3^4 



rHB BEE-EKBPBRS' REVIEW. 



weather, with occasional intermissions, 

 lasts clear up to actuil springtime, he 

 would still advise in-door wintering. If 

 the winters are somewhat open, a month 

 of cold weather being followed, perhaps, 

 by a spell of open weather, his advice is 

 to winter the bees in double-walled hives 

 in the open air. My own preference 

 would be for out-door wintering where 

 the climate is such as to admit of it. In 

 this locality, one year with another, I 

 have succeeded better by wintering the 

 bees in the cellar. 



<^^*rfm^«»»«^ 



WHY THE REVIEW IS I^ATE. 



Soon after my return from the Chicago 

 convention I was taken down with my 

 annual, autumnal attack of rheumatic 

 fever. Most of the time I was able to 

 sit up, but there were a great many days 

 when I was not able to even answer the 

 mail. Before I was really able to do 

 much work came the moving from the 

 old house into the new. This was quite 

 a task as there were the household goods, 

 the office, and the bee-hives, sections, 

 and other bee-keeping supplies to move. 

 We were right in the midst of this work 

 when there came a telegram announcing 

 the death of my father who lived in Tus- 

 cola county. Although scarcely able to 

 take the journey, I went to the funeral 

 and returned with apparently no bad 

 effects. At present I am writing with a 

 great variety of things piled up around 

 me. Eventually, however, things will 

 get into their proper places, and the long 

 hard task of building a house and getting 

 settled in it will be over, and we can all 

 put our shoulders once more to the wheel 

 that runs the Review, and get it out on 

 time. 



»^*^^^^» It'll" 



SECRETION OF WAX. 



Mr. W. S. Pender, in the Australian 

 Bee-Keeper, makes an interesting com- 

 parison, or computation, to show the 

 amount of honey used iu the secretion of 



wax. He says that about 1-7 of the 

 weight of a swarm of bees is honey. Take 

 a 7-lb. swarm, and the whole swarm 

 would carry one pound of honey. After 

 such a swarm has been hived 24 hours it 

 has been known to have built comb 

 weighing 4 ounces. According to this 

 calculation, the consumption of four 

 pounds of honey would allow the secre- 

 tion of one pound of wax. There are 

 two factors here that need consideration. 

 The bees may gather considerable honey 

 during the first 24 hours, although Mr. 

 Pender thinks those that fly are mostly- 

 in quest of water. Another thing: The 

 bees composing the swarm may have had 

 their wax pockets fairly loaded with wax 

 scales when they swarmed. 



>^»Fk^u«»'>t» 



THE LENGTH OF BEES' TONGUES. 



I have been reading in Gleanings some- 

 thing about the length of bees' tongues. 

 I knew that there was a variation in the 

 length of the tonguei of bees of different 

 strains, but I was surprised to learn that 

 there is so great a variation; indeed, it 

 does not seem possible that there can be 

 so much variation. The editor of Glean- 

 ings says that the shortest tongues are 

 only 13-100 of an .inch in length, while 

 they have a queen now the bees from 

 which have tongnes 21-100 of an inch in 

 length. The nearest approach that they 

 had seen to this were bees from J. P. 

 Moore, having tongues 20-100 of an inch 

 in length. Here is a difference, roughly 

 speaking, of about 1-12 of an inch in the 

 differences of the length of tongues in 

 bees. I can't get over the surprise. It 

 does not seem possible. Why should 

 there be such a variation in the tongues 

 and not in the other parts of their bodies? 

 The editor thinks that by proper selec- 

 tion and care in crossing we may devel- 

 ope a strain of bees having tongues '4 of 

 an inch in length — long enough to reach 

 the bottom of a great many corolla-tubes 

 in red clover. The only practical way in 

 which the mating of queens can be con- 



