136 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Mar. 1 



Stray Straws 



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



How SOON after a colony becomes hope- 

 lessly queenless may laying workers set up 

 business? [This is something that varies ac- 

 cording to the strain of bees and conditions. 

 With Holy Land bees, laying workers will 

 develop much more quickly than with Ital- 

 ians. Cyprians come next. — Ed.] 



FoOD-iNSPErTOR DoDGE, testifying before 

 Congressional committee, gave prices of nec- 

 essaries of life in 1897 and now. Of 16 lead- 

 ing items, the advance has been from 33 to 

 145 per cent. The sum of their prices is now 

 76 per cent higher than it was. Can any one 

 figure out that honey has advanced 76 per 

 cent? 



F. DUNDAS ToDD, you wanted to feed a 

 pollen substitute Jan. 1, and it sounds a Ht- 

 tle as if you thought bees died for want of 



fiollen. page 122. I don't believe a bee died 

 rom that cause, and in winter not a grain of 

 pollen is needed, nor until time for brood- 

 rearing to begin, for no brood can be reared 

 without pollen. Notice, the editor says 

 brood died for want of pollen but not bees. 



For robber-trap escapes, p. 116, why not 

 two cleats nailed on hive-wall, V-shaped, 

 with wire cloth nailed on flat? Your presen- 

 tation has converted me into a belief in rob- 

 ber-traps. [Possibly a bee-escape could be 

 made in the manner you describe, especially 

 if made double; but the wooden cleats would 

 be more inclined, in our judgment, to direct 

 the entrapped workers back to the point of 

 apex through which they could get back by 

 the way they came. — Ed ] 



Dobbratz says, Wegweiser, 9, that fertili- 

 zation of a virgin may occur when she is 

 even 6 weeks old, and only in the rarest 

 cases will she become a drone-layer before 

 that old. If she once starts drone-laying she 

 will never be fertilized. If within this time 

 drone brood is found, it is certain that lay- 

 ing workers are present, and will continue 

 work until the queen begins laying. He and 

 others have had laying workers thus begin 

 with a queen-cell or a virgin present. 



"Queens reared late . . . may not be 

 the equal of those reared early in the sea- 

 son," p. 108. I'm afraid some beginner will 

 understand that "early" to mean before 

 there is any honey-flow. In this locality 

 the normal time for queen-rearing begins 

 with the white clover flow unless sometimes 

 in a heavy dandelion or fruit flow. A queen 

 reared before this time is apt to be worth- 

 less, and I don't believe any amount of feed- 

 ing will make her good. On the other hand 

 I think feeding may make a good queen after 

 the honey- flow is over. At any rate I would 

 much rather have a too late queen than a too 

 early one. [Thanks for correction. We 

 meant by "early queens" those reared just 

 about the approach of a honey-flow. We do 

 not agree with you, however, that an early- 



reared queen raised, say, in May, can not be as 

 good as one reared in August. If one knows 

 thoroughly the art of queen- rearing he can, 

 by a process of making a colony combless 

 and broodless, and feeding, produce results 

 that are as good as those secured during the 

 swarming season; and in this connec ion it 

 is proper to state that not all swarm cells by 

 any means are first class. Many of them are 

 much inferior to those reared under artificial 

 conditions. Nature does not always do bet- 

 ter than science; but as a rule science can 

 not often hope to excel her. — Ed.] 



Suppose each of 100 colonies to have its 

 queen removed and at once replaced by a 

 virgin just hatched; how many of the 100 

 will swarm with the young queen? In other 

 words, how many chances in a hundred are 

 there that a colony thus treated will swarm? 

 [Instead of asking the question we wish 

 you had answered it yourself to the best of 

 your knowledge. We infer from the way 

 you put the question that you think the num- 

 ber of colonies that would swarm with a 

 young queen would be small. Is our infer- 

 ence correct? In the mean time, perhaps 

 you would like to know our views. We 

 have nothing very definite to offer except 

 that colonies with young queens are much 

 less inclined to swarm than those with old 

 ones. What the proportions would be we 

 could not say. One of the most extensive 

 bee-keepers in Ohio, Mr. Henry Hastings, of 

 Kenton, told us that it was his practice at 

 the beginning of the honey-flow to kill the 

 old queen, and in eight or nine days destroy 

 all the cells but one and allow the virgin is- 

 suing therefrom to become the mother of a 

 colony. By so doing — and he is an extensive 

 producer of comb honey — he controls 

 swarming almost entirely. — Ed.] 



How MANY fielders are in a colony of 

 50,000 bees? If a queen has been laying the 

 same number of eggs each day for many 

 days, if the average life of a worker is 6 

 weeks, and if each bee spends 16 days as a 

 nurse before becoming a fielder, then |.y, or 

 19,048 bees, will be nurses, and '\':\, or 30,952 

 bees, will be fielders. Earlier, when the 

 daily output of eggs is on the increase, the 

 proportion of fielders will be smaller; later, 

 when the output is on the decline, the pro- 

 portion of fielders will be greater. I ain 

 not ready to swear to those figures, and if 

 any one has a bet'er answer I'll be glad to 

 get it. Even if my figuring is correct for a 

 strong colony, it will not be correct for a 

 weak one; for enough bees must stay home 

 to keep the babies warm, even if it makes 

 them stay till they are much over 1 6 days old 

 [Your figures are doubtless fairly correct 

 for average conditions; but we know that, 

 under abnormal conditions, nurse-bees will 

 assume the function of fielders, and old bees 

 the function of nurse- bees. Assuming that 

 your figures are fairly correct for average 

 conditions, they go to show the importance 

 of strong colonies in order that the propor- 

 tion of fielders maybe sufficiently large to 

 get the honey that is in the field. — Ed.] 



