THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



303 



through rain or shine. He says that the 

 amusing feature was that while the chis- 

 ter of attending bees was never as big as 

 his fist, it swarmed very frequently, some- 

 times several times a day, but always re- 

 turned. Doctor, the man who tells the 

 first story stands no chance of coming 

 out ahead. Seriously, however, while I 

 have no doubt that queens would be car- 

 ed for, usually, in this hap hazard manner, 

 especially in a large apiary, I would pre- 

 fer to take more pains with a queen that 

 I cared very much about. 



»i»»»it»»»'fc»k* 



TESTING IS NOT ADOPTING. 



Dr. Miller is testing a few Danzy. hives, 

 also a few large hives which some one 

 has graphicall}- called "barns." He re- 

 sents the accusation that because he is 

 doing this, he is "'pressing barns to the 

 front." Mr. Root is also trying these 

 hives, and saj's that because he is doing 

 this he is also accused of '" pressing them 

 to the front. ' ' Because a man is giving 

 a thing a trial is no reason why it should 

 be assumed that he will adopt it. It sim- 

 ply shows that he is willing to lay aside 

 his prejudices long enough to have his 

 doubts removed or confirmed by actual, 

 personal experience. 



THK NECESSITY FOR KEEPING .\ Iv.\RGE 

 NUMBER OF COLONIES. 

 In my Philadelphia essay, published in 

 the Extracted Department of this issue, 

 I touch upon the necessity for keeping a 

 large number of colonies if one is depend- 

 ent upon bees alone for a livelihood. 

 Since that article was put into type, my 

 attention has been again called to the 

 matter in a peculiarly forcible manner. 

 A correspondent asked me to give the 

 names and addresses of a dozen or more 

 tjee-keepers who had been eminently 

 successful — "those who had made some 

 money at the business." I was very 

 forcibly struck by the fact that each one 

 whom I could fairly class under this 

 heading had kejA a large number of colo- 



nies — so many that it was necessary to 

 keep them in several apiaries. While it 

 is probably true that the highest finan- 

 cial success cannot be attained in bee- 

 keeping without keeijing a large number 

 of colonies, it must not be taken for 

 granted that the converse is true — that a 

 large number of colonies will insure suc- 

 cess. There must be the right kind of 

 locality and management. 



•■'jr^^mjr^g-HMH 



J. N. CoJvWiCK, of Norse, Texas, has 

 sent me some balls taken from the live 

 oak. His bees are gathering honey dew 

 from these balls. He says that this dark 

 sweet substance exudes very freely from 

 the balls on some trees, while on other 

 trees near by ' hey furnish nothing. He 

 once tried to make three barrels of vine- 

 gar from this kind of honey dew. Fer- 

 mentation was begun, but it simply 

 "died," if that is the proper expression, 

 and there was no vinegar. Mr. Colwick 

 had never failed in making vinegar from 

 honev. 



mfu^'u^^^%^m' 



CAPT. J. E. HETHERINGTON. 



Gleanings gives a most excellent, very 

 life-like, nearly full-page, half-tone por- 

 trait of Capt. J. E. Hetherington, of 

 Cherry Valley, N. V. The editor of 

 Gleanings also gives nearly a page of in- 

 teresting items regarding the Captain and 

 his bee-keeping life. There seems to be 

 little doubt that he is the most extensive 

 bee-keeper in the would. For at least 

 the last ten or fifteen years he has man- 

 aged as many as 3,000 colonies of bees. 

 Mr. Hetherington is the originator of the 

 no-drip shipping case; and is also en- 

 titled to the credit of having introduced 

 the tall section. Mr. Root also says that 

 the Captain was the first to conceive of 

 the idea of incorporation of fine wire into 

 foundation to prevent it from sagging. 

 Notwithstanding the fact that he produ- 

 ces large crops of honey, it is always 

 high-grade, put up with the most scrupu- 

 lous care, neat and clean, in the no-drip 



