1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



633 



know, the place where the temple of Solomon 

 stood is now occupied by a mosque built by one 

 of the followers of the first Mohammedan con- 

 queror of Jerusalem, Abd-el-Maleic; still, as 

 Omar Ben Chaber. the conqueror of Jerusalem, 

 first built a small wooden mosque there, the 

 beautiful building now there bears the name 

 " Mosque of Omar." The Mohammedans call it 

 the " Mosque of the Rock." The rock is believed 

 to be the altar on which Abraham was ready to 

 oflfer Isaac. But. to go back to our bees in the 

 citadel. At the head of Solomon's pools and 

 Solomon's sealed fountain, referred to by the 

 king in Solomon's Song, 4:l'i, is a citadel to 

 protect the waterworks. A garrison was kept 

 there, from time immemorial. Gradually this 

 has melted down to one soldier, or, rather, Turk- 

 ish irregular "Bashi-bazuk." In the citadel, bees 

 have been kept also. My father had bees there 

 for nearly forty years. In fact, the first Holy- 

 Lands imported to America by Benton and Jones 

 came from this place, whence they have been 

 transported to Mt. Zion. and where the above- 

 named gentlemen visited them. In the vicinity 

 are fig-orchards too. but bees never gather any 

 honey there, nor do they do so in the Greek 

 convent northwest of it — " St. George's insane- 

 asylum.'" All these bees gather honey from the 

 thyme, abounding in the mountains of Judea. 

 The honey is taken from the hives at the feast 

 of the cross, Sept. 1.^), and figs go on ripening till 

 October: but no surplus honey is gathered after 

 September, this being very late, for thyme 

 ceases to blossom at the beginning of August. 

 I'll send you, as soon as I can get them ready, 

 a few views' of the citadel and waterworks, 

 combined with the bees. 



Ph. J. Bai.den.sperger. 

 Nice, France, July 21. 



PAINT FOR BEE-HIVES. 



PAINT SLIGHTLY TINTED WITH YELLOW 

 OCHER, VS. PURE WHITE PAINTS. 



I notice in Gleanings for July 1st that you 

 have changed your base on the paint question 

 again: and I must say I think you "flop 

 around " on this question the worst of any one 

 I ever saw. The first 12 years of my bee-keep- 

 ing I used pure white lead and oil: but for the 

 last four or five years I have used a paint made 

 of pure white lead and yellow ocher, as describ- 

 ed and offered for sale in Gleanings, and I am 

 much pleased with the ocher and lead paint. 

 White lead is bound to chalk or scale off. while 

 the ocher and lead paint will do neither. My 

 object in changing the color of paint in my 

 apiary was to save my eyes, which the reflec- 

 tion of the white on the hives was going to put 

 out; and I find that the yellow does not hurt 

 them. You say that dark paint draws heat. 

 This is so: but what if it does? I have some 30 

 hives painted a jet black, and the bees suffer 

 no inconvenience so far as I can see. My object 

 in painting black was to s(!e if the bees would 

 winter or spring any better in dark hives;' but 

 I can see no difference. One color is just as 

 good for the bees as the other. My hives are 

 chaff packed in single hives. Color would have 

 more effect; but the light straw color, as de- 

 scribed and advertised in Gleanings, will be 

 all right on any hive; will cost much less and 

 last twice as long. Geo. A. Wright. 



Glenwood, Pa., July 1.5. 



[From the experiments we made last summer 

 in this matter, placing hives side by side, one 

 of the pairs being painted with pure white-lead 

 paint and the other with pure lead tinted with 

 ocher, we found that there was considerable 



difference in the relative temperature of the 

 cover-boards on very hot days. The yellow 

 covers were so hot that we could not bear our 

 hands upon them, while the white were very 

 comfortable. Remember, these hives were side 

 by side. The same sun was shining upon them 

 the same day. We observed, also, that the col- 

 ony in a yellow-tinted hive was fanning harder 

 than the one in the white hive; for you remem- 

 ber that bees regulate the temperature of their 

 hives by artificial currents which, they make 

 with their wings. Now, we do not take back 

 one word we said in favor of the qualities of 

 the ocher paint, and its tendency to harden and 

 render more durable any pure-lead paint; but 

 yellow is what is called by painters a " warm " 

 color. The actinic (or heat-giving) rays seem 

 to have a decided affinity for yellow- more so 

 than for other pale tints. While owr bees will 

 get along very comfortably, there are localities 

 where bees under yellow covers or in yellow 

 hives would be seriously inconvenienced. 

 Shade-boards might obviate the trouble: but 

 in our wanderings among bee-keepers we find 

 that shade-boards are rarely used. Now, there 

 is another pigment that is, in its way. as dura- 

 ble as lead; and that is zinc. Experienced 

 painters tell us that the most durable «>/iite cov- 

 ering is a coat of pure lead on the wood as a 

 primer: then a coat or two of zinc and lead, mix- 

 ed half and half. Pure white lead alone is liable 

 to chalk. Pure zinc alone will flake. Combin- 

 ing the two we get a paint that neither flakes 

 nor chalks: therefore, for bee-keepers' use we 

 have decided to "flop" back again to pure 

 white paint; and we therefore recommend pure 

 lead for a priming coat; and for second coat, 

 zinc and lead, both strictly pure, half and half. 

 While the ocher tint— that is, a pure lead hard- 

 ened up with a slight amount of ocher— may 

 be more durable, the slight advantage gained 

 in point of lasting quality is more than over- 

 balanced by the fact that it is a warm color; 

 and as a pure white paint put on in the above 

 combination is about as lasting, we have 

 decided to recommend it in preference to the 

 other, even if we do have to •' back water." 



Now with regard to '" flopping." Should we 

 not be excusable on the ground stated on page 

 613? Does it not give evidence of candor? 

 You remember we said that an experimenter 

 who' never changes his o])inion is one whose 

 opinion should not be trusted implicitly.] 



THE NUMBER OF BEE S IN A POUND. 

 how it was figured out by professor 



KOONS. 



Friend Root:— In Gleanings for July;1.5l 

 saw the question asked as to the number of 

 bees in a pound. Therefore I went to my 

 apiary and took one bee from each of ten 

 swarms, taking care to capture the bee as it 

 came out of the hive, presumably intent upon 

 an excursion for honey; for thereby I should 

 be more likely to get all in a like condition, 

 honey-sac empty, etc. I have pure Italians 

 and hybrids; and in selecting the colonies from 

 which to take each fjee I took care to visit some 

 of each; however, in making up the following 

 table I paid no regard to whether the bee was 

 Italian or not. I took the bees and placed 

 them immediately in my cyanide-of-potassium 

 jar for killing ins(>cts: and as soon as they 

 "were stupefied, which required but a very few 

 minutes, I weighed them, thereby securing the 

 bees as nearly as possible in their nornuil con- 

 dition and weight. In our laboratory we have 

 delicate chemical balances, capable of weigh- 



