American T^ee Journal 



September, igii. 



start with, and stock all one's bee-j'ards 

 with young queens of this stock. 



A neighbor bee-keeper visited me a 

 short time ago and after he had looked 

 over some of the colonies he said, "You 

 must certainly have a better Ication than 

 I have, as I have very few colonies that 

 are equal to your poorest, in storing 

 honey." But after he had visited several 

 out-yards, and saw the location generally, 

 he said, "I am convinced that it is not 

 the location, but the race of bees, and 

 the tnan or maiiagoiiciif:" which I am 

 sure is correct. The race of bees, and 

 the management, are the only things that 

 will ever revive bee-keeping in Dixie. 

 What we need is better bee-keepers. One 

 movable-frame hive with the proper bees 

 and management, will give as much re- 

 turns as lo bo.x-hive colonies. Can't we 

 improve? John \V. Cash. 



Bogart, Ga., June ig. 



The Sectional Hive 



Mr. Wilder : — Have you ever had any 

 experience with the sectional hive' I 

 have one I have been using for 4 seasons, 

 made up of shallow extracting supers, and 

 the colony in this hive has given me more 

 surplus honey than any of the others 

 with regular full-depth, Langstroth frames, 

 and it swarms two or three times each 

 year. 



The brood-chamber in each hive is 

 chock-full of honey. What can I do to 

 give the queen more room? 



Also, what kind of bees do you think 

 best for the South? W. B. Bradley. 



Branford, Fla. 



Ans. — I have been using some sec- 

 tional hives for years, but don't like 

 them as well as I do a regular full- 

 depth one-story hive with shallow 

 extracting supers on top and storing 

 supers added. The hive and super 

 give me an ideal brood-chamber, but 

 such arrangement will admit of no 

 rapid manipulation. 



It may be that this particular hive 

 has the best queen. Surely it has if 

 it is the most populous. One hive 

 would not be a fair test, anyway. 

 Try more. You should have a honey- 

 extractor if you haven't more than 8 

 or 10 colonies of bees, and keep the 

 honey extracted from the brood- 

 chamber until the close of the last 

 honey-flow, then let the bees store 

 enough there for winter. 



For best results, the outside of 

 combs should be extracted as soon 

 as sealed, and inserted in the middle 

 of the brood-chamber. This will keep 

 up bee-production, will greatly in- 

 crease honey-production, and per- 

 haps enough in one season to pay 

 for the extractor. It might help your 

 stock of bees if you would add some 

 Caucasian blood. If you have black 

 bees, add both Caucasian and Italian 

 blood by purchasing a few queens of 

 each variety. 



Apiarian News and Reports 



Mr. Edward Geesa, of Idaho, has 

 recently located on the Suwanee 

 river in Florida, engaging exclusively 

 in bee-keeping. He is located near 

 the mouth of the river, and will 

 operate apiaries along its banks and 

 on the immediate islands along the 

 Gulf of Mexico. 



Mr. A. S. Osha, also of Idaho, has 

 recently located near Minopolis, Ala., 



in the Black regions where the clov- 

 ers are abundant, and will engage 

 exclusively in bee-keeping. 



Mr. Frank Bradburn, of Indiana, 

 will soon reach Dixie, bee-prospect- 

 ing. 



A Small Bunxh of Brief Reports. 



My bees are rolling in nectar from the 

 cotton-fields. Clarence Ellison. 



Helton, S. C. 



The flow from cotton is on, and is 

 heavy. John W. Cash. 



Bogart, Ga., July 30. 



The flow from partridge-peas is not 

 very heavy, owing to unfavorable weather 

 conditions. If the continued rains will 



stay for a few days, we may get an aver- 

 age crop. R. W. Herlong. 

 Ft. White, Fla. 



Bees have not done much in this im- 

 mediate section this season. 



Talking Rock, Ga. T. S. Hall. 



My bees never did much in the spring, 

 but are doing well on the flow from cot- 

 ton. W. D. Simpson. 



Anderson, S. C. 



I learn that the flow from clover 

 in Alabama was very good this sea- 

 son, and the flow from cotton has 

 been far better than any previous 

 season in Georgia, and more than an 

 average crop will be stored in the 

 cotton-belt. 



