R. 



C 



ur 



December, 1918 



E. NEW- 

 c. o m b re- 

 ferred tlie 

 matter of eaiie 

 versus beet sug- 

 ar to the head 

 of the Chemical 

 Department o f 

 Oberlin College. 

 The professor 



gave quite a talk about it before the class. 

 ' ' He said that almost every one believes 

 that beet sugar is in some way inferior to 

 cane sugar, but that there is absolutely no 

 difference between pure cane and pure beet 

 sugar; that there is no physical or chemical 

 difference between highly refined cane and 

 highly refined beet sugar, no more difference 

 than there is between iron from Michigan 

 and iron from Ohio after all the impurities 

 and compounds have been removed. He said 

 that I need have no fear about giving beet 

 sugar to bees." 



Coming from such a source, that state- 

 ment should be authoritative. But our Brit- 

 ish cousins, who insist that beet sugar is 

 not proper winter food for bees, may reply 

 something like this: "The professor is 

 quite right. The sugar, when perfectly re- 

 fined, is all the same whether from cane or 

 beets. But has the process of refining yet 

 reached that state of perfection in which 

 beet sugar is left entirely free from injurious 

 impurities?" Well, perhaps it makes little 

 difference what the beekeeper thinks; when 

 he buys sugar the chances are that it is from 

 beets, whatever he may think he is buying, 

 and tons of beet sugar have been fed bees 

 for winter without disaster. Possibly Yankee 

 refineries have achieved the impossible. 



* * * 



Interesting is the difference in results 

 when queens from European foul brood colo- 

 nies were given to healthy colonies, page 

 663, November Gleanings. With the Kla- 

 buhns, always bad; at Medina always good. 

 Why? Were the Medina bees immune, the 

 others not? Of course, there is the possi- 

 bility at which Mr. Eoot hints, the possibili- 

 ty of infection from neighborhood diseased 

 colonies. In the uncertainty of deciding 

 one is inclined to consider the probability or 

 possibility of a queen carrying the disease. 

 Is European foul brood not a disease of the 

 brood, never of the mature insect? If so, 

 the queen couldn't lay diseased eggs, and the 

 only way she could convey the disease would 

 be by carrying diseased honey. But she 

 doesn 't feed larvae. Neither does the queen 

 feed workers; workers feed the queen. How 

 then could the queen carry the disease? Un- 

 til queens are found to carry the disease 

 in a locality where there is no disease with- 

 in a certain distance, it is probably safe to 

 say that the Medina bees rather than the 

 bees of the Klabuhn brothers are the ones 



to relv on. 



* * * 



Thanks, Mr. Editor, for the peep behind 

 the scenes you give us on page 650. Miss 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



STRAY STRAWS 



Dr. C. C. MiUer 



1 



lona Fowls, I 

 })i(l you a belat- 

 ed, tho very 

 hearty, welcome. 

 I'm sure your 

 presence will ]to 

 helj)ful, a II d I 

 commend to your 

 especial care the 

 c h a p who has 

 trouble with his language. But, Mr. Editor, 

 don 't you see you have made it a bit em- 

 barrassing for me? After this when I want 

 to "sass" the editor, how am I to know it 

 isn't a woman at the other end of the line? 



* * * 



Belva M. Deniuth, on page 658, speaking 

 of my cellaring bees, you say: "In most 

 cases the records indicate that the bees had 

 a good flight the day before being carried 

 into the cellar." Please let me say the 

 same thing in a little different form by say- 

 ing that in most cases the bees were carried 

 into the cellar the day after having had a 

 good flight. You 're right in saying that I 

 haven 't regretted putting them in too early, 

 but have regretted putting them in too late. 

 And yet that hardly expresses it correctly, 

 for it was not really the lateness I regretted, 

 but the number of days the bees were left 

 out without a flight just before being put 

 in the cellar. The later they are put in the 

 better, if that lateness gives them another 

 flight, so that they can go into the cellar 

 with emjaty intestines. The point is that 

 one day outdoors in adverse weather unfits 

 them for enduring long confinement perhaps 

 more than a week of confinement in the fa- 

 vorable conditions of the cellar. As it is 

 desirable to have them go into cellar well 

 emptied, the rule is to take them in the next 

 day after their last flight. The trouble is to 

 tell in advance when the last flight may be. 

 It may be in November, and it may be in 

 December. Who can tell? Well, suppose 

 they have a good flight the middle of No- 

 vember. They may have a flight later, and 

 they may not. I think I 'd chance it to take 

 them in. If no warm day comes later, I 'm 

 all right. But suppose there comes a day 

 a week or two later, or even a month later, 

 when they could have a flight. I console my- 

 self by saying that these extra days of con- 

 finement in the cellar have done little harm: 

 they were in good condition to stand the 

 whole winter anyhow; and if I hadn't taken 

 them in the middle of November, there 

 might have been no later flight, and then 



I'd have been in a box. 



* * * 



In feeding sugar syrup without any mix- 

 ture of honey, shall tartaric acid (a level 

 teaspoonful for every 20 pounds of sugar) 

 be used or not? Some, as The A. I. Eoot 

 Co., say they have no trouble without the 

 acid. On the other hand, there has been 

 report of the syrup granulating even when 

 acid was used. Possibly the thickness of 

 the syrup has something to do with it. 

 Wouldn 't a very thick syrup have more need 



