700 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15. 



10 to 35 degrees below zero, and no flight. Col- 

 onies in open air wintered best, those suttering 

 most being strong colonies packed too warm. 



Friend Root, between you and Hasty and 

 Doolittle you're getting the rule for cutting 

 queen-cells twisted into pretty bad shape. 

 Doolittle's old rule, 5 days after swarming, and 

 again 5 days later, worked well with me; but 

 you'll miss cells, no matter what the number of 

 days. 



The quality of honey in this country this 

 year, so far as reported, seems unusually fine. 

 On the contrary, in the region of Revue Inter- 

 nationale, Switzerland and France, the quality 

 is unusually bad, honey-dew being abundant, 

 and darkening all honey. Nearly all kinds of 

 trees seem to afford the trotiblesome stuff'. 



I AM ASKED to tell how I came out with those 

 big bees from Florida. Unfortunately I lost the 

 queen by swarming before I could test them on 

 red clover, but I had a chance to find whether 

 they built larger cells than other bees. They 

 built them larger than five to the inch, but I 

 found other bees did the Scime. 



Starting queen-cells is not always a sign 

 of queenlessness when a frame of brood is given 

 to a nucleus. Often, if not generally, if a frame 

 of brood is given just after a young queen is 

 hatched, the bees will start cells, only to tear 

 them down a little later. Perhaps they want 

 them as security in case the young queen is lost. 



A TOOL that will easily and quickly start the 

 dummy when lifting it out of a Dovetail hive 

 is one of the things that I should like. Who 

 has the best? and what is it like? I think the 

 worst thing about the Dovetail hive with fixed 

 frames is the trouble of getting out the dummy. 

 That's as much as to say there isn't any thing 

 very bad about the Dovetails. 



A LARGER BATCH OF STATISTICS. 



E. E. HASTY COMPLETELY DISPROVES ALL THE 

 OLD-TIME RULES. 



"rafts." Here are the figures for 300 swarms, 

 lacking one. 



I didn't feel satisfied with so slender a show 

 of statistics as I made out of this year's second 

 swarms, on page 064. With so few as 22 swarms, 

 the chapter of accidents has almost as much to 

 do with results as general principles have. I 

 did not relish the big job of collating my whole 

 14 years of records; but the upshot of it was, 

 that I went and did just that. I found record 

 of the time of 299 second swarms — a number 

 large enough to pretty well swamp the acci- 

 dental elements of the calculation. So the fig- 

 ures given below I'epresent *" bed rock " so far 

 as this apiary is concerned. As I intimated 

 before, I think similar records from other apia- 

 ries where "swarm fever" is unknown are 

 likely to vary widely from these. And yet (the 

 world is so full of misconceptions) I feel a little 

 shaky, even about that conclusion. I think we 

 are entitled to know in this "end of the age" 

 whether Langstroth's declaration, that the sec- 

 ond swarm usually comes nine days after the 

 first, is "a mile off'" from the truth or not. 

 Those words, strictly construed, would imply 

 that more than half the number of seconds fell 

 on the ninth day. With me, as you see, it is 

 only one-sixth. The figures given before seem- 

 ed to indicate that eight-day swarms were 

 much more numerous than nine-day swarms. 

 This is simply one of the errors resulting from 

 not having a sufficient number of swarms under 

 cousideration. and the aggregated record re- 

 verses it. JJoth eight-day swarms and nine- 

 day swarms are a little inclined to come in 



At () days 3 



At 7 days (i 



At S days :i2 



At 9 days 48 



At 10 days 4G 



At 11 days 48 



At 12 days 39 



At 13 days 34 



At 14 days 24 



At 15 days 6 



At 16 days 9 



At 17 days 4 



Just look at this table, and think of the aD- 

 surdity of saying that the second swarm is 

 " sure to come out the eighth day," or " sure to 

 come out the ninth day " 1 Granting these fig- 

 ures, swarming reaches a maximum the ninth 

 day and continues unchanged three days, the 

 slight decline of two the tenth day being evi- 

 dently accidental. 



To show how easily one's impressions may 

 get wrong, I remark that, before collating these 

 records, I thought that twelve days was my 

 maximum. The fact is, that there is a plain 

 though not very heavy falling-off' the twelfth 

 day. As ninth, tenth, and eleventh days are 

 alike, so there are three other days quite near- 

 ly alike — the eighth, the twelfth, and the thir- 

 teenth — the twelfth slightly preponderating. 

 Then there is a considerable fall, and the four- 

 teenth day has just half the maximum number. 

 Also the three concluding days, during which 

 swarms are occurrent, but rare, differ but little. 



As to the few six-day and seven-day swarms, 

 probably some of them, and perhaps nearly all, 

 are not really normal second swarms. VVhen 

 the superseding of a queen and swarming come 

 on together, the second swarm is usually timed 

 to the first as noi-mal thirds are to normal sec- 

 onds; but I see no reason why occasional ones 

 might not come out six or seven days after. So, 

 to be worth any thing, records of seconds at six 

 and seven days must be verified by looking at 

 the prime to see if it really had a fertile queen 

 at hiving time. This I do not remember of do- 

 ing in either one of the tabulated instances. 



Concerning your practical inquiry about bet- 

 ter time rules for cutting celh, I'm afraid that 

 is rather hopeless. Some of us will be content 

 to give up altogether the job of cutting cells to 

 prevent swarming; but cutting ripe cells when 

 we want them to use is also one of our needs; 

 and it is quite vexatious to go to a hive that we 

 think ought to have ripe cells, and find nothing 

 but very green ones; and waiting until the 

 cells are sure to be ripe, and having them all 

 destroyed, isn't very funny either. And we do 

 not all feel "solid " as to whether a cell is ripe 

 or green from the looks on the outside. The 

 prevalence of eight-day swai'ms brings in a 

 difficulty about destroying cells the eighth day 

 which should not be overlooked. If the bees 

 have made their minds up during the night 

 and early morn to swarm, I do not think the 

 destruction of the cells will change that I'esolu- 

 tion at once. I should expect them to swarm 

 just the same, and leave the old stand with no 

 queen, and no means of rearing any. 



E. E. Hasty. 



Richards, Lucas Co., Ohio, Sept. 7. 



WHAT SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT DO FOR 

 APICULTURE T 



WHAT IT HAS DONE FOR OTHER INDUSTRIES. 



In order to find what the government should 

 do for apiculture we must see what its relative 

 importance is to other industries, and what it 

 has done for them; then we are in a position to 

 see what aid it would be reasonable to expect 

 and to what it should be applied. 



Some years since, the government created a 



