GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May, 1918 



hundred colonies are wintering with exclud- 

 ers on the same as summer. With this free 

 passage of bees over the top of tha frame, 

 less bees are cut off from the cluster by 

 changes of temperature and lost. We shall 

 pack more colonies with queen -excluders on 

 another fall." [This is only another way of 

 providing space over the tops of the frames 

 during winter. Practically all authorities 

 agree that this is essential and necessary. 

 The kind described by Mr. Townsend, how- 

 ever, may be very simple and easy to ap- 

 ply, because one already has excluders on 

 hand if he is running for extracted honey. — 

 Editor.] 



Old Smithers hafl to hiccough, 



When extracting honey. 

 At each frame he'd piccough; 



Wasn't that too foney? 



* * * 



"It does not do much good to take two 

 weak colonies from remote parts of the 

 same apiary and put them together. ' ' — April 

 Gleanings, page 206. That 's because the 

 bees will return to their old location. But 

 you will partly or entirely overcome that, 

 if you put a newspaper over the colony with 

 the best queen and set the other over it, es- 

 pecially if you make this last queenless two 

 or three days in advance. The bees being 

 imprisoned until they gnaw a hole in the 

 pajier, will, upon releasing themselves, mark 

 their new location and stay put. [But can 

 you recommend putting two weak colonies 

 together with a newspaper between in early 

 spring? Is it not ■feme that the cluster may 

 be so weak that they Avill not work thru 

 the paper? We have never tried it in the 

 spring and therefore do not know. — Editor.] 



* * * 



That discussion as to elimination of drones 

 by the location of the entrance (April Glean- 

 ings, page 211) is very interesting. It raises 

 some questions. When bees build drone-comb 

 at the lower corners, are you dead* sure it's 

 because those corners are near the entrance? 

 When the warm system is used, with side 

 entrance, do the bees have drone-comb just 

 as certainly and just as much at the middle 

 of the bottom-bars as at the end? Accord- 

 ing to the entrance theory, shouldn 't there 

 be more at the middle than at the ends? 

 After all, do the bees generally build drone- 

 comb at the lower corners? When I got that 

 far I thot I "d let the combs answer for them- 

 selves. So I went down cellar and examined 

 the first 16 combs I came to. They were old, 

 black combs, and here's what I found: Five 

 of them had a decidedly objectionable 

 amount of drone-comb at the lower corners; 

 two of them had a little at both ends; five 

 of them had a little at one end; and four 

 of them had none at either end. That is, 

 of the 32 lower coniers of the 16 frames, 10 

 were bad with drone-comb, 9 had a little, 

 and 13 had none. These combs had been in 

 use pretty certainly 20 years or more, and it 

 is hardly possible that in that time none of 

 the 13 corners without drone-comb had ever 



been at the entrances, so it does not seem 

 that corners at the entrances are so univer- 

 sally furnished with drone-comb as the 

 inexperienced would be inclined to believe 

 from reading the discussion. 



Perhaps I may be pardoned for saying how 

 the thing looks to me. Nowadays bees are 

 limited as to drone-comb, and are anxious to 

 build it wherever they have a chance, and 

 they '11 build just as well in the middle of 

 the brood-nest as at the entrance, if they 

 have the same chance. They prefer to have 

 a space left between comb and bottom -bar, 

 and when given foundation clear to the bot- 

 tom-bar in a slack time they will dig away 

 the foundation to leave that space, and will 

 dig away more at the lower corners than else- 

 where because that 's more out of the sphere 

 to which they tend. Then when flush times 

 come, and they hunt every spot to build 

 drone-comb, that open corner is very invit- 

 ing. But once that corner is filled with 

 comb, will the bees dig away the solid comb 

 to replace it with drone-comb? I don't 

 know, but I doubtv If they don 't, then the 

 remedy is easy! just plug the corners with 

 old worker-comb. [It will be remembered 

 that in our April issue we did not offer an 

 opinion as to the effect of the position of the 

 entrance upon the building of drone-comb in 

 the corners of the frames. What you say 

 in this last paragraph seems very reasonable 

 and possible. We hope, however, that our 

 readers will test this out because it is a very 

 important matter. If drone-comb can be 

 eliminated by the A. C. Miller plan it is im- 

 portant to know it. If it can not be elimi- 

 nated by his plan, then we should know 

 that. — Editor.] 



DeWarren B. Davis, you wonder, page 230, 

 at my not painting hives, and query whether 

 it's locality. Likely. If I were in your lo- 

 cality where ' ' an unpainted hive is fit only 

 for kindling-wood after two years of use, ' ' 

 I 'd surely paint. But here an unpainted hive 

 is good for 25 years, or until the inside of the 

 hive gives out, so painting is hardly econo- 

 my. And when a painted hive is the only 

 one to have moldy combs in the cellar, the 

 economy seems still less. 



* * * 



Stancy Puerden refuses to pronounce the 

 word ' ' vitamine ' ' until some dictionary lists 

 it. We'd be in a pretty fix if every one 

 should be of the same mind, for dictionaries 

 list words only after they have been pro- 

 nounced. If she thinks she can write so 

 interestingly that what she says must be read 

 aloud to the whole family, and then sprin- 

 kles a word all over the page expecting that 

 word to be skipped each time, she's mis- 

 taken. "In this locality," rather than to 

 skip the word, we call it vi ta-min. 



* * ■» 



Jas. Bachler, page 234, I don 't have 

 rlieumatism, and I think it's somewhat due 

 to the honey I eat, and also to some of the 

 other things I don 't eat. 



