E 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



1 



OCTOBER, 1918 



EDITORIAL 



AFTEE THE matter describing the De- 

 iiuith plan was in type and page form we 

 thought of another 

 More Concern- 

 ing the 

 Demuth Plan. 



idea; and that is, 

 to put four three- 

 story hives cdose 

 together in contact, 

 back to back and side by side, and then 

 place the four Demuth cases in the inner 

 corners of those four three-story hives. In 

 the diagram, D, D, D, D would represent the 

 Demuth cases and P, P, P, P the packing 

 between the Demuth cases and and inside 



of the four tiered-up hives. This increases 

 the amount of packing and gives the ad- 

 \antage of a larger inner case or 8-frame 

 size instead of 7-frame. It would have the 

 further advantage that the four clusters 

 will be brought together (perhaps by stap- 

 ling) as closely as possible, thus sharing 

 each other 's heat. 



To work out the scheme to the best ad- 

 vantage, the four tiered-up hives should 

 stand up on one platform, and should then 

 be covered with a large square of water- 

 proof paper so as to shut off all draft that 

 might penetrate the cracks between the 

 hives. One large cover should go over the 

 whole. This plan would make the cost of 

 packing much less than the scheme of pack- 

 ing four hives in one large outer case, and 

 at the same time give an eight-frame colony 

 an opportunity to build up to ten-frame 

 strength by May 1 or 15 before unpacking. 

 The plan will be more elaborately described 

 in our next issue. 



Mrs. Demuth, in our present issue, page 

 596, calls attention to a very important fac- 

 tor — namely, the ratio of the area of the 



walls inside of the packed chamber where 

 the cluster is located to the jjacking sur- 

 rounding them. The smaller this area, the 

 less packing, relatively, will be required. 

 It will follow, then, that either of the De- 

 muth plans will require less packing than 

 the regular quadruple case. 



The ground plan of packing four hives in 

 a large quadruple packing case as proposed 

 by Wesley Foster, on page 599 of this issue, 

 is most excellent. It has the advantage that 

 there would be less drifting in the spring, 

 because there will be only one entrance on 

 the side instead of two entrances on the 

 side in the regulation way. It would re- 

 quire a slightly larger case, but the advan- 

 tage is great. 



SO FAR as we know, no one has had any 

 diflS.culty in securing sugar, provided he fol- 

 lowed the direc- 

 The Present tions given in our 

 Sugar issue for Septem- 



Situation. ber, page 521. But 



those who do not 

 take any bee journal have had all kinds of 

 trouble because they did not know how to 

 proceed. The subscriber to a bee journal 

 has a great advantage over the one who 

 thinks he can not afford to take a bee paper. 

 For the sake of winning the war, will the 

 subscribers of Gleanings kindly loan their 

 copies for September to the local beekeepers 

 who do not have any bee journal, and much 

 less Gleanings? 



When the report came in our Minnesota 

 correspondence that the beekeepers who had 

 sold their honey would have to pay over 

 to the Red Cross an amount equal to the 

 difference in the cost of the honey sold and 

 the sugar fed to the bees, we wired Dr. E. F. 

 Phillips asking if there was a ruling to that 

 effect, and received back the message that 

 no such ruling had been issued. In this con- 

 nection Dr. Phillips feels that, owing to the 

 scarcity of sugar, beekeepers should use as 

 little as possible, and then get more next 

 spring if necessary. He believes that the 

 beekeeper who has bee disease or bad fall 

 stores or who is short of stores, should have 

 a limited amount of sugar; but he also be- 

 lieves that the man who has had a good crop, 

 sells all his honey, has no disease, and then 

 feeds sugar because it is cheaper, is profiteer- 

 ing. 



