68 



GLEANINGS IN BEF CULTURE 



Feb. 1 



Stray Straws 



By Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, III. 



That 15-inch snow-blanket has had anoth- 

 er 15 inches added in this locality. 



Light-brood foundation with 7 splints 

 works all right here. 



"We do not believe cold actually kills 

 bees," p. 35. No, no more than it does peo- 

 ple. But it may kill either bees or people. 



In the Canadian Bee Journal, page 424, 

 J. E. Hand reports successful wintenng on 

 solid slabs of honey with two inches between 

 the combs. 



H. E. Crowther had no buckhng with 5- 

 inch splints, and I had. He gives the rea- 

 son, p. 22. He used horizontal wires and I 

 ised none. 



Louis Scholl, you're a goose. There you 

 go, p. 39, trying to get those Colorado fellows 

 to run for bulk honey; and then when they 

 flood your market with it where will you be? 



To exclude the queen from upper stories, 

 J. C. Clayton, in the tirst story over the 

 orood-chamber, spaces extracting-combs two 

 inches. He says the queen will not pass up 

 hrough this.— British B. J., 474. 



A plant-louse, in tive hours, secretes an 



mount of honey-dew equal to the bulk of its 

 own body. A linden-tree with 24,000 leaves 

 can furnish 50 pounds of honey - dew — 

 Deutsche Iniker aus Boehmen, 406. 



I THINK it has been suggested that bees 

 cluster front with honey further back be- 

 cause the honey is thus safer from robbers. 

 Is it not just possible, also, that the brood- 

 nest is near the entrance for the sake of the 

 fresher air there. [That has always been 

 our theory. — Ed.] 



C. G. HULICK, p. 43, if moisture here would 

 use up an unpainted hive in two years, as it 

 does yours, I think I'd paint. But when it 

 lasts 25 years, I'd rather have the advantages 

 of no paint. The chief one is that the mois- 

 ture from the bees' breath dries out more 

 quickly in an unpainted hi/e. 



I have a NOTION (but I don't know) that 

 solid frames of honey with a two-inch space 

 beneath will be all right for outdoor winter- 

 ing. But the bees will at once proceed to 

 make your sort of brood-nest, Mr. Editor. 

 [They may make that nest, but the cold slabs 

 of honey in the mean time may give them a 

 set back. — Ed.] 



G. M. Doolittle, I always supposed that, 

 in all normal superseding, queen-cells were 

 started before the death of the queen; and 

 until your statement, p. 759, I never knew 

 that blacks used post- constructed cells for 

 superseding — never saw it in print before. 

 But I can't understand why a queen from a 

 larva a day or two old isn't just as good as 

 one from an egg laid in a queen-cell. 



D. M. Macdonald, British B. J., 4G9, quot- 

 ing American approval of sweet clover, says: 

 "fhave frequently intended asking if any 



one in this country grows sweet clover. . . 

 I wish I had some seed ! " Is it possible that 

 there is a spot in Scotland where the plant 

 is not known, either under the name melilot, 

 Bokhara, or sweet clover? If so, my Scotch 

 brother, let me know, and I'll send you some 

 seed. 



German bee journals are talking about the 

 discovery of Dr. Kuestenmacher that honey 

 contains more albumen than has heretofore 

 been credited to it, in a form more readily 

 assimilable than in any other albuminous 

 food, making it specially valuable from a 

 medicinal standpoint, and making it thus 

 possible to distmguish chemically between 

 pure and adulterated honey. 



The German empire, according to the cen- 

 sus of Dec. 2, 1907, now made public, aver- 

 ages 19.2 colonies of bees to the square mile, 

 ranging from 9.58 to 44. Deutsche Bienen- 

 zucht, 184, in giving these figures, says the 

 difference is not so much due to difference 

 in pasturage as to the advancement of bee 

 culture in the different parts. If we plant 

 the apiaries three miles apart there will be 

 from 86 to 396 colonies in each apiary, aver- 

 aging 172. As pasturage is supposed to be 

 better here than in Germany, it looks as if 

 E. W. Alexander was right as to our being 

 too easily scared about overstocking. Or 

 does their overstocking account for their 

 poorer yields? 



C. F. Bender says, p. 43, "But I think it is 

 perfectly safe to keep them in pairs, as I 

 never knew bees to mistake right and left." 

 I'm afraid the importance of that statement 

 is not generally understood as it should be; 

 and Mr. Bender gives a striking proof of its 

 correctness. Suppose you have a straight 

 row of hives 8 feet apart in the row. Now 

 replace each single hive with a pair, and 

 there will be no more mistakes about enter- 

 ing wrong hives than when the hives stood 

 single. Tne bees of No. 7 may make the mis- 

 take of entering No. 5 or No. 9, but they will 

 never enter No. 8, the other hive of the pair. 

 You see that, by putting hives in pairs, you 

 double the number on the same ground with- 

 out at all increasing the danger of entering 

 wrong hives. 



The two ways I treated black brood are 

 run together as one, p. 45, and the mistake 

 is made of giving combs instead of empty 

 frames. The pith of the shaking treatment 

 is this: Brush, and leave in the hive one foul 

 comb and two empty frames (no starters); 

 when comb and eggs appear in empty frames, 

 remove foul comb and lill up with founda- 

 tion. The improved Alexander treatment 

 runs thus: Unqueen; ten days later destroy 

 cells and give a virgin. That's all. But 

 please remember this is not for American 

 foul brood. [It remains to be seen whether 

 colonies given this treatment will stay cured 

 next year, and the year after that. There 

 are some who say European foul brood (black 

 brood) can be cured this way for one season, 

 but that it may come back the year following. 

 Keep a sharp eye on these colonies next sea- 

 son and report. — Ed.] 



