y., on 

 July 5, 1888, asks the following questions : 



1. Are not fruit-cans as good as anything 

 to put up extracted honey for the market ? 

 When the honey is put in those cans should 

 they be exposed to the light ? 3. I have 

 read that the best plan of taking care of 

 extracted honey is to put it directly into 

 fruit-cans and seal up when almost at boil- 

 ing point. Does not heating honey spoil its 

 flavor ? Are the covers for said cans air 

 tight ? 



1. Yes ; but there are many kinds ; they 

 are made of glass, tin, etc., and exposure to 

 the light is not detrimental to the honey. 



3. Heating the honey does no harm, un- 

 less it is brought to a boil. The covers to 

 all the self-sealing cans make the package 

 air-tight ; others are not air-tight. 



Sterile Queens.— C. A. Pardee, Coles- 

 burgh, Ky., on July 2, 1888, writes as fol- 

 lows: 



I send a queen which is a puzzle to me 

 and my bee-keeping friends of this vicinity. 

 She was reared under the swarming im- 

 pulse from a good cell, and the last one of 

 the batch to be capped. I was careful in 

 handling this cell, leaving it in original 

 comb, and never inverting, bruising, or 

 jarring it. The cell was capped on May 17. 

 I deemed further inspection of the colony 

 unnecessary until June 3.3, when its weak 

 condition warned me that something was 

 wrong. Upon opening the hive, 1 found no 

 brood, but the worker cells were tilled with 

 eggs, and the queen was attending to busi- 

 ness. On June 30, I again opened the hive, 

 aiul found that none of the eggs had 

 hsnched. Upon close inspection, I could 

 see a tiny drop of larva food in the bottom 

 of each cell, but instead of the larva, the 

 egg still remained projecting from the cell- 

 bottom. I found no eggs in the drone-cells. 



I removed the queen immediately, and as 

 there is no microscopist of sufficient ex- 

 perience in this vicinity, I send her to you, 

 Mr. Editor, trusting that you will forward 

 her to some skilled entomologist who will 

 for the cause ot science ascertain what is 

 the matter with her. That she lays sterile 

 eggs in worker-cells can be verified by in- 

 troducing her into a nucleus. 1 would sug- 

 gest that you make the report ot the ento- 



mologist public in the Bee Jouknal, as 

 the solution of this puzzle would surely be 

 interesting, not only to myself, but to a 

 large majority of its readers. 



We sent the queen to Prof. A. J. Cook, 

 with the above letter, and here is his reply : 



Mr. C. A. Pardee, of Colesburgh, Ky., 

 sends me, through the editor of the Ameki- 

 CAN Bee Joitrnal, a queen, that though 

 she lays eggs in great numbers, produces no 

 bees. Mr. P. says as there is no micro- 

 scopist at his place, he sends the queen for 

 a full report. This is a case where a micro- 

 scopist would do no good. 



In last week's Rural New Yorker a sub- 

 scriber writes : "My mare has produced 

 one or two colts, but now seems sterile. 

 What is the trouble ?" The veterinarian 

 editor replies that in many such cases it is 

 impossible to explain the sterility. In the 

 higher animals we speak of sterility, though 

 with them, as with the queen, I presume, 

 eggs are still produced, but are impotent, 

 sterile or worthless. 



The real trouble with the egg we do not 

 know ; we may never know. It is a very 

 difficult subject to investigate. With this 

 queen— and such queens are not so rare but 

 that I have seen many of them— as with 

 occasional examples of all higher animals, 

 though eggs were ripened and passed from 

 the reproductive organs, yet they were 

 sterile. We can only say that the queen's 

 are diseased, and so only can produce 

 worthless eggs. What the disease is, or 

 why the egg is sterile we cannot say. Some 

 such queens which have come under my 

 observation, have been very prolific of 

 eggs ; yet, not an egg would hatch. 



So far as I have observed, such queens 

 never recover from this inability. Breeders 

 of cattle frequently have cows that ovulate 

 regularly, yet never breed. Occasionally 

 such a cow after being sterile for months, 

 or even years, will become again a regular 

 breeder. It would seem that in such cases, 

 we have a disability, which, though very 

 likely akin to tliat ot the queen in question, 

 yet is only temporary. This might lead us 

 to expect that possibly a queen of this kind 

 might in time become a breeder. However, 

 it would not pay to keep one with such a 

 hope in view, except as a matter of scientific 

 interest. Even with our higher stock it is 

 a questionable policy to breed from animals 

 which have been for a time sterile. We 

 should fear that the same disability might 

 come in the offspring. — A. J. Cook. 



Omission.- In the essay of Mr. T. S. 

 Sanford, on Farm Apiaries, read before the 

 Farmers' Institute, and published on pages 

 435 and 426, two lines were omitted through 

 an oversight of the printer. The whole sen- 

 tence should read thus : 



After being thus prepared they should 

 not be disturbed until settled warm weather 

 has come in the spring to stay ; wlien they 

 should again be examined, and if any are 

 found to be without a queen, they should be 

 united with some weak colony having a 

 queen, or another queen procured for them 

 at once. 



