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tVLEANINUS IN BEE CULTURE 



May 15 



Stray Straws 



By J)K. C. C. MiLLEK, Marengo, 111. 



Thp: Census man struck a rather bad 

 year for bee-keepers, didn't he? 



Nectar contains 9o.76 i)er cent of water; 

 and honey, 20.6 per cent, according to (Ger- 

 man official investigation. — Lpzg. Bztg., 



LuDWiG says, Am. Bienenstand, 73, that 

 moldy combs in winter may be due to hives 

 of fatty pine. That seems to favor Doolit- 

 tle's idea that unpainted hives are better for 

 wintering. 



Baby nuclei swarm out, page 279, Dr. 

 Kramer says, Schweitz. Bztg., 178; take bot- 

 tom oflf nucleus hive; set it over an empty 

 one, and the baby will build and brood with 

 no thought of swarming. 



Wesley Foster, I wonder if your section- 

 dampener, p. 293, is as good as a fine stream 

 of hot water from a fountain syringe. It 

 does fair work on a whole package of sec- 

 tions, and splendid work on half that depth. 



"With AN eight-frame Langstroth hive 

 . . . . it is well to use the excluder as a 

 precaution against brood in the sections," 

 p. 300. In this locality no excluder is used 

 between eight-frame hive and sections. 



Some omit breakfast, some omit supper. 

 I've tried both ways; don't know which is 

 best, or whether it's better to eat three meals, 

 and cut each meal in two. The thing is, 

 don't eat too much, and chew, chew, chew. 



The PLAN outlined by Ijouis Scholl, page 

 246, selecting his best queens for his queen- 

 yard and breeding from the best, will in a 

 few years give him bigger crops. And the 

 man with only 20 colonies can do something 

 in the same line. 



D. M. Macdonald, why can't you stay in 

 Scotland, where you belong, without stirring 

 up trouble on this side, p. 296? I've troubles 

 enough of my own with another descendant 

 of Scotland who objects to my introducing 

 fresh Italian blood to work out the black 

 blood. 



Been trying a i)air of home-made gloves 

 made of heavy woolen yarn. The bees fly 

 at them furiously, and try to burrow in 

 them. Knew that before — did you? Well, 

 here's something jjcrhaps you didn't know 

 — at least I didn't — for all their bluster, 

 never a bee really stings, never one ! They 

 pepper a wool hat with stings, why not the 

 gloves ? 



Later. — (iot stung three times in half a 

 day on the identical spot inside of a finger. 

 I think the glove was thinner there. But 

 why don't they leave any stings on the 

 back of the hands or fingers? 



"Seliing i)atent-right territory" is 

 bunched among objectionable things for- 

 merly advertised, page 241. What's wrong 



about selling i)atent-right territory? [Noth- 

 ing is inherently wrong with iYiQ principle; 

 but years ago the practice was very much 

 abused — so much so that it has practically 

 gone out. But, say, doctor, why (\o\\\you 

 answer this question? You lived in the days 

 of patent-right selling, and are sui)posed to 

 know more about it than the writer. — Ed.] 



Period of bloom three or four weeks earli- 

 er than usual. Duchess apple 41 days earli- 

 er this year than last. But after a long 

 spell of summer came snow and ice — ther- 

 mometer 21°. Some trees were utterly de- 

 nuded, same as in winter. Fruit is about 

 all killed; but since thawing out, bees still 

 work on apple-blossoms, which are black at 

 heart. Bees stood it grandly; are now at 

 least three weeks in advance of any previous 

 year. Aj^ril 29 honey shook as in the midst 

 of a heavy clover flow. 



Replying to my question, p. 244, you say, 

 Mr. p]ditor, that foul-broody entrances and 

 alighting-boards should be disinfected. Does 

 that mean that the danger-line ends there, 

 and that there's no need to disinfect further 

 out? What about the millions of spores 

 scattered all over the ground and on top of 

 all the hives in the apiary? [Spores on the 

 outside of the cover or on the ground would 

 probably be killed outright by the action of 

 the sun. Disinfection of the interior of the 

 hive or entrance would, we think, be suffi- 

 cient. — P^D.] 



The Bedford anti-swarming device, page 

 299, ought to hinder swarming just as my 

 bottom rack does, provided the entrance 

 under the device is large enough. But plac- 

 ed in front of a hive as shown on page 295, 

 I should expect it to increase swarming, just 

 because it decreases ventilation. The Bed- 

 ford device, p. 299, is O. K.; but instead of 

 holes at the back end why not have it more 

 open, same as front? The Weishaupt ar- 

 rangement, p. 299, is only to keep out rob- 

 bers and mice. But I never knew either 

 robbers or mice to trouble a hive raised on 

 blocks, and the arrangement shuts off half 

 the ventilation. But don't forget, good 

 friends all, that a }i-\xv(t\i opening at the up- 

 per back end of the hive is as good as add- 

 ing an inch at the bottom. 



That balling business, page 244. As I 

 understand it, E. Franke watched many 

 cases of queens returning from wedding- 

 flights into one-frame fertilizing-hives, 

 where he could see them through the glass 

 sides, and in every case the queen was ball- 

 ed unless she returned without having mat- 

 ed. Did Mr. Pritchard see the queens after 

 they entered, so as to be sure they were not 

 balled? I've seen bees many a time chasing 

 after a queen to pull away the filament, but 

 I don't know that the queen had not been 

 first balled for a time. [Mr. Pritchard has 

 raised anywhere from 1000 to 3000 queens in 

 a season. In the height of the queen-rear- 

 ing work he is constantly opening baby nu- 

 clei. If there were any such balling as Mr. 

 Franke refers to he would ha\e seen it, we 

 would think. — Ed.] 



