GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



July, 1918 



HEADS OF GRAIN IPpMIOTDIFFERENT FIELDS 



■^Ijme Inspector 

 (oTne blow_your horn, 



h^^X^K ^^''."- ' ^i' f he brood 15 diseased 

 >A?S W'<<^ ^5 sure as you're born. 



^4 ^ where is the man who looks after disease? 

 ^~' He's out with a toothpick, poking dead bees. 



"^j^- ■ ^/S"!?/? 5 5warw5 high in 3 tree, 

 f \ ^'"^ 'Tis good for neither man nor bee '--? 



h/hefi'd swarm far off doth roarn^^ 

 7he^nxious l^eeper stays not home 



3^^ when the swarm han^s/ow and near, 

 7hen the keeper has no fear 



l/hen the swarm is l<ept from flight iw'-C'^\ 

 f^good beel<eeper shows delight ^ '^^MMm 



A Bee-Escape The escai^e-board is 



Direct to Outdoors. constructed of half- 

 inch boards nailed on 

 a % by % inch. A space li/4 inches wide 

 is left open the entire length between the 

 edges of two of the boards. On the bottom 

 side this opening is covered with galvanized 

 wire cloth except a small opening at each 

 end where the bees go down thru from the 

 escape. The top of the opening is covered 

 in the center with queen-excluder zinc, and 



SIhfGLf openiNtj 

 iSee ESCAPE 



QyEEN £X CL UD£K ^ ■ ? V" 



WIRe ClOTH S'/J'OA/ffOTTOM 



a 3 1/4 -inch opening is left at each end of this 

 for the bee-escape to fill. The bees, when 

 leaving the escape, can go down into the 

 hive or straight outdoors, passing thru the 

 side opening in the riiu. The light thru 

 these side openings helps to draw the bees 

 outdoors. The scent coming up thru the 

 wire and excluder attracts the bees of the 

 super down to the excluder; but as soon as 

 a bee puts her head thru the excluder she 

 can see daylight from the side openings 

 right thru the escapes, and therefore makes 

 her way outdoors thru the escapes. The 



escape is a single-end Porter, the end pro- 

 jections being cut back to % inch, the round 

 opening covered with excluder and the back 

 end of each escape cut open so you can see 

 thru it. In fact, when both escapes are in 

 the board you can see thru the side oi^enings 

 from side to side. 



This escape-board, besides being used for 

 removing honey, may be used when putiting 

 on wet extracting-supers. Place an escape 

 in one opening of the excluder and a plug 

 % by 1% l^y 2 inches in the other opening. 

 When all the combs have been placed on, the 

 plug is drawn out halfway, allowing the 

 bees to go up and down. When the combs 

 are clean, the plug is pushed in and the es- 

 cape soon clears the super of bees. 



Lambert, Ont. E. T. Bainard. 



Two Remarkable A few days ago I was 



Odor Experiences. helping a friend treat 

 his bees for European 

 foul brood. There were four hives about 

 six feet apart each way with a small pear 

 tree in the center. We had dequeened the 

 two front hives, and were working on the 

 third, dequeening and shaking on to sheets 

 of fovmdation. One queen he mashed against 

 a tree. In a little while there was a small 

 swarm clustered on the tree from the ground 

 up. We got some soap and water and wash- 

 ed the tree trunk all over and thought that 

 we then had the queen odor suppressed. But 

 as soon as the tree dried, on the bees went 

 again by the quart. This time we got some 

 phenol sodique and water, one to five, and 

 jiainted the tree trunk all over. But as soon 

 as it was dry the first 20 bees alighted on a 

 space less than 4 by 4 inches, just where the 

 queen was killed, and not a bee anywhere 

 else on the tree. In an hour the tree was 

 covered with quarts of bees from both hives. 



Now, was this caused by the odor of the 

 queen? and is the odor stronger when the 

 queen is mashed? C. E. Fowler. 



Hammonton, N. J. 



[The odor of a queen has lasting qualities 

 that seem to overcome all other odors, even 

 that of the skunk, and Mr. Fowler's ex- 

 perience is just what might have been ex- 

 pected under the conditions stated. I saw a 

 demonstration of this fact that, I think, 

 beats even Mr. Fowler 's experience with 

 the mashed queen. One day my son George 

 had his insect-mounting box at the basswood 

 grove showing it to some visitors. Among 

 his specimens was a queen-bee. We had 

 been making up nuclei that morning and 

 there were a lot of stray, queenless bees in 

 the air. The mounting box was left open a 

 few minutes when bees began to cluster on 

 this dead queen. She had been in the mount- 

 ing box more than a year, and moth-balls 

 had been in the box all of this time, the 

 odor from which is supposed to overcome all 



