THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



361 



When the man first began, without at- 

 tempting to make any sliow of work, he 

 studied the situation until he under- 

 stood the job thoroughly ; knew just how 

 every piece should be cut, what lumber he 

 had to cut them from and what pieces could 

 be cut from each board to best advantage. 

 The first few hours, in fact, he did nothing 

 but think. From that time on he did noth- 

 ing but work. From first to last he never 

 hesitated and I never saw him make an un- 

 necessary move. It was all without bustle 

 and without mistakes. His carefully 

 arranged plans had saved days on a few 

 weeks' job. He never looked for a tool or a 

 board. He knew where it was with out 

 looking : not only that, but, so perfectly 

 had he mapped out his course that without 

 an extra step he was almost always able to 

 lay a tool down on the spot where he would 

 next want it. 



I wonder if a season of such carefully 

 planned work might not be of advantage 

 and if the winter season might not be a good 

 time to arrange the plan and the tools. As 

 prices on honey or anything else go down 

 we must give more careful attention to the 

 cost of production, an important item of 

 which is labor done, or that which we neglect 

 to do from lack of time. A little time spent 

 now in laying out a systematic line of work: 

 a little labor spent in rendering the labor of 

 the busy season less difficult and more ef- 

 fective, might turn the scales in the right 

 direction and insure us less drive, less worry, 

 and a more complete success. 



Notes From Foreign Bee Journals. 



F. L. THOMPSON. 



T'APICULTEUR.— Belgium has a law 

 rf prohibiting th& use of the word " hon- 

 ey, " standing alone to denote artificial mix- 

 tures. Among some prohibitions not of 

 interest to ns, it entirely prohibits the sale 

 of flat or vapid honey. Labels of artificial 

 preparations, whether they include the word 

 " honey " or not. are required to be conspic- 

 uous and uniform on both wholesale and 

 retail packages. The giver of this imfor- 

 mation states that France is the only coun- 

 try in which honey is never adulterated ; 

 but that honey imported into France is gen- 

 erally impure. 



" Bee-lover " emphasizes one of those 

 things that every one ought to know, but 

 sometimes forgets: when there is danger 

 that extracting combs may have honey de- 

 posited in them again, when given to the 

 bees to clean, it may be reduced to a mini- 

 mum by piling up the extracting cases over 

 only a few colonies, since they will deposit 

 honey in the lowest super only. 



C. Blondin reports good success from 

 starters made from slieets of plain wax. To 

 make the sheets, he dips a pane of glass 

 into melted wax and then into cold water. 

 The wax cuts itself by contracting at the 

 fdges, and is easily removed. 



A. Michaub writes from the province of 

 Mendoza, in the Argentine Republic, that 

 that region does not suffer from excesses of 

 drouth or moisture, so that no bad years 

 are to be feared ; except those resulting from 

 the ravages of the grasshopper once in 

 twelve or fifteen years. Even then there is 

 one-fourth of a crop. There are no conta- 

 gious diseases, no moths, no taxes, no mo- 

 lestations by the government or individuals 

 ( but in this respect another Frenchman has 

 already made a different report — see Review 

 1S9G, p. 20 ) ; and and an abundant flow 

 lasting nearly three mouths from the vast 

 pastures of lucern. The highest price of a 

 hive of bees in the spring is nearly $2.00. 

 He thinks the region is suitable to apicul- 

 ture on a large scale. The average profit per 

 colony, in the hive he uses ( a modification 

 of the Huber, something like Quinby's ) he 

 estimates at about !?2.7o, from 77 lbs. of 

 honey at over 2 3-5 cents a pound and near- 

 ly four lbs. of wax at nearly 18 cents a 

 pound. The market does not demand sec- 

 tion honey. At this point his language is 

 not very explicit. His words are : " So no 

 American sections are needed, no founda- 

 tion, no wire, no extractor ( no press ). I 

 work without a press. " Judging from the 

 amount of wax harvested, he evidently lets 

 the bees build their comb afresh every year, 

 and sells strained honey, not extracted. It 

 is to be hoped that the honey combs are not 

 melted up. 



MuENCHENEK BiENENZEiTUNG. — Dr. Her- 

 man Klaus writes from San Francisco, in 

 the Argentine Republic, to the Badische 

 Biene, that the heat of summer there is 

 never insupportable, as for example in Par- 

 aguay, and in winter the thermometer sel- 

 dom falls to the freezing point. From nine 

 to ten months in the year forage is as fa- 



