152 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



March. 1918 



c 



LJ 



EM. B. writes 

 that I said 

 in Septem- 

 ber, 1916, Glean- 

 ings, page 777^ 

 that for 20 years 

 to stop swarm- 

 ing, I had raised 

 brood above sec- 

 tions, using a 



ventilated bee-escape board on top of the 

 sections; and he wants to know if I put up 

 only sealed brood. That's a modification of 

 the Demaree plan, and if you will look again, 

 friend B., you will see that I don't say I 

 used the plan but quote from M. H. Hunt. 

 Very likely Mr. Hunt put up brood in all 

 stages. I never used the plan except in a 

 few cases, and they were not a success be- 

 cause the bees carried down bits of dark 

 comb from the brood above to darken the 

 cappings of the sections. 



* * * 



A. 1. Eoot, you 're infringing on my patent 

 is using a wheel-hoe for a wheelbarrow, p. 

 957. With one having a high wheel, such 

 as you and I use, the load is jarred much 

 less than on a wheelbarrow, and I 'm wonder- 

 ing whether it is not much better for wheel- 

 ing a hive of bees. 



* * * 



"Ever have your temper tried by a swarm 

 that would persist in settling back on a 

 limb as fast as you shook it off, said limb 

 being too high up to be reached by a smoker? 

 Floyd Markham says to take a piece of rain- 

 conductor spout long enough to reach, and 

 blow smoke into the lower end." — Domestic 



Beekeeper, 40. 



* * * 



C. "V. Eice, you say, page 104: "I really 

 thought that I was fortunate in having so 

 much drawn comb in sections for next sea- 

 son. ' ' You are, in spite of the fact that they 

 will not make as nice sections as fresh foun- 

 dation. The promptness of the beesi in en- 

 tering supers containing such sections, to- 

 gether with the greater amount of honey 

 stored, overbalances the lower price at which 

 they must be sold. 



* * * 



"When Introducing, Why Not Daub Bees 

 Alone and Not the Queen?" is the caption 

 and substance of an item from G. G. Des- 

 mond, page 104. I shouldn't want to try 

 that on a large scale. You can't very well 

 daub all the bees, and there's little to hinder 

 the undaubed ones from being hostile. Many 

 years ago introducing by daubing the queen 

 was perhaps the most popular plan, and suc- 

 ceeded in thousands of cases — without hurt- 

 ing the queen, too. Giving the teacup of 

 honey with the daubed queen is simply an 

 added measure of safety to the old plan, 

 and surely should help. 



* * « 



Frank Morgan says, page 104: "On page 

 941 Dr. C. C. Miller seems to think the claim 

 that colonies run for extracted honey will 



STRAY STRAWS 



Dr. C. C. Maier 



1 



tU 



produce 50 to 100 

 per cent more 

 honey than v.'hen 

 run for comb, 

 isn't anything 

 more than loose 

 guessing 



At any rate . . 

 we have proved 

 to our satisfac- 

 tion that this is a fact. ' ' My good friend, 

 you seem to have missed the point I was 

 making. I said in effect that the different 

 claims for increase of extracted over comb 

 honey ran all the way from nothing up to 

 100 per cent. I wanted to know, in this 

 wide variation of opinion, where the truth 

 lay, and some proof for it. Like enough 

 you are right, but isn 't your own statement, 

 "50 to 100 per cent," rather "loose"? Now 

 if you will tell us a definite per cent, 50, 75 

 or some other, and how you proved it, and 

 if others will do the same, it will help a lot. 

 * * * 



A Pennsylvania correspondent asks how, 

 with a German wax-press, he can at one 

 operation extract yellow beeswax out of old 

 dark combs without remelting. I don 't know 

 of any way. You can have a fairly good 

 ])roduct, altho a little dark, if you will let 

 it be a long time cooling, covering up well 

 to keep it warm, or putting it in a fireless 

 cooker. It may be made lighter in color by us- 

 ing sulphuric acid, but the danger of injuring 

 it by this means is so great that the founda- 

 tion-makers to whom you send it prefer that 

 you should send it without such treatment. 

 Everything in beekeeping seems to tend to- 

 ward specializing. Time was when beekeep- 

 ers made their own hives and foundation, but 

 hardly any one thinks of doing that now, and 

 I find it easier and cheaper to send my old 

 combs to those who make a business of melt- 

 ing them. ^ , ^ 



"The temperature should be somewhere 

 about 40 or 45 degrees ' ' when we want bees 

 to breed in the cellar, page 101. You succeeded 

 at that temperature at Medina, but do you 

 know you would not have succeeded as well 

 at a higher temperature — or lower? You 

 know that for years we thought 40 or 45 

 was the best temperature for cellar-winter- 

 ing, but Dr. Phillips has taught us better. 

 On the other hand you know that bees out- 

 doors begin breeding -earlier than those in 

 the cellar, just because of the severe cold. I 

 wonder if we know very much definitely 

 about it. However, except as a matter of 

 curiosity, I don 't suppose it matters, for 

 you are no doubt right that it's not likely 

 to be a profitable plan to adopt. [For 

 breeding in the cellar we would prefer 

 to have a temperature higher than 45 rather 

 til an lower than 40. It could go even as 

 high as 55 and perhaps 60, providing there 

 was plenty of ventilation, and we are not 

 sure but that at the last named temperature 

 the conditions would be more favorable for 

 breeding. The danger would be, however, 



