1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



371 



Stray Straws 



By Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 



In this climate there is no trouble with 

 a dovetailed corner like 2A, p. ooo. But I 

 use cleats the whole width of the hive, and 

 wouldn't do without them. 



Several, times I've been credited with 

 saying that the queen might convey foul 

 brood. I never said that — don't know 

 whether she does. What I said was that 

 the queen in a colony affected with Europe- 

 an foul brood seems to have deteriorated. 



A. I. Root, if you want cigarettes put out 

 of business, get the women to vote. In Illi- 

 nois, one . woman, Lucy Page Gaston, has 

 done more to oust cigarettes than all the men 

 combined. [My dear old friend, lAicy Page 

 Gaston is one of my very special friends; 

 and I suspect she has had a good deal to do 

 with our new Ohio law in regard to cigar- 

 ettes mentioned in another column. I am 

 right with you to a dot in working and 

 praying for the time to come when women 

 (especially the mothers) may have the right 

 to vote on every thing that concerns the 

 best interests of their boys. — A. I. R.] 



The black-bee Macdonald-Holtermann 

 controversy, p. 339, will never be settled so 

 long as they discuss two different kinds of 

 black bees. Italians are better than Ameri- 

 can black bees. They may be inferior to 

 other black bees. [Has it been definitely 

 proven that the black bee of England is bet- 

 ter or worse than the black bee of America? 

 We infer that the English bee is superior 

 because of the fact that it is favored by so 

 many English bee-keepers, while apparent- 

 ly the same race of bees (blacks) in this 

 country is condemned and discarded by 

 most i^rogressive men on this side. — Ed.] 



AuTAN is a new formaldehyde preparation 

 used in Eurojie for disinfecting combs in- 

 fected with foul brood of the stinking kind 

 (American?) ; but it has no effect on the non- 

 stinking kind (European?) . [We have tried 

 all kinds of drugs for disinfecting combs, 

 and we are very skeptical about any of them 

 being of any value whatsoever. The diffi- 

 culty lies right here: If the drug is strong 

 enough to kill the microbes it is strong 

 enough to kill the larvse or the bees. In 

 talking with Dr. E. F. Phillips, of the Bu- 

 reau of Entomology, we found that the ex- 

 perience of the government experts was prac- 

 tically the same as what we had years ago. 

 We are firmly of the opinion that, the soon- 

 er bee-keepers give up all notion of drugs 

 and medicines to cure brood diseases, the 

 better it will be for the pursuit in general. 

 Speaking about formaldehyde, we tried it 

 thoroughly, and we have had reports from 

 others, but we have yet to hear of a case 

 where formaldehyde, formalin, or the same 

 drug in any other name, has been of any 



permanent value in eradicating brood dis- 

 eases. — Ed.] 



I don't understand, Mr. Editor, your 

 fear that an excluder may be needed to keep 

 pollen out of sections when they are put over 

 a crammed ten-frame brood-chamber, page 

 338. The trouble should at least be no less 

 with eight frames, and the trouble with 

 them is so little that I never think of using 

 excluders. But the sections must hQ filled 

 with foundation, else drone comb will bring 

 brood and pollen into the sections. [Cer- 

 tainly, if a queen-excluder were needed on 

 a ten-frame hive it would also be needed on 

 an eight-frame. There would be very little 

 difference in that respect. We only meant 

 to suggest that possibly it might be neces- 

 sary to put on an excluder; because, after 

 crowding two stories of bees intoal>^-story, 

 there would be a possibility that the queen 

 would prove very annoying in the upper 

 half-story, especially if extracting-combs 

 were used. We are quite prepared to admit 

 that, when running tor comb honey, there 

 is very little need of using excluders. — Ed.] 



The rarity of laying workers preached 

 by Allen Latham and the editor, page 345, 

 amazes me. In this locality, and I suspect 

 that I am speaking for many others, a lay- 

 ing worker is no such rare bird. I think I 

 have had them every year. I may be "care- 

 less or ignorant," but I insist that laying 

 workers are no proof of it. On the other 

 hand, the diminutive queens that are blam- 

 ed for the trouble are practically unknown 

 here. Generally it is easy to say whether 

 laying workers or a poor queen are present. 

 When you find drone-cells occupied to the 

 neglect of worker-cells, with more than one 

 egg in a cell, and especially when you find 

 queen-cells with a dozen eggs in each, you 

 may be sure of laying workers. I am not 

 sure I ever knew a case of laying workers 

 without five or more eggs in a queen-cell, and 

 I think I never knew a queen, even the scrub- 

 biest kind of a scrub, to lay more than two 

 eggs in a queen-cell. But I have known lay- 

 ing workers to lay quite regularly in worker- 

 cells, and one egg in a cell. [We understand 

 that you have hybrid bees. If you had among 

 those hybrids a little sprinkling of the east- 

 ern yellow blood — that is. Holy Lands or 

 Cyprians, we could readily understand why 

 the laying-worker might not be a rare bird 

 in your locality. Mr. Latham uses what we 

 understand to be plain hybrids. We haye 

 used Italians mostly in all of our yards 

 for years. With the ordinary leather-color- 

 ed stock, that is, such Italians as come from 

 southern Switzerland and northern Italy, 

 the laying workers are rare indeed; but 

 among the golden Italians, especially if that 

 extra-bright color comes from Cyprians or 

 Holy Lands, we expect to find now and then 

 laying workers. It is hardly probable that 

 you would find scrub queens in a yard run 

 exclusively, or almost ezclusively, for the 

 production of comb honey. In our queen- 

 rearing yard, however, they bother some, 

 especially when cells are given to colonies. 

 —Ed.] 



