602 



GLEANINGS IN B-EE CULTURE 



October, 1918 



TIE best 



c 



urs 



\^ beekeep- 

 ers admit 

 that a queen 

 seems to prefer 

 a large frame; 

 and she will lay 

 more eggs in one 

 large card ^ of 

 comb than she 



will in the same number of square inches 

 contained in two combs, one above the other, 

 but divided from each other by a top bar, 

 a bee-space, and a bottom bar, as is the case 

 when the queen occupies two supers. We 

 have yet to run across a beekeeper who de- 

 nies this proposition. ' ' Page 522, Septem- 

 ber Gleanings. Well, I'm not going to be 

 the first one to deny it; but, with the edi- 

 tor 's permission, I arise to question its cor- 

 rectness. I have had a good deal of oppor- 

 tunity to see what a queen would do when 

 asked to furnish eggs in two stories. Natur- 

 ally I expected she would be a little slow 

 in going up or down from one story to an- 

 other, and that in some eases I should find 

 110 eggs or unsealed brood in one of the 

 stories, and in most cases no very young 

 brood. On the contrary, I found about the 

 same condition as if the brood had all been 

 in one story; so that, while I am not pre- 

 pared to deny that a queen has any prefer- 

 ence, I believe that preference is so small 

 as to be quite negligible. 

 * » * 



' ' The eight-frame Langstroth size of hive 

 is going out so rajiidly that we can almost 

 put it among the discards," page 523, and 

 the objection named is that ' ' in tiering up 

 it becomes necessary for the apiarist to 

 stand on a box or stepladder to get to the 

 top of the supers when the season is good 

 and the queen prolific, ' ' the matter being 

 illustrated on the cover page. I have never 

 seen anything like that picture in real life, 

 and I suspect that such cases are so rare 

 that they hardly need be considered. A more 

 serious objection is that in a hive so small 

 there is always danger that in the fall the 

 amount of stores in the brood-chamber may 

 be too scant to reach thru winter and spring. 

 [Eeferring to illustration on cover page of 

 September issue, the thing is not ' ' so rare ' ' 

 as you suppose. If it were now possible 

 for you to travel over the country as we 

 have done lately, you would see numerous 

 cases like this of eight-frame hives. In say- 

 ing this we do not mean there will be a 

 whole aj^iary of such skyscrapers. The il- 

 lustrations showing various forms of wind- 

 breaks in this issue will give an idea of . 

 some of the yards we visited during the last 

 two months, in Michigan alone. The pic- 

 tures of R. F. Holtermann 's apiaries show 

 12-frame hives. If you will count the stories 

 you will get some idea of what he is doing. 

 The picture of the David Eunning apiary 

 also speaks for itself. The picture on our 

 September cover was photograx)hed in this 

 yard by the Editor. The beekeeper who 



STRAY STRAWS 



Dr. C. C. Miller 



1 



^^^^^^^^^^ 



travels little can 

 have but slight 

 comprehension 

 of what the oth- 

 er fellow is do- 

 i n g , and the 

 jjhotographs d o 

 not always tell 

 the story for the 

 simple reason 

 that the traveling editors are not always on 

 the spot when the best showings are given. 

 The time was when the eight-frame hive 

 was the leader; but the call for it is becom- 

 ing so light of late that it is likely to be- 

 come an odd-size hive. — Editor.] 



* * * 



Outdoor or indoor wintering is quite fair- 

 ly discussed on page 523, only when the 

 reader is told that in a cold climate the 

 small beekeeper with only a few bees may 

 winter in a cellar with a furnace, he may 

 understand that the man with many colo- 

 nies ean not equally iise a cellar with a fur- 

 nace. I hardly think the editor meant that. 

 Wherever the man with a few colonies does 

 well with such a cellar, I should expect the 

 man with many colonies to do a little better, 

 because likely to have .more experience. 



But su^Dpose the man with few or many 

 colonies, in a cold climate, has no furnace in 

 his cellar. In that case it will pay him to 

 have a stove in his cellar, either in the room 

 with the bees or in an adjoining room, not 

 altogether - — perhaps not chiefly — for the 

 sake of making the bees warmer, but for the 

 sake of having good air in the cellar. With 

 the cellar warm enough it is easy to venti- 

 late; indeed, in very severe weather there 

 may be enough ventilation merely thru the 

 cracks and crevices of the cellar walls, if 

 the tem^jerature in the cellar is high enough. 

 In a cellar too cold for best results, run- 

 ning up the temperature occasionally to 60 

 degrees or more may be a good thing; but, 

 of course, it is better to have an even tem- 

 perature of about 57 degrees. [When we 

 spoke of 57 degrees we had in mind the 

 internal temperature of the cluster, at which 

 IJoint the bees are the quietest. You evi- 

 dently have in mind the temperature of the 

 cellar itself. The average beginner, if he 

 thought 57 degrees was about right, we are 

 afraid would be led into trouble. Again, 

 we believe it is rather dangerous to give it 

 out to the general public that it is wise to 

 shoot up the temperature "occasionally." 

 As a general thing, the ordinary house cel- 

 lar will have too much variation. — Editor.] 



* * * 



We are told to have in the hive abundant 

 stores in the fall, not only to last them thru 

 the winter, but thru the spring, as it is bet- 

 ter to have the honey ready there in ad- 

 vance than to disturb the bees giving it to 

 them in the spring. There is another rea- 

 son, likely more important, for having a good- 

 ly store of honey in the brood-chamber thru 

 the winter. It serves as a sort of balance 

 wheel, equalizing the heat. In ordinary 



