THR I5KK-KREPERS' REVIEW. 



Imagine rny surprise to find the wood be- 

 tween the paint and propolis thoroughly 

 saturated with water, so much so that, if 

 possible, the same was worse than green 

 lumber. And when put in the fire, as 

 the paint and propolis burned off, the 

 wood charred over, and the water fried 

 out at the ends just as it does out of 

 green wood when put in the fire. This 

 was in early spring, just after the bees 

 were set out of the hives. Those left till 

 fall, (stored up in the shop ) dried out so 



they burned like "kindling wood," as 

 soon as the fire touched them. And 

 these hives were well painted, as will be 

 seen when I say that a few which I still 

 keep to use for summer nuclei, have the 

 paint quite well preserved on them yet, 

 although I have not painted a hive of any 

 kind in 20 years, and they have stood out 

 in the weather, summer and winter, dur- 

 ing the whole tniie. 



Borodino, N. Y. Nov. 26th 1901. 



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o • 



"Too Much Michigan in it" is one of 

 the criticisms that have been made upon 

 the Review — it will not hold good against 

 this issue. 



The Foot note at the end of Arthur 

 C. Miller's article in the December Re- 

 view with no number or asterisk show- 

 ing to which part of the article it referred, 

 made it appear as though the whole of 

 the article had been under previous ob- 

 servation, whereas, it was intended to 

 apply only to the paragraph about "fer- 

 tile workers." 



Mr. M. .\. Gill, whose article on covers 

 appears in this issue, was last year the 

 fortunate possessor of about 700 colonies 

 of bees that stored about two car loads of 

 comb honey; and, in future issues of the 

 Review, beginning with the next number, 

 Mr. Gill will describe the methods he 

 employed. He will begin in the spring, 

 and go through the whole season until the 

 honey was on the cars and the check for 

 it in his pocket. The editor of the Re- 

 view recently spent two days visiting Mr. 

 Gill and his apiaries, and considers him 

 another one of his fortunate "finds." 



LONG-ToNGUED bees have been so much 

 discussed of late that Prof. Gillette's paper 



in this issue will be read with more than 

 usual interest. Apparently it makes a 

 rather poor showing for the long tongues — 

 it certainly does for the claims of some of 

 those who advertise them. But there is 

 satisfaction, encouragement and hope in 

 the fact, as shown by these measurments, 

 that bees' tongues do vary in length; and 

 in the possibility that man may do some- 

 thing toward increasing the length of 

 their tongues, providing such increase 

 proves advantageous. While it seems 

 reasonble that length of tongue would be 

 an advantage, and there are some indica- 

 tions that this is true, the matter is by no 

 means positively decided. In one sense, 

 it is unfortunate that bee-keepers are so 

 given to fads and crazes, and especially 

 tT jumping at conclusions. .\ few years 

 ago there was the craze for light \'ellow 

 bees; and in spite of the fact that it ended 

 in disapointment, I still believe that we 

 iiiighl have good bees possesed of a bright 

 beautiful, yellow color. A year or two 

 ago this matter of long tongues began to 

 attract attention, and soon became a fad. 

 Some asserted that they possesed bees 

 with extra long tongues, while the table 

 of measurements in this issue shows con- 

 clusively that such assertions were as- 

 sertions only. Such things have a ten- 

 dency to bring this whole matter into 



