THE BEE-KEErERS' REVIEW. 



EDITORIAL 



ffc rings. 



Thick Combs are more easily uncapped, 

 and furnish more honey, per comb, than 

 thin ones. 



»**»u»*»»»»^ 



Sparks from a passing locomotive was 

 the cause of 80 colonies of T. F. Bingham's 

 bees going up in smoke on the nth of 

 May. The help of volunteer firemen, 

 aided by the high-pressure water-works to 

 be found in the little village of Farwell, 

 saved other property from destruction. 



»»ii»»«.^««««^ 



LosSKS of bees from wintering have 

 been (juite general and severe througli- 

 out the Northwest. 'Die Slates of INIich- 

 igan, Wisconsin aiyl Minnesota appear 

 to have been the greatest sufferers. I 

 arrive at this conclusion from the repoits 

 that come to me in my correspondence. 



««««»«^ .»»» 



.\ I'oci, Brood J, aw has recentlv 1)een 

 enacted by the legisl iture of New York. 

 Tlie bee keepers of Illinois and Michigan 

 failed in their attempts to secure the pas- 

 sage of such a law. Let us be thankful 

 that New York and Wisconsin have 

 succeeded, as it will now be easier to 

 .secure the pa.s.sage of similar laws in 

 other States. 



SAF/r s])rinkled around a hive will kill 

 the grass that is near it. It is better to 

 thus kill the grass for two or three inches 

 arouiul the hive than to attempt to keep 

 it cut. The lawn mower can not get 

 near enough to cut all of the grass that 

 grows close to the hive; and, to keep it 

 pulled, or sheared off, is quite a little 

 trouble. The frontispiece for this month 

 shows a hive around which the salt has 

 just been .sprinkled for the purpose of 

 killing the grass. 



lACon .Ai.i'Ai'CH, of Canada, cuts out 

 all of the cells when a queen has been 

 lost, or removed, then puts several cells 

 in the entrance of the hive. The bees 

 will cluster over the cells, and the queens 

 hatch out, but the bees will 7iot swann as 

 they will when the cells are put into the 

 hive. 



»^»^^^ii»*»»^ 



THE REFORMED SPELUNG. 



So far, I have said nothing in regard to 

 the reformed spelling. What I have sev- 

 eral times thought of saying, has now 

 been said by Stenog. in Gleanings. Here 

 is what what he says: "If you will rip up 

 the whole alphabet from A to Z, and have 

 a precise ch nacler for every sound; as we 

 have in shorthand, I shall be much pleas- 

 ed." So long as a system is radically 

 wrong, we gain very little by tinkering 

 with minor results. So long as we at- 

 tempt to represent forty-odd sounds by 

 using only twenty-si.\ characters just .so 

 long will there be confusion. Bro. York 

 gives a sample of i6th century spelling. 

 Of course, it looks odd to us, but I doubt 

 if our pi e.sent .spelling, or even the reform- 

 ed spelling, would not look as odd to ihe 

 i6th century folks, if they could see it, 

 as their spelling does to us. 



F.VSHIONS seem to change in bee-keep- 

 ing in something the way they do in 

 clothing. La.st year the girls' shirt-waists 

 were plaid. It makes no difference now 

 whether the plaid waists are worn out or 

 not, they must be laid aside for .stri])ped 

 ones. Years ago the plain Langstroth 

 frames were good enough. Then they 

 must have metal corners. The corners 

 proved a nuisance and were laid aside. 

 Next came the Hoflfnian style of frame. 

 Now some of the folks are talking of 

 making frames and hives two inches 

 deeper. Then there are the changes in 

 supers, separators, .sections, smokers etc. 

 So it goes on, until, sometimes, it seems 

 as though changes were made in these 

 things simply to have .something new to 



