c 



LJ 



April, 1918 



I SENT a five- 

 pound pail of 

 honey by par- 

 eel post to Chi- 

 cago (G6 miles) 

 with no sort of 

 packing w h a t - 

 ever outside the 

 pail. I wrote the 

 address on the 



label, which had plenty of white space on it 

 for that purpose, as the label went clear 

 around the pail- I asked for a critical report 

 of its condition upon arrival. I received the 

 following: "Well, sir, that honey reached 

 this house with no more dents made in it out- 

 side or inside than when it left your hands. 

 But, oh, the dents that have been made on 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULT IT R E 



217 



STRAY STRAWS 



1 



Dr. C. C. Miller 



^=^^^^^^^^ 



TLJ 



Mr. 

 any 



foundation we used. 



' ' super ' ' foundation 



brood-nest by painting 



melted wax; but we would wire it first 



tor.] 



der mercies, 

 Editor. [In 

 case w i r 1 n g 

 would be neces- 

 ^ sary if extracted 

 honey were to be 

 produced. We 

 would always 

 wire, no matter 

 what grade of 

 It is possible that a 

 can be used in the 

 the surface with 

 -Edi- 



"The best food of all is frames of natural 



sealed stores," page 140. Good. You can 



the inside of it since! Yum, yum! .... hardly say that too often. Then right after 



The pail hadn 't leaked the least bit. If you 

 had gone to your store for it, taken the pail 

 down and handed it to me, it couldn't have 

 been in any better condition than it was 

 when the mail-carrier handed it in at the 



door. ' ' 



* * * 



A Minnesota correspondent writes in sub- 

 stance: "In January Gleanings, page 29, 

 you advise to get pound-packages from the 

 Soiith about the time we put supers on brood- 

 chambers. Our crop is all from clover, and 

 so I thought of getting packages as soon as 

 natural pollen was at hand, to help colonies 

 build up before June. So I ask whether your 

 advice was intended for our clover-region, 

 too, or only for localities where a fall crop 

 is expected. ' ' Clover localities were includ- 

 ed. Mr. Wing had advised waiting till bees 

 had started whitening combs along top-bars. 

 I raised the question whether two weeks ear- 

 lier might not be better. It would be still 

 better to have the packages as you propose, 

 as soon as natural pollen appears, only, as 

 Mr. Wing points out, the difficulty of getting 

 and shipping so early is too great. Aiding 

 bees at the time of putting on supers would 

 help somewhat on the crop; but two weeks 

 earlier. would help a great deal more. 



* * * 



Ye Editor having said that beeswax paint- 

 ed on foundation would prevent sagging, but 

 "beeswax is expensive; and if we can pre- 

 vent sagging by any scheme of wiring we are 

 that much ahead," I replied, Febiuaiy, jtage 

 89, ' ' Vertical wiring will do the trick- ' ' Now 

 comes Arthur C. Miller, and says: "Yes, 

 wax is expensive, but not so expensive as 

 foundation, and by using the wax-paint plan 

 I use foundation running 12 L. sheets to the 

 pound — practically super foundation — and 

 you cannot use that with wires or splints. 

 And it takes very little wax, less than two 

 pounds for 100 sheets. One may, if one 

 chooses, add the wax to equal the weight of 

 the foundation, but it is not my pleasure. 

 Incidentally, labor cost is less with wax." 

 I don 't happen to have any reply on hand, 

 unless to say that one must be an artist to 

 paint, but I 'm afraid he wouldn 't be satis- 

 fied with that, so I turn him over to your ten- 



it, "Whether a comb of natural stores or a 

 cake of candy is given, the feed should be put 

 on top." Ye-es, of course, when it's out of 

 doors, but you mustn 't forget that bees are 

 sometimes in cellar, and when you want to 

 feed a colony- at the bottom of'^a pile, with 

 another pile close at each side, it's not en- 

 tirely convenient to feed on top. Ever so 

 much easier to slip a comb of sealed honey— 

 or even a cake of candy — under the bottom- 

 bars. "Not room enough"? Oh, well, make 

 your bottom-boards like mine, two inches 

 deep, and there will be plenty of room. 

 * * * 



The frantic call for sugar for spring-feed- 

 ing from so many quarters is not compli- 

 mentary to the foresight of beekeepers. 

 Uncle Sam is all right to help out, but the 

 help should be accompanied with the caution: 

 "Don't let it happen again." Some say: 

 "So long as a pound of honey brings more 

 than a pound of sugar, it's economy to take 

 away all the honey and feed back sugar." 

 T don't believe it. For some reason, when 

 one feeds sugar there seems to be a sort of 

 "overhead" loss about it. Even if there 

 were no such loss, and if honey were ever so 

 much higher than sugar, sugar is utterly 

 lacking in some of the constituents of honey 

 that are essential. Feed bees on sugar alone 

 for a sufficient length of time, even with the 

 addition of pollen, and its my belief they'll 

 die of anemia. Eight here and now is a good 

 time for every young fellow who aspires to be 

 an up-to-date beekeeper to decide: "The 

 bees have the first claim on the honey they 

 gather, and I'll not take a pound of surplus 

 until after I'm sure there will be enough for 

 both of us without compelling them to eat 

 sugar. If the hives are not big enough to 

 hold a store to last until next honey comes, 

 I '11 save extra combs of honey to give in the 

 spring, using fall honey if I "can couni on a 

 fall flow; but, if not, then they must have 

 theirs out of the earlier honey. Anyway, I '11 

 not be caught feeding sugar." 

 » * * 



Stancy Puerden, when I read, page 91, 

 February, that vitamines were in honey, it 

 gave me a delightful thrill. But why didn 't 



