780 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Dec. 15 



Stray Straws 



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



11. F. HoLTBRMAi^^N, that's a bright kink 

 of yours when carrying a hive like that on 

 p. 757, but there's a still better way, with- 

 out standing frames on end, if you have 

 end-cleats. See picture in "Forty Years 

 among the Bees," p. 83. You will see that 

 the strain is taken off the fingers, the weight 

 resting mostly on the arms. 



Let me say to the .Judge, page 725, that, 

 although enlarged worker-cells failed in Me- 

 dina, because too large, in Europe they 

 claim to rear larger workers m cells enlarged 

 only a little. If your foundation hangs 

 within }i inch of the bottom-bar, I guaran- 

 tee your bees, if they are like mine, will in- 

 crease that ]4, to y?,. Most bee-keepers think 

 the upper wire in a brood-frame very impor- 

 tant, and I suspect that, although your 

 frames are nicely filled without it, you will 

 find tuat the upper cells are stretched 

 enough so they will be used only for honey, 

 not brood. Your rabbets look good. [Grant- 

 ed that you can produce larger bees in larger 

 cells, have you gained any thing? Cheshire 

 has made the statement that, if we could 

 successfully enlarge our bees, we would put 

 them out of harmony wuth all the blossoms 

 visited. — Ed.] 



Rev. .1. G. Digges, experimenting in 1907, 

 found that when working on white clover a 

 bee's load rarely exceeds f g of a grain of nec- 

 tar, yielding from :j'^ to tt'I, of a grain of 

 ripened honey — an average of j\ of a grain. 

 That means 37,338 loads for a povmd of hon- 

 ey; and a colony storing 5 pounds would 

 bring 186,666 loads. Now some one tell us 

 how many fielders in a colony, and we can 

 tell how many trips each bee would make 

 in a day. If 20,000 fielders, each bee would 

 make about 9 'trips. [From data prepared 

 by Prof. Koons, of the Storrs Agricultural 

 College, Connecticut, we figured that, while 

 10,000 bees might carry a pound of nectar, it 

 would probably take 20,000 on an average. 

 A good deal will depend on the source of 

 the nectar, the kind of climate, and per- 

 haps on the kind of bees. Prof. Koons' fig- 

 ures were practically verified by Prof. Gil- 

 lette, of the Colorado Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station, and Prof. Lazenby, of the 

 Ohio Experiment Station. Their calcula- 

 tions were arrived at by means of delicate 

 balances used in chemical laboratories, and 

 we would naturally infer that they are not 

 far from right. — Ed.] 



Entrances 16 inches apart will not work, 

 page 764. No; but they may do better 32 

 inches apart. And you can have hives 16 

 inches from center to center and entrances 

 practically 32 inches apart by having the 

 entrances in pairs. I know, for I've tried 

 it. [Your statement, then, is exactlv in 



harmony with our answer on page 764. Col- 

 onies can be worked in pairs with entrances 

 16 inches apart, or from center to center; but 

 when we put more than two side by side, as 

 Mr. Phillips outlined, we encounter difficul- 

 ties — at least that has been our experience. 

 One great reason why house-apiaries have 

 not given a greater degree of satisfaction is 

 ber-ause of this very fact, that the strong 

 colonies become too strong at the expense 

 of the weaker ones. — Ed.] 



Wesley Foster, page 750, advises 6X8 

 " Fragile " labels on honey-packages. Good, 

 but too troublesome to get. Why doesn't 

 the Root Co. list them in supplies? [For 

 years the publishers of this journal have 

 listed and sold caution cards or labels such 

 as you describe. For example, the design 

 below is furn'shed in heavy manila card- 



FRAGILE! 



COMB HONEY 



Handle with extra care. "^^^S^^ff 



Do not move it on hand trucks, '^l^tji 



Do not drop it. Load with finti-er pnlut- 



Do not dump it. ing toward bow, en- 



Set it down easy. ein«. or horse. 



Haul only on vehicles with springs. 



board, 5v7 inches, printed in red ink, for a 

 cent apiece, or $2.00 for 500. You will find 

 them listed in the regular honey-label cata- 

 log. — Ed.] 



I'm pretty badly chewed up on page 748, 

 but still have enough life left to fight back 

 a little. Even though it should be that 

 "man will never produce a non-swarming 

 race," you fellows shouldn't throw cold wa- 

 ter on any one who aims in that direction. 

 You fell down on the red-clovpr-queen prop- 

 osition, but did you lie there whimper- 

 ing in the dust? Not a bit of it; but you 

 jump up and say, " We are in hopes some 

 day of running across another 'sport.'" 

 There is a difference in tongue-length, and 

 if the thing is thought worth following up 

 some day there may be the fixing of a strain 

 with long tongues. Same with swarming. 

 There is a marked difference in the tenden- 

 cy to swarm under the same conditions. Do 

 you dare to say that careful selection may 

 not increase the tendency toward non- 

 swarming? Increase it far enough, and fix 

 it. and there you are. ' ' Tendency to revert?' ' 

 So there is in all improvement in breeding; 

 but that doesn't stop the impmvement. 

 [We did not svty that something could not 

 be done toward securing a strain of bees 

 that would be less inclined to swarm than 

 the average stock; but we did take issue 

 with vou on the point that man could ever 

 "produce a non-swarming race of bees." 

 We admit that the swarming tendency, or 

 any other undesirable tendency, can be mit- 

 igated; but unless the apiarist is "on to his 

 job," and at it all the time, there is a strong 

 tendency to revert to the original type. This 

 is experienced in poultry and in all kinds of 

 farm stock. — Ed.] 



