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(I L K A N I N (I S 



I! K K (' U 1, T I! U 



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STRAY 



Dr. C. 



J.I. KETTLE 

 . siivs (Brit. 

 B. J., 186): 

 ' ' I have lifted 

 up tlie brood- 

 (■ li a 111 b e r and 

 outer case with 

 a e o u p 1 e o f 

 sticks ill some 

 of mine, to see 



if this adds to the stamina of the young 

 bees to stand the long damj) winter, and 

 shall keep them up till robbery begins. ' ' 

 It may be worth considering whether bees 

 reared in abundance of pure air may not 

 stand hard knocks better than those reared 

 in somewhat stitied quarters. But that 

 "till robbery begins'' suggests that there 

 is danger of robbery with so large an open- 

 ing, and I am wondering whether the dif- 

 ference here is made by the bees or the lo- 

 calit^^ Most of my colonies have five open- 

 ings, counting the entrance and the open- 

 ings between extracting-supers, the total 

 opening amounting to 48 square inches, or 

 a third of a square foot, and I have no fear 

 of robbing when the flow stops, provided 

 (nerything is left just as it was during the 

 How. But if, when the fiow stops, I make 

 a fresh opening, robbers promptly note the 

 cliange, and there is danger of trouble. 



* * ^ 



According to U. S. Bulletin No. 685, there 

 are in the United States 6,000,000 colonies 

 of bees, the total honey production being 

 considerably in excess of 200,000,000 

 pounds. Figuring this at only 18 cents a 

 pound makes $36,000,000, a good bit more 

 than the twenty millions we have been ac- 

 customed to estimate. Interesting to note 

 in the same bulletin is thatFlorida is earliest 

 of all the States in the matter of swarming, 

 a third of its swarming being in March. 

 Wyoming is the latest, 22.5 per cent of its 

 swarming being in August. Taking the 

 country at large, June is the great swarm- 

 ing month, 36.2 per cent of all swarming 

 Ijeing then, with 3.5 per cent in March, 16.4 

 per cent in April, 25.1 per cent in May, 14.8 

 per cent in July, and 4 per cent in August. 

 This bulletin, by S. A. Jones, shows that 

 Uncle Sam is interested in doing something 

 for beekeepers. It's a fine document. 



* X * 



C. A. Aeppler says in The Beekeepers' 

 Item, "As far a,s I know, no one has proved 

 that honey cinitains vitamines. " I com- 

 mend him to tie tender mercies of Stancy 

 I'uerden. He further says: "I am con- 

 \inced that it is not honey that contains 

 \itdn\ines, but ]iollen. The vitamines that 

 are present in the larval foods of the bees 

 are derived from pollen and not honey. Al- 

 ^■o, larval food contains large quantities of 

 vitamines; so much so that when rats were 

 fed upoi; a vitamine-free ration to which 

 had been added 10 per cent of larval food, 

 norniai growtli resulted, inoviiig tlie ](res- 

 eiice of vitaiiiiiics in l;ir\;!! fiKid. iiul tlicsc 



STRAWS 



C. MiUer 



1 



\itaiiiiiies in the 

 larval food did 

 not come from 

 honey, but from 

 the pollen par- 

 taken of by the 

 nurse bees. The 

 value of pollen 

 has always been 

 underestimated 

 in the normal feeding of the larvae, and only 

 too often the failure of a colony to build uj) 

 is due to a lack of pollen rather than a lack 

 of honey. ' ' 



Tlie tribute lo tlie value of pollen is well 

 deserved, but it "s a little beside the mark 

 in the present case. If vitamines are not 

 i). honey, we should make no such claim. 

 But what Mr. Aeppler says is not entirely 

 convincing. He tells us why he believes 

 vitamines are in larval food, but does not 

 tell us why he believes them in pollen and 

 not in honey. I confess to a mind prejudic- 

 ed in favor of believing honey a vitamine- 

 :;ontainer, and as betv/een the opinions of 

 Stancy Puerdeii and Mr. Aeppler, until 

 further proof is forthcoming, or until she 

 recants, I prefer to pin my faith to the 

 skirts of Mrs. Puerden. 



"We are- told that it is better to breed 

 from a queen whose royal progeny are 

 uniform in character. I'm sure that's right. 

 I would rather brood from a queen of that 

 kind than to breed from one whose work- 

 ers should store a good bit more honey but 

 with royal progeny scattering all over cre- 

 ation in ^heir characteristics. But whilt^ 

 such a thing is all right in theory, putting 

 in ijractice is not unattended with difficul- 

 ties. In the first place, according to all I 

 have heard and read, queens whose royal 

 progeny are uniform are about as scarce as 

 hen's teeth. The royal progeny must not 

 only be uniform, but uniformly good, and 

 not uniformly bad. In the second place, 

 the necessary testing cannot be done in a 

 day. Suppose you rear a queen in 1918. 

 \ou cannot tell what she is as a honey- 

 gatherer until she has been thru the whole 

 of one season, and that will take you to the 

 close of the season of 1919. That will be 

 so late that you will hardly rear any queens 

 from her before 1920. These can not be 

 tested for uniformity before the close of the 

 season in 1921, allowing you to begin using 

 her as a breeder in 1922. In 1922 a queen 

 born in 1918 will be somewhat ' ' in the ser'> 

 and yellow leaf." It is possible that j^ou 

 might speed up that program, rearing you:- 

 trial set of young queens after the close of 

 the season in 1919, and then using your 

 queen as a breeder after the close of the 

 sear.on of 1920. But I imagine you would 

 fnd th;it not so very satisfactory. You 

 r.nisl remember that this sort of testing 

 iiivolves the testing of an additional queen, 

 if not several. For if you have no second 

 ( hoice, and are going to use that queen a* 



