GLEANINGS' IN BEE CUIiTURE 



C 



ur 



JE. CEANE, 

 ^ def ending 

 deep extract- 

 i n g - frames, p. 

 944, says: " How 

 nice to be able 

 to take from our 

 supers two or 

 three full-depth 

 frames solid 



with honey and drop them into a hive that 

 happens to lack stores! " I'm not going to 

 mix in the fight, but I can fancy some of those 

 shallow-frame fellows saying: "We can 

 easily have a few deep frames filled for the 

 purpose of feeding, but we would hardly 

 want on that account to submit to the nui- 

 sance of having all our extracting-frames 

 deep! " 



"In no case should glucose be used. In 

 the first place it is difficult to get bees to 

 take it, and in the second place it will kill 

 them before spring." That's said in De- 

 cember Gleanings, p. 911. Don't you want to 

 back down from that, Mr. Editor 1 Here's 

 what I find in Woman 's Home Companion 

 for December, p. 3.4. ' ' Every pound of ma- 

 ple sugar, molasses, honey, or glucose that 

 the American people can use instead of 

 white sugar will release just that much food 

 for the English and French children." In 

 some other magazines glucose is put before 

 honey, but is generally called " corn syrup." 

 In December Good Housekeeping, p. 76, 

 ' ' brown sugar or glucose ' ' is given as a 

 proper substitute in recipes calling for gran- 

 ulated sugar, no mention being made of 

 other substitutes. Now if glucose is all right 

 to enter the delicate stomachs of little chil- 

 dren as a substitute for white sugar, isn't 

 there some mistake about its being such a 

 bad thing for beesf [If you have ever tried 

 feeding glucose to bees you would know it 

 is very difficult to make them touch it. Now 

 in regard to whether it does kill bees when 

 they do take it, you are probably aware that 

 grape sugar and glucose arc much the same. 

 When we say " grape sugar " we mean the 

 commercial article which was sold extensive- 

 ly years ago. A. I. Hoot, in the early 80 's. 

 used it considerably as an experiment and 

 succeeded in killing some of his best colonies 

 that used it for winter stores. For stimula- 

 tive brood-rearing it answered very well, but 

 that was when the bees lle^v every day. We 

 do not know anything about the effect of 

 glucose on the stomach of a little child; but 

 some years ago we ate it freely as an experi- 

 ment and used it in place of sugar every- 

 where. In about three weeks we had such 

 a bad case of indigestion that we began to 

 think we were not going to get over it. By 

 ■' glucose " we m.ean the commercial article 

 and not the mixtures sold under various 

 fanciful names. Bees might store these in 

 combs — we do not know. In any event, we 

 should be afraid to use them during the win- 

 ter on account of the known effect of grape 

 sugar, which we have stated is much the 

 same as glucose. — Ed.] 



STRAY STRAWS 



Dr. C. C. Miller 



1 



TU 



January, 1918 



J. L. Byer has 

 two counts 

 against me, p. 

 927, December. 

 First, that I use 

 too small hives. 

 I plead guilty. I 

 changed from 10 

 frames to 8 

 frames years ago, 

 because at that time it was the fashion; but 

 I've said more than once that if beginning 

 again I 'd use larger hives. The second count 

 is that Dr. Miller " is opposed to feeding the 

 bees in the fall, preferring to give them combs 

 of honey as needed, to make up any de- 

 ficiency. ' ' I hardly know how to answer 

 that, and I'd give something, J. L., to sit 

 down and talk it over with you. Decidedly 

 I'm not opposed to feeding in the fall, for 

 each fall I feed any colonies that need it; 

 but I feed honey, not sugar, and yet after all 

 colonies are well supplied in the fall there 

 will, with eight-frame hives, always be a 

 chance to feed more in the spring, so I like 

 to save over winter about two frames of 

 sealed honey for each colony the next spring. 

 You think it is not so well to replace partly 

 filled combs with full ones as to feed, and 

 by that I suppose you mean to feed with 

 sugar. That 's a new idea to me, and there 

 may be something in it. Yet I've never ^been 

 aware of any evil effects from putting in full 

 combs. If, however, it should prove true 

 that it is better to feed sugar syrup than to 

 give full combs of honey, I should think it 

 better still to feed liquid honey rather than 

 sugar syrup. 



Take combs out of the extracting-super 

 and put them in the brood-cham.ber to have 

 the pollen cleaned out, says J. E. Crane, p. 

 944. Five pages further along C. F. Alex- 

 ander says, take them out of the brood- 

 chamber and have the pollen cleaned out in 

 the extracting-super! Possibly both are 

 •right. Locality? That or something else. 

 Certainly in this locality I haven't had 

 trouble with accumulation of pollen in ex- 

 tracting-combs. Of course my exjjerience 

 with such combs has not been so very great. 

 But when I have put a comb with pollen in 

 an extracting-super, the bees have cleaned 

 out the pollen, slick and clean. But I didn't 

 put " the queen and plenty of brood " in 

 the super, as does Mr. Alexander. I should 

 expect that to work the wrong way. I have 

 my doubts about his explanation that the 

 bees don't carry up pollen because they 

 " have difficulty in carrying pollen thru the 

 excluder." It is simj)ly the common tiling 

 for the fielders to deposit their loads, 

 Avhether pollen or honey, in the first story 

 they enter. 



Edw. A. Winkler, p. 936, says, " As the 

 top wire is so near the top-bar I do not 

 consider it at all necessary." May be not; 

 and yet near the top-bar is the very place 

 where the foundation stretches the most. 

 Some beekeepers have wondered why brood 



