118 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' HE VIEW. 



finished honey. But after the work has be- 

 gun, and this one case is tilled and being 

 sealed over, we think foundation almost as 

 good as drawn combs. — The Dadants say 

 that the running of an apiary for comb hon- 

 ey requires twice the laV)or that is needed in 

 raising extracted honey. We think this is 

 putting it too steep ; besides, there is another 

 consideration. Nearly all of the work of 

 raising comb honey is done in-doors in the 

 shade, instead of in the broiling sun. The 

 putting together of sections, putting in of 

 foundation, removing the finished honey 

 from tlie super, the cleaning and crating of 

 it, is all in-door work. — The Dadants have 

 had much experience in raising extracted 

 honey. They use half-depth combs in the 

 supers, and tier-up without waiting for the 

 honey to be sealed. Unsealed honey is not 

 necessarily unripe. No extracting is done 

 until the honey flow is over. As robbers are 

 troublesome at such times, the work is done 

 quietly, swiftly and carefully, and all combs 

 kept covered up. If robbing is begun, work 

 is stopped until it subsides. At such times, 

 the extracted combs are not returned until 

 sundown. In localities where there are two 

 distinct crops of honey, each crop should be 

 harvested separately. 



Chapter XVIII has for its title "Diseases 

 of Bees." Nearly the whole Chapter is devo- 

 ted to Foul Brood. The description given is 

 good ; and the use of Salicylic acid recom- 

 mended as a curative agent. 



"Marketing Honey" is the heading of 

 Cha|)ter XX. In putting up extracted honey, 

 the one pound package is too small. A con- 

 sumption must l)e encouraged in which the 

 exi)ense of packing will not materially ad- 

 vance the cost. Tlie one and one-fourth 

 pound package is in less demand than it was 

 a few years ago. Tin is the cheapest pack- 

 age ; but it is better not to i)ut the hon- 

 ey in the tin pails until a short time before 

 it is to be marketed. The pails are more 

 bulky, and may rust on the outside. — Sev- 

 eral pages are devoted to " Uses of Honey," 

 in which are given recipes for cooking with 

 honey, and for making medicines containing 

 honey, etc. 



In the Chapter on " Beeswax and its Uses " 

 there is one point mentioned tliat bee-keep- 

 ers seldom heed. It is that of soaking old 

 combs twenty-four hours before rendering 

 them into wax. The old cocoons and otiier 

 refuse become saturated with water, and 

 do not tiien absorb n'li.r. 



Chapter XXII treats of " Bees, Fruits and 

 Flowers " and shows that bees do not injure 

 sound fruit ; but, wherever there is a crack, 

 or a decayed spot, they will help themselves, 

 and, undoul)tedly, do some mischief ; but, 

 on the whole, they are far more useful than 

 injurious. 



The book closes with a " Bee-Keepers' 

 Calendar," which gives brief instruction, in 

 a general way, as to the best management 

 for each month. 



The Law of "The Survival of the Fittest" 

 Furnishes Better Bees Than Cattle. 



MS HAVING a bearing upon some of 

 the points brought out by corres- 

 pondents in this issue, we make the 

 following extract from an address delivered 

 by R. L. Taylor, at the North American 

 Convention, held in Indianapolis, in ISSd : 



" Let us take, at the outset, a brief view of 

 what nature had done for the bee before it 

 came to the hand of man. We must not 

 forget that, in a state of nature, the rule of 

 the survival of tlie fittest is a very different 

 thing from what it is when guided by the 

 hand of man. In a wild state the chief 

 quality reciuired by the bee to fit it to sur- 

 vive — to persist in living — is the ability to 

 provide under the severest stress of circum- 

 stances suiticient food to supply its wants 

 during the ensuing period of repose ; in the 

 ox it is not good beef, nor rich milk, but 

 horns, strength, courage and agility to en- 

 able liim to overcome or to escape his ene- 

 mies and to master his mates that are not so 

 liighly gifted with these (lualities. 



During the roll of unnumbered centuries, 

 nature has been training the bee in the gath- 

 ering of honey, and the greater the stress of 

 circumstances under which the bee has ex- 

 isted, the more thorough has been its educa- 

 tion. With the ox, most of the (lualities that 

 fit him to survive in a wild state, specially 

 fit him in domestication to die early. To 

 fit him for man's use, all these qualities 

 must be changed, and to effect the change 

 the rule of the survival of the fittest must in 

 its application be entirely changed. Now 

 the qualities, that make fitness to survive, 

 are the most and the best beef and milk. 

 But note that nature's education of the bee 

 has all been piecisely in the line calculated 

 to produce the cliaracter and qualities which 

 man so niucli ilesires it to possess, so much 

 does the constitution of things favor the bee- 

 keeper. ( )f the ox, man gets from nature 

 little but a germ : of the bee, the well-nigh 

 ripened fruit. 



But on the othi r hand, in the domestica- 

 ted state the In e runs great risk of positive 

 deterioration. The ox naturally improves 

 under the haiui of man, because selections 



