98 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



FlEBEUARY, 1918 



handful of grass on top to prevent bees 

 from drowning. Cover top of super well. If 

 the top does not fit close enough, put a sugar- 

 sack over first — that 's all that is necessary. 

 Don 't worry about robbing. 



* * * 



On page 34 Grace Allen mentions the fact 

 that she has no particular love for " crawl- 

 ing ' ' bees, and, as the saying is, ' ' that re- 

 minds me." Some years ago at a certain 

 outyard where we had a very small extract- 

 ing-house, a neighbor woman would be sure 

 to call every time we were extracting. While 

 we are always glad to have people call, yet 

 there are times when folks are really in the 

 way; and extracting in a small place, and 

 having company sitting there for a long time 

 watching operations, is not very profitable 

 and may be annoying. This caller seemed 

 to be very fortunate in not getting stung; 

 and, honestly, it goes without saying that we 

 sometimes wished she was not so fortunate. 

 One day when coming in with a load of 

 honey her presence was missed; and inquiry 

 from the two helpers inside of the building 

 explained matters. They said that " all of 

 a sudden ' ' they noticed a convulsive move- 

 ment on her part — a look of agony on her 

 face, and a sudden " well, I must be going." 

 She never came back. While we have only 

 this circumstantial evidence, yet w& all 

 voted that ' ' crawling ' ' bees had been the 

 cause of her sudden departure. She was 

 game, all right, for she never even hinted 

 at the cause of her speedy withdrawal. 



MORAL. — Even " crawling " bees have 

 a mission in life. 



■>; 4f * 



Mr. Morley Pettit, having gone south for 

 the winter, has resigned the secretaryship of 

 the O. B. K. A. Mr. P. W. Hodgetts, Par- 

 liament Building, Toronto, is now secretary, 

 and all business commi;nications in connec- 

 tion with the association should be addressed 



to him. 



* * * 



Not exactly right, Dr. Miller, to say that 

 I stated that you use too small a hive; for, 

 frankly, 1 am not sure of that, page 28. 

 What T tried to say was that, for outdoor 

 wintering, the 8-frame hive was too small 

 unless made very heavy — in fact, practically 

 solid in late September or early October. 



Of course what was meant about your not 

 finnling, but giving honey instead, referred 

 to the fact that you fed no sugar syrup but 

 ]ait heavy combs in the hives instead, taking 

 out partly filled ones to make room for the 

 full ones, just as we did last fall when we 

 exchanged over 600 such combs. As for us, 

 we were heai'tily disgusted before getting 

 thriT. You want to carry over two combs 

 of honey for each hive for spring feeding if 

 necessary; and from the fact that we seldom 

 need a.ny for feeding in the spring, even 

 with the 8-frame hives, we are convinced 

 that our hives are heavier in the fall than 

 yours; for with good cellar wintering your 

 bees will not use nearly as much stores as 

 do our outdoor-wintering colonies in this 

 northern country. This is especially true 

 if Mr. Doolittle's figures on this question are 

 anywhere near right. I again repeat that 

 8-frame hives normally strong in bees, will 

 winter outside in very severe climates pro- 

 vided the hives are about solid with good . 

 stores in the fall, but if the 8-frame hives 

 are not made heavy enough, they are decid- 

 edly risky for outdoor wintering in our lo- 

 cality — or in Marengo, 111., — for that matter. 

 * * * 



Mr. M.-A.-O., at great risks I am going to 

 comment very briefly on your last sermon in 

 Januarj^ Gleanings. Please do not rise to 

 call me a friend till you have read further. 

 It appears there is a " moral " to your tale, 

 so I say ' ' sermon. ' ' When the pater read 

 the sermon in question he laughed and laugh- 

 ed, and then laughed again, until he almost 

 had a pain, as they say, and he recalled a 

 case where two men actually acted, when 



mad, almost as badly as the two " f s " 



did, as recorded among the advertising pages 

 of January Gleanings. Then in the evening 

 our 13-year-old lad got to reading the same 

 story out loud; and as he came to some of 

 those hybridized cuss words a certain woman 

 of the house was heard to say, " I wonder 

 that Koots allow such stuff to be printed. ' ' 

 Needless to say, ' ' yours truly " is at pres- 

 ent the victim of mixed emotions, for, no 

 matter how much one enjoys a good laugh, 

 what is a fellow going to do when he dare 

 not give vent to his feelings openly without 

 getting into trouble with his wife? That's 

 all. 



THIS has cer- 

 tainly been 

 an unusual- 

 ly cold winter, 

 to date. The bees had a flight last week, and 

 every colony answered to roll call. There 

 seem to be fewer dead bees in front of tlie 

 ] lacked hives than the others. The one excep- 

 tion to this is one colony of the two facing 

 west in the quadruple case. Somehow five 

 hives missed having entrance contractors, 

 and this was one of them. Now it may or 



THE DIXIE BEE 



Grace Allen, Nashville, Tenn. 



may not be duo 

 to this lack, but 

 this colony has 

 been the only 



one of the packed hives that shows as many 



dead bees as the unpacked. 



At the last regular quarterly meeting of 

 the Davidson County Association this sub- 

 ject of wintering was the chief one dis- 

 cussed. And there was the old diversity of 

 opinion. Mr. Adkisson, elected president for 



