476 



GLEANINGS IN BE E C U I. T U K E 



Wc 



C 



lur 



I L E 

 lover 

 came into 

 bloom unusual- 

 ly early this 

 year, it was of 

 little value to 

 bees until the 

 25th of June, 

 owing to cold, 



rainy weather. On the 25,th the clouds 

 gave way to warm, sunny days, and within 

 24 hours the yards of bees were all bustle 

 and activity "and good colonies beginning 

 to work in" supers. Doesn't it make one 



feel good f 



» * « 



Pictures are certai,nly instructive, and 

 tha|t on ])age :!98 illustrating the results 

 of extracting unripe lioney is no exception. 

 My! I can almost taste it, just looking at 

 those dauby cans, and smell it too. 



* * * 



To be able to predict with some degree 

 of certainty just how long the flow of nectar 

 from any given source will last, is of con- 

 siderable value; but with many years' ex- 

 perience we find it is not always an easy 

 thing to do. A cold rain or sudden drouth 

 or bad atmospheric conditions may upsea 

 our best predictions. 



* * * 



I was surprised to learn thru the July 

 number of Gleanings of the death of our 

 friend, and everybody's friend, G. M. Doo- 

 little. How fast the old writers in Glean- 

 ings, that we had come to admire and love, 

 are passing away! For one, thanks to the 



SIFTINGS 



J. E. Crane 



3 



LJ 



light of a glorious Gospel, I am grateful religion. 



that I do not have to think of him as having 



gone out into darkness, but rather as having 



passed on into a freer life, where all the 



nobler longings and aspirations of his soul 



may be realized. 



In the Editor's comments on ''Ai)iaries 

 at Long Kange" he says, "European foul 

 brood with a good strain of Italians can 

 be and is being controlled so that it is not 

 a serious menace in most cases. ' ' This 

 statemerit is a fact that I wish more bee- 

 kee})ers could reali/e and api reciato. Hives 

 of black bees that I found in my inspection 

 work last year, badly infected with Euro- 

 pean foul brood, and gave directions lo 

 either Italianize or destroy, I have found 

 this year filled with beautiful Halians and 

 free of disease. But let us not think that 

 Italian bees are a sure cure, for we occa- 

 sionally find some of the brightest Italians 

 subject to disease. Such, in spite of their 

 beauty, should be treated the same as 

 blacks. ^ .X .» 



For one 1 am glad Grace Allen is in- 

 tending again to try ])acked hives another 

 winter, after her unfortunate experience 

 of last winter. I have begun to think there 

 are more kinks to wintering bees than the 

 wisest have dreamed. It is something of 



August, 1918 



an eye-opener to 

 inspect bees af- 

 ter such a win- 

 ter as the past 

 one has been. I 

 confess it has 

 knocked a good 

 deal of conceil^ 

 out of me, when 

 I found s o' m e 

 colonies that according to all orthodox rules 

 should have died, alive and strong, and oth- 

 ers that should have lived, dead as a door 

 nail. That hive bottom side up that Mrs. Al- 

 len speaks of, page 415, is a fair sample. I 

 found one single-walled hive on a bench 

 three feet above ground exposed on all 

 sides, with a hole in one side six by eight 

 inches, and yet it survived in spite of all 

 our zero weather. Sometimes I think I 

 don't know; and then again, I think, with 

 plenty of stores and enough young bees, 

 some of the things we have thought so es- 

 sential could be dispensed with. 



■s * * 



The old-time school-teachers of the coun- 

 try districts used to mix bits of truth with 

 the copies they set for their young pupils 

 to learn the art of .writing. A favorite 

 was: 



"Many men of many minds. 

 Many birds of many kinds. 

 Many fishes in the sea. 

 Many men that don 't agree. ' ' 



I have thought of it many times these 

 later years. It is as true today as in the 

 days long ago — as true of beekeepers and 

 beekeeping as in the world of politics and 



When I wrote some time ago that shal- 

 low extracting-frames were a nuisance, I 

 wrote from my own experience and method 

 of management; and I can hardly regret it, 

 for it has brought out many nice things 

 said in favor of the shallow frames that 

 otherwise we might have missed. 



For various reasons I prefer an extract- 

 ing-frame that is interchangeable with the 

 franies of th.e brood-chamber. 



Our seasons are very short and often a 

 colony lacks five or ten or more pounds of 

 winter stores that can readily be supjjlied 

 from super combs. Also for spring feed- 

 ing, frames of honey from a super is a most 

 convenient way of feeding. Where two 

 shallow extracting-supers are used for a 

 brood-chamber, as some beekeepers are 

 doing with excellent results, of course, shal- 

 low extracting-supers would be preferable. 

 I am not sure but that such hives have 

 more a<lvantages and can be nuinaged with 

 less time and labor than any other, but 1 

 have not tested them out, and can not 

 speak from exjjerience. 



1 liavc no difficulty in getting bees to 

 work in supers with full-depth Langstroth 

 frames, and prefer them; but if any one 

 can secure better results by using shallow 

 frames, by all means use these. 



