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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Nov. 15 



Stray Straws 



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



M. T. Pritchard, glad I asked the ques- 

 tion that brought out those important facts, 

 page 661. That difference in temperature is 

 very important, and I don't recall seeing it 

 in print before. 



In this locality I wouldn't want less 

 than 80 lbs. of honey for outdoor wintering; 

 and if so unfortunate as to feed very late, 

 and had no honey, I'd feed syrup, 2>^ parts 

 sugar to 1 part water. 



Remember that fine field of sweet clover 

 in picture on Gleanings cover for May 1, 

 last? Every spear gone. Horses and cows 

 ate it down so close they killed it. Hardly 

 looks like a noxious weed, does it? 



Wax from sugar-cane in sufficient quan- 

 tities to warrant its extraction on a commer- 

 cial scale is the latest. It is white or pale 

 yellow; it much resembles in appearance 

 Carnauba wax, as also in its hardness and 

 high melting-point. — Literary Digest, 486, 

 (from Revue Soientifique) . 



G. M. DooLiTTLB, you're sound as a dol- 

 lar about taking bees into the cellar early. 

 If you can take them in toward the last of 

 November, immediately after a flight, that 

 generally is all right; but I'd rather take 

 them in five — may be ten — days too early 

 than one day too late. 



S. Preston, p. 6;>4, with splinted founda- 

 tion and split bottom-bar there is no stretch- 

 ing. Neither is there with plain bottom- 

 bar. Wiring might do, if vertical, and with 

 very heavy bottom-bar. You ask the ob- 

 jection to your plan. If I understand, you 

 cut out a narrow strip a little way above the 

 bottom-bar, and wired horizontally. That 

 worked all right with me, but the splinting 

 is a little easier and better. 



Dr. Burton N. Gates says in Mass. Bul- 

 letin, that with foul brood "the adult bees 

 are rendered inactive, making diseased col- 

 onies of bees unproductive." I don't know 

 that I ever saw that statement before, and 

 it doesn't look like good sense, if the brood 

 only is diseased. And yet — and yet — my 

 observation says Dr. Gates is right. It 

 doesn't take a great deal of foul brood in a 

 colony to make them leave their supers 

 empty. 



Straws for Nov. 1 I wrote in good time, 

 put them in my pocket to mail them, and 

 then — left them in my pocket. That's the 

 second time that thing has happened in the 

 past twenty years, and I must try to break 

 off the habit. [Dr. Miller has been very reg- 

 ular in sending copy for Straws; and when 

 they did not come to hand for our Nov. 1st 

 issue we felt sure that he either must be sick 

 or the mails had miscarried. Glad to know 

 it was neither, even if the joke is on our old 

 friend.— Ed.] 



Uniting well discussed, p. 644, but not a 

 word about the Miller plan. Of course, I'm 

 prejudiced; it's my baby; but I've tried it 

 thoroughly many times during several years 

 with never a failure, and believe it best of 

 all. Put a sheet of newspaper over one hive 

 and set the other over it, and that's all there 

 is to it. The bees do the rest. No matter 

 whether you do it quietly or noisily, only 

 so you make sure you have all the bees that 

 belong in the upper colony, and that they 

 can't get out any way only down through 

 the paper after a hole is gnawed in it. By 

 that time they will not return to the old 

 stand. Not too late to try it yet, if you have 

 any more uniting to do. I'd like to know 

 if it succeeds as well for others. [In "this 

 locality " we do not need to use any news- 

 paper, even when we do not take the trouble 

 to shake or jar the bees before uniting. If 

 you get some good gentle leather-colored 

 Italians and clean out: your blacks and hy- 

 brids you will have no trouble about unit- 

 ing, and little or no trouble, possibly, from 

 the ravages of European foul brood. — Ed.] 



"Give a few puffs of smoke, then wait a 

 couple of minutes for the bees to fill them- 

 selves with honey, when you may handle 

 them without being stung." That's the 

 sort of foolish advice still too often given, 

 even in books. Bees don't need to be filled 

 with honey to prevent their stinging. A 

 practical bee-keeper hasn't time to wait for 

 any thing of the kind. The smoke frightens 

 a bee so it will not sting, and it does it in- 

 stantly, before it has time to reach a cell of 

 honey. The other day I took the bottom- 

 racks out of my hives. If I had done it with- 

 out smoke I would have been stung fearful- 

 ly. If I had waited for the bees to fill them- 

 selves with honey it would have taken three 

 and perhaps five times as long. I worked 

 with one hand while I smoked it with the 

 other, had the rack out, and left the hive, 

 before a single bee had time to load up v/ith 

 honey. [Yoii are entirely right. It is wrong 

 in theory and practice to wait two minutes. 

 In this connection the statement is often 

 made that bees simply can not sting when 

 filled with honey, for the reason, so it is 

 said, that they can not curve their bodies 

 enough to insert the sting. If anybody will 

 take the time to try this experiment he will 

 find that the bees are "on to their job all 

 r'ght." The podding of the honey-sac has 

 nothing to do with the matter at all. It is 

 only incident to a vigorous smoking. Smoke 

 and nothing else is what subdues the bees. 

 —Ed.] 



Of my best twenty colonies (which aver- 

 aged 122 sections each uj) to July 10) , ten 

 had last year's queens, and ten had queens 

 of the year before. Thirteen were yellow 

 and seven dark. The very best three were 

 dark. The ten 190S queens gave precisely 

 the same number of sections as the ten 1909 

 queens. The thirteen yellow colonies aver- 

 aged 118.7 sections each; the seven dark col- 

 onies a\ eraged 129.9 sections each. This 



