THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



«7 



can pack Iheiii and il iiiis^hl he a j^ood 

 ])laii to lake part in i sic i the cellar and 

 see which do best."" And that must have 

 been written as early as about the middle 

 of I'-ebruary. It is really too bad to put 

 beginners in a panic that way; but it may 

 be necessary in Illinois. So far as appears 

 in the statement of the ca.se, though the 

 statement is indefinite — too indefinite, in- 

 deed, for an intelligent answer — there is 

 nothing that would imlicate an alarming 

 state of affairs, were the case in Michi- 

 gan. There is nothing to indicate that 

 there is an undue quantity of dead bees, 

 or that there is any disease. The bees 

 under such circumstances are not expect- 

 ed to carry the dead ones out; and 

 the unpleasant odor is nothing strange 

 where there is so much dampness. The 

 doctor rightly advises the enlarging of 

 the entrance — I should prefer to remove 

 the bottom board entirely. If I were 

 obliged to give advice in a case upon such 

 meagre information I should say the only 

 trouble probably is that the temperature 

 is too low. That causes the condensation 

 of the moisture. Warm uj) in some way, 

 if possible, to 45°, and remove the bottom 

 boards from the hives to give better ven- 

 tilation to carry off the moisture. 

 C.\RELESS ATTEMPTS \T lilRNINC, AND 

 inSIXKKCTIN'G FOII, HROODV HONEV 

 G. Sawyer, as related by the Boiler in 

 the .\merican Bee Journal, page 90, in 

 trving to stamp out foul brood burns the 

 diseased combs; and, when burned, he 

 throws over the ashes a bucket of water 

 to which a plentiful sui)ply of carbolic 

 acid has been added. 'This," he says, 

 is important; because the honey when 

 getting hot is apt to run, and, if in the 

 vicinity of other bees they will be sure to 

 get at the melted honey and carry it off to 

 their hives." He also disinfects the hive 

 and burns quilts etc. This procedure 

 smacks strongly of .straining at a gnat 

 and swallowing a camel. In my opinion, 

 if such combs are burned in such a way 

 that the honey can run away out of the 

 fire without being heated sufficiently to 

 kill the foul brood germs, it is temj)ting 



fate to rely on killing them by any sucli 

 slip-shod washing; and, of course, it is 

 useless if the germs are killed. If such 

 honey is to be burned the fire .should be 

 such that it must all be burned. I sup- 

 pose in this case the fire must have been 

 out of doors on the ground. 



Till'; HI.OOMING-TIMK OK MAMMOTH CLO- 

 VER. 

 Minnesota asks ( American Bee Jour- 

 nal, 87) "Is the maiiimoth red clover a 

 good honey-plant, and will it blossom 

 late in the fall ?"' Dr. Miller replies "It 

 blossoms at the same time as the other." 

 This answer is a surprise to me. In this 

 locality the mammoth clover blossoms 

 two to four weeks later that the June clo- 

 ver — so much later that the first crop 

 liears the seed; while June clover blossoms 

 so early that, on account of the scarcity 

 of appropriate insects to fertilize the blos- 

 ,soms, the first crop yields no seed. Again, 

 there is seldom much, if any, second 

 crop of mammoth clover; and, hence, 

 very little fall bloom; while, under favor- 

 able circumstances, the June clover yields 

 a good second crop well filled with seed. 



THEORIES REGARDING THE DIFFERENCE 



IN HONEY STORED BY ITAUAN OR BY 



BLACK BEES. 



I find this in Pickings by "Stenog." 

 I Gleanings, 78) "Mr. A. B. Bates tells 

 why, in his opinion, Italians store better 

 honey than blacks.. It's pretty hard to 

 show he is wrong in the following reason- 

 ing: Honey is heavier than water; and, 

 as a natural consequence, the richer of 

 the .saccharine substance would settle to 

 the bottom; and while black bees during 

 a coiMOUs flow of honey might store as 

 much honey ( less the weight of the evap- 

 oration of water it contains) the Italian 

 bee, having a longer reach clears out the 

 cup of the blossom-cell to the bottom, 

 giving us not only a richer and finer qual- 

 ity from the same bloom ])ut the honey 

 re(|uires less ripening or evaporation of 

 water." etc. Notwithstanding .Stenog. 

 nives uj) the problem I ( supposing there 

 is anvthing in the theory at all, which I 