Conducted by Louis H. Scholi.. New Braunfels, Tex. 



Space Between Old Combs 



Will the discussions on the question 

 as to whether old combs ever get so 

 old that the cells will be too small for 

 rearing brood in them satisfactorily 

 come to an end ? I think not, so long 

 as the question is not settled, and from 

 the stand taken by some of the veter- 

 ans, both pro and con, this is not a set- 

 tled question, by any means. 



More than a year ago I took issue 

 with Dr. Miller, in "Gleanings," about 

 the size of the cells in one of the oldest 

 combs that I had in my home apiary. 

 The way I discovered it was by finding 

 some of the bees so small that they 

 were o/ify one-half as lar^c as the nor- 

 mal-sizc bees of Ihc colony. An exami- 

 nation of the combs revealed the fact 

 that the cells of the old and mucii-used 

 brood-comb had become so small and 

 short in depth tliat the bees that were 

 hatching from them were only slightly 

 larger than some of the species of our 

 medium-size flies. So marked was the 

 contrast between the normal-size bees 

 and the dwarfs that it could hardly be 

 possible that they should all be tlie 

 product of the same mother. The 

 dwarfs were the neatest Itttle bees I 

 lia\e ever seen — so much smaller than 

 the others, and yet as perfect as their 

 larger sisters. They were not abnor- 

 mal or mis-shaped in size or shape in 

 any way. 



I wish the readers to understand that 

 I am not exaggerating in tlie least, as 

 some might suppose. I have made 

 some drawings of the cells of a' part of 

 the comb from which these small bees 

 have hatched, but on account of lack of 

 time I have never finished them in ink. 

 As soon as I can do so I will have them 

 prepared for publication. 



I have gone further. After making 

 cross-sections of the comb and dissolv- 

 ing the hard excrementitious, matter 

 which held the cocoons together, in 

 alcohol, careful dissections revealed an 

 accumulation of as many as 20 cocoons 

 in a single cell. The increase in thick- 

 ness of the bottom of the cell was from 

 one-sixteenth to seven-thirty seconds 

 of an inch from one side of the septum 

 of the center of the comb. Besides 



this, the cell-walls were much smaller 

 near the bottom of the cells, tapering 

 to a thinner wall toward the mouth or 

 opening of the cells. It becomes ap- 

 parent at once, therefore, that the cavi- 

 ties in the cells must have become very 

 much smaller with the age of the comb, 

 and hence the resultant small-sized 

 bees that hatched from these cells. 



If we figure that the combs are spaced 

 the regular width — \y% from center to 

 center, which is strictly adhered to in 

 our apiaries since self-spacing frames 

 are used — there is little chance for the 

 bees to elongate the cells to any great 

 extent, as some predict the bees will 

 do. The case in question is such a 

 conclusive one with me that I know 

 that the bees can not do this with reg- 

 ular-spaced combs. And the argument 

 that they would do so if the combs 

 were spaced farther apart does not 

 count for anything, for the simple rea- 

 son that I do not do things that way, 

 /. c, hunt up the old combs and space 

 them farther apart for this special pur- 

 pose. Especially is this true if I use 

 only self-spacing frames, as I do in all 

 my apiaries. 



It is difficult to estimate how old this 

 comb was. It was one that was pur- 

 chased with some of my first bees in 

 1893, or 18 years ago. The previous 

 owner began bee-keeping in the early 

 '80's, but 1 do not know when the bees 

 first built out this particular comb. It 

 was built in one of the very early types 

 of Hoffman self-spacing frames, how- 

 ever, with the top-bars wider at their 

 ends. The hives from which the bees 

 were taken at that time were verv old 

 and dilapidated — the reason why I did 

 not purchase them with the bees on the 

 combs. 



This i5 such strong evidence, how- 

 ever, that brood-combs may become 

 too old for brood-rearing, and that the 

 cells will become shorter considerably 

 by the accumulation of the cocoons 

 and the excrementitious matter, which 

 is not removed entirely after the young 

 bees have hatched from the cells. The 

 cell-walls are also made smaller by the 

 increased number of the cell-wall lin- 

 ings of cocoons, although the decrease 



