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Vol. XXI. 



AUG. 15, 1893. 



No. 16. 



STRAr Straws 



FROM DR. C. C. MILLER. 



White clovek at Marengo yielded honey Sj^ 

 weeks, closing July 20. 



A FEW SEASONS like the present and I shall 

 have to get a new stock of sections. 



Bkood-combs \% in. from center to center 

 leave a bee-space of % to ]i inch where brood 

 is raised, being nearly double that left at the 

 upper part where the sealed honey is. 



R. F. HoLTERMANN. the new editor of the 

 Canadian Bee Journal, is a live bee-man and 

 an enthusiast, and ought to give the Kanucks 

 a wide-awake, practical bee-journal. 



Combs of honey were put into my shop- 

 cellar during fruit-bloom, for the bees to clean 

 out. Except an occasional bee, they wouldn't 

 touch it till the close of linden and white clover. 

 Then they made short work it. 



The Larrabee escape is nearly as good as 

 the little mosquito-net tents to put on top of a 

 pile of supers, and is handier. It has the ad- 

 vantage over other escapes for this purpose, 

 that it lets more light through. 



What makes the terribly offensive smell 

 that sometimes comes in hives, like that from 

 dead mice? This year it was just at the close 

 of linden and white clover, but I don't know 

 whether it was at the same period other years. 



One advantage, and not a slight one, that 

 a record-book has over any system of tem- 

 porary markings, such as stones on a hive or 

 slates, is, that you can refer to your book years 

 afterward. In "this way the experience of a 

 past year can be drawn on for future guidance. 



I MEASURED the space left between sections 

 without separators. As nearly as I could 

 measure, it was a quarter of an inch. When 

 separators were used, the same space, }4 inch, 

 was left between the face of the comb and the 

 separator. Is this the uniform measurement, 

 or do the bees vary? 



A NEW BEE-ESCAPE from R. J. Stead, of Can- 

 ada, strikes out in a new line; keeps the bees 

 shut up in the super for half an hour or so till 

 they get crazy to get out, then lets them all out 

 like a flock of sheep. If it always works as 

 well as during the one trial I have given it, it 

 will stand at the head for rapid work. 



W. C. Frazip^r thinks many reach conclu- 

 sions too hastily — " go off at half-cock." Cases 

 reported of worker eggs changed to drones, and 

 queens raised from some of the unchanged 



eggs, would, he thinks, if patiently investigat- 

 ed, prove to be the work of laying workers, and 

 the supposed queens to be nothing but drones. 

 I HAVE BKOOD-COMBS that have stood out- 

 doors in hives for two years without being 

 troubled by worms. They stood unoccupied 

 without any protection of any kind, and might 

 stand thus for many years after being through 

 the first winter's freezing. But they get very 

 dry and brittle. They keep in better shape in 

 a dry cellar. 



" Once a robber always a robber," seems to 

 be the traditional belief with regard to bees. I 

 don't believe it's correct. Don't you know how 

 robbers will sometimes whip you out, and then 

 the very next day not trouble at all ? They 

 haven't all died in the meantime, have they? — 

 just gone to honest work, a fresh flow of honey 

 having started. 



The word " bee," in addition to the various 

 ways in which it is used in different languages 

 as given in last Gleanings, has the following, 

 for which I am indebted to W. P. Root, the 

 man who puts my commas in the right place 

 and straightens out my English: Hungarian, 

 mehe; Roumanian, albi; Slovak, v'cha-la; 

 Servian, p'cha-la; Turkish, ahroo. 



The good yield of honey, it seems, has not 

 been universal. July 17, E. Kretchmer, of 

 Iowa, had received no response to 1000 circulars 

 sent out asking for honey for the World's Fair, 

 and reports not a single colony of his own bees 

 working in sections. A correspondent south of 

 me in Illinois reports no surplus from clover, 

 and some colonies nearly out of honey. 



My Punic half-bloods (I have two colonies) 

 have proved themselves good workers, although 

 cross, their most prominent characteristic aside 

 from the glossy black color of the drones being 

 their manner of filling sections. No air seems 

 to be left between the honey and the capping, 

 giving the sections a disagreeable, greasy ap- 

 pearance, the worst I ever saw. For comb hon- 

 ey they're no good. 



The other day I saw a laying worker lay- 

 ing in a worker-cell. She looked very uncom- 

 fortable with her wings all pushed up about 

 her head, and I suspect that accounts for the 

 fact that laying workers always prefer drone- 

 cells. They are more comfortable. Then they 

 keep on laying over again in the same cells, 

 rather than to take the more narrow and un- 

 comfortable worker-cells. 



A HYBRID colony may sometimes prove to 

 have better workers than a pure one; but it 

 doesn't follow from this that it is better to 

 breed from the hybrid. There is not the fixed 

 type in the hybrid that there is in the pure 



