1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



405 



number of swarms issued was not a good one by 

 any means, only about half a crop of honey being 

 obtained. I shall look more closely into the matter 

 the coming season, and I wish all who raise queens 

 entirely above a queen - excluding honCj- board 

 ■would test the thing also, and so be helping to solve 

 the problem, that a definite conclusion may be 

 reached as speedily as pofcsible. Why I say "en- 

 tirely," as above, is, that some advise having the 

 cells started by colonies having the swarming im- 

 pulse, and, after they are started, place them above 

 a queen-excluder lor completion. Of course, this 

 would not be entirely along the line we are work- 

 ing on, consequently would not be likely to be as 

 perfect as to results. 



I see on page 318 that the editor interprets that 

 portion of my article in the May 1st No. of Gi.ean- 

 INGS, where I speak of policy, as applying or in- 

 tended to apply to others. I had no such thoughts; 

 and if it does look a little different, let the reader 

 be assured that Doolittle was the only one it was 

 meant for. G. M. Doolittle. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



Friend D., I am incliued to agree with 

 you thus far. If we save our queens, and 

 use them for breeders, that come from col- 

 onies that persistenly swarm excessively, 

 our chances are greatly in favor of getting 

 a strain of bees given to much swarming ; 

 and, of course, the reverse would follow. 

 But it seems to me it can hardly be possible 

 that we shall see a perceptible difference in 

 so short a time as you mention. If, howev- 

 er, you take pains to select (jueens from 

 colonies that do not swarm, 1 ihink quite 

 likely you would see a remedy to the evil of 

 excessive swarming, even in three or four 

 years. Almost every apiary furnishes more 

 or less colonies that give good yields of 

 honey year after year, without any swarm- 

 ing. Let us try getting our queens from 

 such colonies. 



USING ESCAPE TENTS. 



WILL THE REESE BEE-ESCAPE TAKE THEIR PLACE? 



On page ~01 Mrs. Axtell speaks of the bees being 

 soslowingettingout of the little mosquito-bar tents 

 that the sections were spotted. I am not troubled 

 in that way, and I think she is right in blaming the 

 young bees. I smoke the bees pretty well before 

 taking off the super. This does not drive them all 

 out by any means, but I think the young bees are 

 pretty prompt to go down when exposed to the 

 smoke and the light. If the super is taken off 

 without giving the bees any time to go down, there 

 may be in it young bees which have never flown, 

 and such bees would be a long time about leaving 

 the only home they know of. The Keese bee-es- 

 cape, in some one of its forms, has the advantage 

 that no bees need be driven out before applying 

 the escape; and for home use T think it is ahead. 

 For out-apiaries the little tents are ahead, for the 

 bees can be got out of the supers in less time. 



CA(iING QOEENS. 



The article of Mr. Gill, on page ;M3, and the com- 

 ments thereon, prompt me to advise against try- 

 ing the plan of caging on too large a scale, till you 

 find whether it is the best thing in your case. I am 

 obliged to confess that, with me, it has not as yet 

 worked out as well in practice as in theory. I 



think I can prove very conclusively by argument 

 that there is a loss in raising bees at certain times; 

 and yet, somehow, when the thing is put Into actu- 

 al practice the proof is not so clear. Indeed, to 

 make a fuller confession, I believe if I had never 

 tried to prevent swarming I should be better off to- 

 day. Still, I am not ready to give up trying. But I 

 am afraid that in spite of all my theories, the colo- 

 nies wherein are left, all the time, laying queens, 

 will persist in doing better work than those which 

 are prevented from raising useless consumers. It 

 may be, that 1 shall never get a satisfactory an- 

 swer; but to me this question is a very interesting 

 one: How can the desire to swarm be prevented 

 without interfering with the queen's laying? 



AMES' DOUBLE TOP BAR. 



Comparing this with the single thick bar, it has 

 the advantage of the space for winter passage, aii<l 

 it can be applied to frames already in use. For new 

 f r'ames it will have no advantage but the winter 

 passage, and will have the disadvantage of being 

 more difficult to make and to put together, and not 

 so solidly square. I think there may be another 

 advantage in the double bar; and that is, that a 

 queen may be less likely to go up. Baldridge's 

 double bar, on page 3C5, is much the same thing. 

 But if the space in the double bar is filled up with 

 brace-combs 1 suspect the queen will go above more 

 readily than over a solid bar. And the bees will fill 

 the space with brace-combs just as surely as when a 

 honey-board is used, if all dimensions are the same. 

 Baldridge's Ji-inch space may make the difference, 

 and Ames' I'n width may also be effective. If, by 

 having the right-sized space, or the right width 

 and spacing, the double bar is found better than 

 the single one, could we not retain the advantages 

 of both by making a solid top-bar, and then running 

 a saw-kerf through the middle of the top-bar, leav- 

 ing the middle and the two ends solid? 



HOW TO CALCULATE SPACING. 



I want to call attention to a mistake that is some- 

 what common— that of dividing the inside width of 

 a hive into as many spaces as there are combs, to 

 find how far the combs are from center to center. 

 An illustration may be found on page 137 in the let- 

 ter of T. K. Massie. He figures that, when ten 

 frames are in a Simplicity hive (which is HH inch- 

 es wide), the frames are 1]7, from center to center. 

 That is correct, if the outside frame at one side 

 touches the side of the hive. That is, he has sim- 

 ply divided the 14.'; inches into ten parts, whereas 

 there are ten top-bars and eleven spaces. Take ten 

 times ,'a for the ten top-bars, out of the 14»i inches, 

 and you have ry'A inches left for the eleven spaces, 

 or X inch for each space. Now add 'i and Jb, and 

 you have l^ii as the distance from center to center 

 of the frames in the ten-frame Simplicity hive, 

 just as stated in the A B C. If 11 frames are used, 

 the distance from center to center will be Igf; in- 

 stead of M J. This is counting ?a as the width of the 

 top-bar. There will be a shade of difference if the 

 top-bar differs. C. C. Miller. 



Marengo, 111., April V>. 



Well, doctor, I confess I had forgotten 

 that the ten-frame Langstroth hive does 

 space the frames IS— that is, even though I 

 put it so in the A B C, in our recent discus- 

 sions I had somehow forgotten it. Isn"t it 

 refreshing to know that father Langstroth 

 decided so many of these things with so 

 much wisdom years agoV After all our 



