888 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



cell ? Pastor Weygandt, of Germany, practiced 

 it in 1879. Was it known as long ago as that 

 on this side the water? [We practiced it as 

 early as 1880. 1 remember.— Ed.] 



Badly changed. "Why, my dear Schultz, 

 how are you? I haven't seen you for so long I 

 but, dear me! how you have changed!" 

 " Excuse me; my name is not Schultz." 

 '■ My gracious! has your name changed too? " 



DziEKZON, the German Langstroth, who in- 

 vented movable combs in Germany, never al- 

 lowed the advisability of end- bars and bottom- 

 bars until the advent of the extractor. He 

 used merely a top-bar; and when he wanted 

 to remove a comb he cut it away from its side 

 attachments with a knife. 



The bee-keepek's yeak, says Lebrecht 

 Wolff, in Gravenhorst's Bienenzeitiing, does 

 not begin in spring, nor Jan. 1, but Oct. 1. 

 That's when I start a new record-book each 

 year, and about the first entry is hauling home 

 the bees from the out- apiary. Each volume of 

 Deutsche Illustrierte Bleneyxzientung begins, 

 not Jan. 1, but Oct. 1. 



Temperature alone will not decide wben 

 bees will fly. If badly in need of a flight they 

 may fly at 40°, whereas they might stay quietly 

 in their hives at 60° if there were no pasturage 

 and they had not been long confined. They'll 

 fly at a lower temperature in bright than in 

 cloudy weather; and when honey is yielding 

 than when nothing is to be had. 



I WONDER WHY it is that in Germany heath- 

 er honey brings lower price than clover, and in 

 Scotland higher. [It's all in the taste, doctor. 

 Some people think Limburg cheese very deli- 

 cious, and others can't bear to have it in sight. 

 But, say; in York State there are not a few 

 who think buckwheat honey far superior to 

 any white honey ever produced. — Ed.] 



Sweet clover. On page 84(3 the footnote 

 says my failure with that piece of sweet clover 

 was because "the seeding was too heavy." 

 You're off, A. I. Not a plant was crowded. 

 I've the rankest kind of growth this year, with 

 heavier seeding: but the seed this year was 

 •plowed under. The failure was in soft ground, 

 with shallow seeding, and the young plants 

 shaded with a crop of oats— a bad combination. 



Australian bees have been successfully 

 taken to England. An account in British Bee 

 Journal s&ys they are about one-third the size 

 of thi' common house-fly, and they seem to be 

 of value only as a curiosity. Can't sting, but 

 bite, and die at a temperature below 50°. 

 [They are probably much the same as our 

 stingless bees of Mexico and the West Indies.— 

 Ed.] 



Bottom-bars of wire have lately been men- 

 tioned as something new. I find them spoken 

 of by Dzierzon, in 1875, as the invention of a 



Danish bee-keeper. Dzierzon favored the use 

 of wire for both bottom-bars and end-bars for 

 extracting-combs [I should rather suspect 

 that the wire would prove to be no barrier — 

 the bees would build the combs right past them 

 as if they were not there at all. — Ed ] 



As LONG AS 20 years ago, unqueening colonies 

 during the honey-harvest was practiced in 

 Germany. I think it has gone out of use now. 

 Dzierzon questioned the good wintering quali- 

 ties ol' a coloiiy that had been unqueened. [It 

 is practiced to a considerable extent in York 

 State, and with good results. One of our neigh- 

 bors unqueens just before the harvest, and 

 pronounces it a success; but it is a "'lot of 

 work," he says. — Ed.] 



Do LAYING WORKERS put more than one egg 

 in a worker-cell ? They put several in a drone- 

 cell, and a whole pile in a queen-cell; but I 

 don't remember seeing more ihan one in a 

 worker-cell. My assistant thinks, however, 

 that I foreet. When no drone or queen cells 

 are prestit I've seen them make as regular 

 work as a queen. [I think your assistant is 

 right. am quite fire I have seen a plurality 

 of eggs from layin workers in a worker-cell. — 

 Ed.] 



If ANY one knows any objection to having 

 end-bars and bottom-bars the same width as 

 top-bars, with 14-iuch space between, will he 

 please arise and state the objection? [It would 

 be all right to have c7ifZ-bars the same width as 

 top-bars; but bottom- bars I should not want 

 to exceed % inch in any case. About -^4 inch 

 wide by Ici inch thick seems to give ns the best 

 results. If narrower, the bres build the combs, 

 in some cases, clear past them, and fasten on to 

 the next set of frames below. If wider than % 

 inch, there is almost suie to be a useless bee- 

 space between the bottom edge of the comb 

 and the bar. Unfortunately there is no width 

 or thickness that obviates completely either of 

 the above-mentioned difficulties.— Ed.] 



THAT MOOTED HIVE QUESTION. 



A CLEAR STATEMENT OF THE CONDITIONS UN- 

 DER WHICH THE EIGHT-FRAME LANGSTROTH 

 MAY OR MAY NOT BE LARGE ENOUGH. 



By R. C. Aikcu. 



Much has been written about " the be.-<t size 

 of hive." Some of it has been guesswork, or at 

 least without any clear conception on the part 

 of the author. It is not enough to know that a 

 few eight-frame hives, as compared with an 

 equal number of ten-frame, or vice versa, gave 

 more surplus than the other. 



