(iLKANlX(;S IX HKK Cll/IIKI': 



May 1 



Stray Straws 



lly Jilt. C C. Mii.i.KU, Marengo, III. 



Six spaces of bees on u frosty luoiniiig 

 the first of May is better than more or less, 

 says Doolittle, p. 211, and, as usual, I sus- 

 Iject he's right. I don't have many as good 

 as that ever, and can easily reduce any that 

 exceed it (and I always do) , but the laggards 

 are what beat me. 



J. L. Byer wants winter entrances not 

 less than 10 or 12 inches by >^, and backs up 

 the idea with i)retty stiff arguments. — Can- 

 adian Bee Journal, 72. [Mr. Byer may be 

 right. We noticed that some of our colo- 

 nies last winter that had, by mistake, larg- 

 er entrances than usual were not only in 

 fine condition, but the combs were dry and 

 sweet. There is a nice golden mean some- 

 where, and we shall invite a discussion of 

 the subject next fall. — Ed.] 



Loiis ScHOLL, you want to know, p. 246, 

 when I'm going to try some bulk comb hon- 

 ey. I've just reread your array of troubles 

 in trying to i)roduce section honey, i). o9, 

 and it does look as if I'm a goose to go 

 through all that and then get no more for 

 sections than bulk. But why didn't you 

 tell me all that before my bees got so in the 

 habit of storing in sections that I don't have 

 a tithe of the troubles you catalog? Still, 

 may be I'd better. Say! do you know of 

 any market in the North where I can sell 

 bulk for the same as I dosections? 



F. (treinee, p. 181, agrees with the editor, 

 that "we shall sooner or later be compelled 

 to give up the use of sections on account of 

 the scarcity of suitable timber to make 

 them." Well, we can go back to four-piece 

 sections, same as we first used, and almost 

 any timber will do for them. [It will be at 

 least ten years, and probably more, before 

 we shall have to give up sections. In the 

 mean time, it is our opinion that some form 

 of carton to hold cut comVi honey will grad- 

 ually take their ))lace. Basswood is a rapid 

 grower, and it is safe to say that a large i)ro- 

 ])ortion of the sections of to-day are made 

 from lumber not over ten or fifteen years 

 old. A basswood in front of the editor's 

 home is 11 inches in diameter, and only 

 about eighteen years old. Another tree the 

 same age is 9 inches. As a general thing, 

 basswoods will grow more rai)idly in a forest 

 than out in the open, for liiey seem to like 

 shade in their earlier years. — Ed.] 



Eive or' six weeks' lime is given as the 

 lease of life of a worker in tlie V)usy season. 

 That was the belief fifty years ago. At that 

 time, and for years afterward, it was easier 

 than now to test the matter, and thousands 

 had the op])ortunity to test it, for i)ure 

 blacks were common then and scarce now; 

 and when an Italian queen is introduced in- 

 to a black colony it is easv to tell when the 



last black (lisapi)ears. The many who ob- 

 served agreed that in the busy season about 

 six weeks is the limit of life, and that belief 

 has gone unchallenged through all tliese 

 years until now, when we are told by G. A. 

 Wright, page 270, that with his hybrids the 

 limit was 27 days. It is easier "to beliexe 

 that Mr. Wright's bees are excejjtionally 

 short-lived, or that some mistake has beeii 

 made in observation — for some hybrids can 

 not be distinguished from Italians — than 

 to beliexe that every one heretofore has 

 made the stupendous mistake of making 

 the time 55 per cent longer than it should 

 be. It must be remembered, however, that 

 if six weeks is the life of the last bee that 

 disappears, the average must be at least a 

 little less than that, for it is not likely that 

 all should die at exactly the same age.' [The 

 trouble with our friend Wright was that he 

 was basing his conclusions on i)ractically a 

 single experiment. With hybrid bees he 

 would have had no means of i)roving abso- 

 lutely the correctness of his conclusion; for 

 many hybrids will show uj) like nicely mark- 

 ed Italians. — Ed.] 



" Foundation should be fresh. If it was 

 put in sections the previous year, the only 

 thing is to jniU it out and melt it over.'' 

 That's what one says. Another says. 

 "Foundation doesn't spoil with keeping: 

 it's just as good when five years old as when 

 fresh from the mill." How can it be that 

 such opposite views are held? Can both be 

 right? In a way, yes. I've had experience 

 both ways. Every year I aim to have 

 ready in advance enough .sections filled to 

 answer for the biggest kind of crojj. So, of 

 course, most years a few thousand will be 

 left over, and I think I've had some .sec- 

 tions that had been filled four or five years. 

 I couldn't notice but that the bees began 

 on the foundation just as j)r()mptlyas if it 

 was fresh. Of course, I think there must 

 be some difTerence — the fresher the better. 

 But the difTerence is very little. If not put 

 in sections, but kept packed in sheets, it's 

 hard to say how many years it would keej). 

 On the other hand, I've had sections of the 

 ])revious year's filling that the bees would 

 none of. Such sections would be left en- 

 tirely empty while the rest of the super 

 would be filled. They had been left on the 

 hi\ e at a time when no honey was coming 

 in, and the bees had given "them a sort of 

 polishing, perhaps a thin coat of propolis. 

 The only thing to do is to melt up such foun- 

 dation. The moral is: Don't worry about 

 foundation being old; but never allow sec- 

 tions in the care of the bees when they can 

 do nothing with them but .spoil theni. If 

 there's a dearth of considerable duration 

 between two honey-Mows, take off the sec- 

 tions at the close of the first fiow, and then 

 l)ut them on again at the beginning of the 

 next flow, lint early in the season, before 

 the first How, no harm comes to the sections 

 from being on; it's in the fall that the mis- 

 chief is done, mostly by being too slow 

 about taking off all sui)ers promptly at the 

 cIo.se of the flow. 



