748 



ULKANINGS IN BE^-: CULTURE 



Dec. 1 



Stray Straws 



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



That last Straw, page 715, fourth line, 

 says exactly the opposite of what I mean. 

 Just cut out that "do not." 



D. M. MacDonald says, page 018, "My 

 preference would be 9 frames." I suppose 

 he uses the British standard frame, 14X8>^. 

 Nine of them are equivalent to six V^ Lang- 

 stroth. 



Mr. Editor, I don't think you've given 

 the right answer to the question, "Why are 

 you optimistic?" p. 677. It's because you 

 are a born bee-keeper. A born bee-keeper 

 is always optimistic, honey-dew or no hon- 

 ey-dew. 



R. F. Holtermann, I agree with you, p. 

 715, that burr-combs are bad about pinch- 

 ing bees; but you have got to show me that 

 a bee ttius pinched is angry upon being re- 

 leased. I never knew one to fly at me, or 

 show signs of anger. 



Queens stop laying earlier than the be- 

 ginner supposes; but doesn't brood-rearing 

 generally stop before the queen quits. I 

 suspect it from finding eggs and sealed brood 

 in the hive, but no unsealed brood. [You 

 are probably right. — Ed.] 



O. B. Metcalfe, p. 691, is correct in say- 

 ing that the wings have a slight vibration 

 when a queen pipes. But that does not 

 prove that the wing makes the sound. Che- 

 shire says. Vol. II., p. 157, that it is certain 

 that the wings do not make the piping 

 sound, "since queens clipped so vigorously 

 that not a vestige of wing remains can be 

 as noisy as others." 



Young fellow, paste in your hat what 

 G. M. Doolittle says, last of p. 616. With 

 abundance of honey in the hive in spring, 

 my bees have all the brood they can cover; 

 and what possible good can be done by stim- 

 ulative feeding or spreading brood, unless I 

 were in a region where there is a consider- 

 able period of absolute dearth between the 

 earliest flow and the next flow? 



F. R. Buchanan, that cushion may be a 

 good thing in spring after bees are outdoors; 

 but is it any advantage in cellar? My bees 

 have only the board cover over them, and 

 they could hardly winter better. And don't 

 you believe my two-inch sjiace under bot- 

 tom-bars serves as good a purpose as to take 

 up room in the cellar with the extracting- 

 super you mention, p. 668? 



Formerly I supposed European foul 

 brood was five times as bad as American. 

 After some personal acquaintance with Eu- 

 ropean and a good deal of reading about 

 American, I now think I'd rather have Eu- 

 ropean, twice over. Possibly personal ac- 

 quaintance with American would change 

 my views, but I doubt it. [Uike our friend 



Dr. Miller, we formerly held the opinion 

 that European foul brood was far harder to 

 control than American; but late develop- 

 ments would seem to indicate that the Eu- 

 ropean type can be easily handled by an 

 up-to-date bee-keeper. We know that the 

 American type of the disease is a hard 

 proposition to handle, even by the expert. 

 —Ed.] 



Raleigh Thompson says, p. 736, that man 

 will never produce a non-swarming race of 

 bees. Better not be too sure what man will 

 or will not do. A few years ago some peo- 

 ple said man would never fly, and now he is 

 sailing in all directions. Only 5 per cent of 

 Dadant's bees swarm. 5]ither \l of his bees 

 are non-swarmers or else he has traveled if 

 of the way toward a non-swarming bee. 

 [We share the feeling of Mr. Raleigh 

 Thompson, that man will never produce a 

 non-swarming race of bees. Even if he can 

 produce a strain that will show but little 

 disposition to swarm, the probabilities are 

 that that strain, after a time, will revert 

 back to the original normal type. The dif- 

 ficulty of producing bees with certain char- 

 acteristics is owing to our inability to con- 

 trol the male parentage. Nature has set up 

 an almost impassable barrier by which it 

 seems almost impossible to change the orig- 

 inal type to any great extent. A few years 

 ago we ran across a "sport " in the form of 

 a queen that produced bees that showed a 

 tongue reach very much in excess of that of 

 ordinary bees. It is a well-known fact that 

 some bees can reach further into the blos- 

 soms than others, although some authori- 

 ties dispute it. Prof. Gillette, of the Colo- 

 rado Experiment Station, found that there 

 is considerable variation. Well, now, with 

 our original strain of long tongues we found 

 there was a strong tendency in subsequent 

 generations to revert back to the original or 

 normal type, and that in spite of all we 

 could do. We are in hopes some day of 

 running across another "sport," because 

 with that sport we may be able to demon- 

 strate to the satisfaction of some of the best 

 bee-keepers in the country that these bees 

 do have some particular merits. The Da- 

 dants have never claimed to have a non- 

 swarming race of bees — or at least we have 

 never seen a statement from them to that 

 effect. They have repeatedly said, however, 

 that their control of swarming was due to 

 their large Quinby hive and their methods 

 of management. For many years the Da- 

 dants have had very little swarming; and 

 during all of this period they have had a 

 great many difl'erent strains. They simply 

 take the normal type of bees and place 

 around them certain conditions by which 

 there is but little disposition to swarm. 

 We are sorry we can not agree with you, 

 doctor; but it seems to us that Raleigh 

 Thompson came very near hitting the nail 

 square on the head. In saying this we do 

 not mean to imply that there is not a dif- 

 ference in races, for there surely is. Carni- 

 olans will swarm more than Italians. — Ed.] 



