c 



414 



LAST month I 

 said that lo- 

 cality was a 

 very important 

 factor in honey 

 production, and 

 admitted that, 

 side liners thowe 

 are, we had mov- 

 ed part of our 

 bees to the country. Well, during May the 

 contrast between those and the ones left in 

 our yard at home was certainly interesting 

 to watch. Needless to say, the country bees 

 have outstripped their city cousins. So for 

 the most part we are running these home 

 hives for increase,, and, in the fall, if they 

 aren't all moved, lock, stock, and barrel, to 

 the country it will be because at the last 

 minute we couldn't bear to give them up 

 out of the home surroundings. Probably it 

 will result in two or three being left here 

 for our pleasure and the rest being moved. 



* * » 



May was pretty warm, day after day going 

 over 90 degrees; and working in the sun, one 

 became every bit as hot and sticky and tired 

 and mussy as Miss Dorothy Quincy Wright 

 warned, in one of her interesting Country 

 Gentlemen articles last winter. But at that 

 it has been a pleasure, out there in the 

 quiet of the country, with brown thrush and 

 mockingbirds and cardinals around, and the 

 shade slipping graciously along under the 

 trees. We're a picnicky pair, anyway; so 

 sometimes I have gone out on Saturdays, for 

 on that day Mr. Allen can join me at about 

 1 o'clock, and we eat our lunch like real 

 farmers on the grass under an apple tree. 

 Some day soon those apples will be a part of 

 our lunch. Mulberries already have been. 



* * * 



Dr. Miller speaks, page 349, June Glean- 

 ings, about the kindly treatment afforded 

 baby queens by any colony. One day not 

 long ago, I was looking thru a super to which 

 I had raised some brood a little before and 

 where I therefore expected to find queen- 

 cells. There they were, and one cell had the 

 little door already cut open, and the royal 

 antennae were waving out into the world. I 

 remembered a queenless colony whose cells 

 I knew were just started, and, as it was 

 rather weak, I thought a queen reared by 

 this big, strong colony might be more vigor- 

 ous, so I carried the comb over to this other 

 hive, cut out around the cell, and laid it in 

 the doorway, with the little hinged lid fac- 

 ing in. The bees passing in and out gave it 

 a look or two, but seemed not particularly 

 interested. After a few minutes out ran the 

 baby queen, right into the hive. The next 

 day she was still there, as were also the cells, 

 but later the cells must have been destroyed, 

 for there was a laying queen two weeks ear- 

 lier than otherwise would have happened. 



* » » 



That day thati deposited the emerging queen 

 on the doorstep of the other hive and stood 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



1 



July, 1918 



watching the 

 emergence, I 

 turned back 

 with the comb in 

 my hand to the 

 open hive it was 

 taken from, only 

 to find it swarm- 

 ing! Out from 

 the entrance and 

 out from the open top they came pouring. 

 Given a new hive for a brood-chamber, with 

 the old brood-chamber (all cells cut out) 

 on top of the supers, that colony became a 

 hummer. * * * 



A day or two ago I came across a young 

 queen and an old one in the same brood- 

 chamber. Being here at home, where I 

 was making a little increase, I took the 

 old queen and two combs of brood away, 

 leaving the young queen to the tender mer- 

 cies of the colony in the old hive; and I 

 expect to find her laying soon. 



In this connection, how long before a 

 young queen goes on her flight would she be 

 expected to mark her location? Not knowing 

 how old she was, nor how far she had prog- 

 ressed in her career, I hesitated to carry her 

 to the other hive, lest I muddle her geogra- 

 phy with disastrous results. Yet I suppose 

 this seldom happens, as I have never noticed 

 this point raised in discussions on introduc- 

 ing virgins. Suppose, tho, a young queen 

 had played about the entrance for a day or 

 two, getting her whereabouts into her some- 

 what undeveloped head, and then was taken 

 from that hive to another in the same yard, 

 perhaps the day before she would normally 

 take her flight; would she be quite sure to 

 establish the new location before venturing 

 on the wedding tripf 



Another queen experience of last month 

 was the finding of one colony with four or 

 five frames of nice worker comb all rough 

 and bumpity with drone brood — evidently a 

 failing queen. It was not a pretty sight. The 

 queen (August, 1916, purchase) was of 

 course promptly executed. I wonder how 

 Fabre, rejecting the doctrine of the par- 

 thenogenesis of drones, would have explain- 

 ed this kind of thing! 



» * * 



Stancy Puerden once said that if she was- 

 n't careful, people would be wondering if 

 she would ever stop talking about cornmeal. 

 Well, I, like Dr. Miller, hope she will not. 

 (And what an excellent department it is, by 

 the way.) But long before this, doubtless, 

 some people have wished that I would stop 

 talking about winter-packing in the South. 

 Well, I probably shall skip August! Septem- 

 ber will be about time to start again. Tho 

 of course, for that matter, the winter-pack- 

 ing subject itself is quite skippable, you 

 know. All I am going to say this month is 

 that I have wondered myself as to the ef- 

 ficacy of the leaves as packing — Mr. Crane 

 suggests, page 350, that they might not be 

 packed down tight enough — I don't know, 



