1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



493 



giag, do theyt I have heretofore said I had no trou- 

 ble with sagging; but since exactness of bee-space 

 has been so much insisted on, I am troubled with 

 what didn't trouble me before. All the sagging 

 didn't trouble me as much heretofore as the tin 

 bar would. But when you come to the matter of 

 exactness, lay a dozen of your frames one on top 

 of the other, and see if the top-bars are all exactly 

 straight. How do the diagonals and bars " make 

 an absolutely sure thing against sagging"? The 

 tin bar simply ensures an exact distance between 

 top and bottom bar, but that does not prevent both 

 sagging. The diagonals insure that there shall be 

 no more sagging than their length will allow. If 

 the diagonals are drawn too tight, will not the top 

 and bottom bars bow up? and if not drawn tight 

 enough, then sagging follows. Theoretically, the 

 whole thin^ depends on drawing the wires just 

 tight enough, but possibly that may not be so diffi- 

 cult in practice as in theory. 



Now for the young one. 



That cleat. You know that the cleat is stiffer be- 

 fore that groove is cut out of it. The board must 

 stay secure in the groove, and nails alone will allow 

 a board, I think, to warp a little more. Still, no se- 

 rious trouble comes from that when the cover is of 

 a single straight board ; but I have some made of 

 two boards with a tin-trough arrangement to pre- 

 vent leaking, and they have warped more. The 

 principal difficulty comes, however, not from the 

 boards •«yarping, but winding. No cleat can pre- 

 vent that. You say you never saw a cover of the 

 Dovetailed hive that warped any. Neither did I 

 see any of mine when no older than yours. I sup- 

 pose you will say I ought to have painted my 

 covers; to which I have no reply to make. Per- 

 haps the trouble comes more from the hives being 

 out of true than the cover, and you needn't throw 

 up to me the squareness of your Dovetailed hives. 

 Just as fast as my old hives become too rotten to 

 use, I'm going to have Dovetails in their place. No, 

 I don't put tin on my flat covers, but I did on my 

 wider covers, and I'll mention an objection to the 

 tin. It doesn't allow evaporation, and water stands 

 on the inside of tinned covers in large drops, quite 

 often, from the breath of the bees. 



BEES KILLING DRONES IN JUNE. 



I never saw so much of it before. It can hardly 

 come from scarcity of stores, for every shake of a 

 comb brings a shower of thin honey. Perhaps it 

 may be where a young queen is about to take the 

 place of the old one. And now a question : 



WHEN DOES THE SUPERSEDING QUEEN TAKE THE 

 PLACE OF THE OLD ONE? 



Or, rather, when is the old queen removed? Does 

 the young queen generally kill her when she first 

 batches out, or is the old queen retained till the 

 young one gets to laying? Economy would suggest 

 the latter as the better course, and my observa- 

 tions, lately, have inclined me to the opinion that it 

 may be a very common if not the usual course. 

 Can you tell us how it is? 



ABE BRACE-COMBS DESIRABLE? 



Doolittle generally knows what he is talking 

 about; but isn't there something different about 

 his arrangements that makes the difference? I 

 find that my bees go to work in the sections just as 

 soon as any thing is to be put in them; and even 

 when there Is so little to store that they can only 

 fltl the bait, I have bad them in the late years of 



failure fill the bait and leave the other sections un- 

 touched. Surely, I don't need brace-combs. 

 Marengo, 111., June 21. C. C. Miller. 



Look here, doctor : the old telescope cov- 

 er takes too much room, of course, for you 

 and I who have out- apiaries, to load bees 

 into wagons. Diagonal wires and tin bars 

 do prevent the sagging, but they must be 

 very nicely put in and adjusted. The tin 

 bar must be used so long and no longer, 

 and the diagonal wires must be just so tight 

 and no tighter ; and, since you mention it, 

 I do remember that I nlmost always scolded 

 when we fixed up a lot for our own apiary. — 

 My impression has been that the old queen 

 is rarely if ever killed by one of her own 

 daughters. The only proof to the contrary 

 that I can think of is that we do not often 

 find two queens, mother and daughter, in 

 the same hive. I do know, however, that 

 there are two, a good many times, when we 

 don't know it. Excuse me if this statement 

 is a little contradictory. Now, doctor, do 

 you mean to say that your bees always go 

 to work in sections when they ought to be 

 at work there? Don't you know some con- 

 trary colonies that cram the brood-nest and 

 leave the sections untouched? 



With Replies from our best Autliorities on Bees. 



All queries sent in for this department should be briefly 

 stated, and free from any possible ambiguity. The question 

 or questions should be written upon a separate slip of paper, 

 and marked, "For Our Question-Box." 



Question 163.— TF/iat width from center to center 

 do you think it best to have brood-combs? Do you 

 keep them the same distajice the year roundl 



lYi inches. 3. Yes. 

 Wisconsin. S. W. 



1. l)i inches. 3. I do. 

 Illinois. N. W. C. 



1. VA inches. 3. Yes. 

 Illinois. N. W. 



E. France. 



Mrs. L. Harrison. 



Dadant & Son. 



IK inches, and the same above as below, as I ex- 

 tract only, and am so often changing combs up and 

 down. 3. 1 do. 



California. S. W. R. Wilkin. 



I always have used IK inches, and see no good 

 reason for changing. The bees build them thus 

 when left to their "own sweet will." 3. Yes. 



New York. C. G. M. Doolittle. 



If I could have the combs always hang perfectly 

 true, I would have them lij inches. 2. No. In the 

 spring I crowd them as close as they will bear to 

 be; in the summer, m inches from center to cen- 

 ter, and further apart still for winter. 



Ohio. N. W. A. B. Mason. 



Di inches is the distance we use them. I am not 

 prepared to say it is the proper distance. 3. We do 

 not change them, although we have the excellent 

 authority of Mr. Manum for so doing. Unless well 

 protected, my present limited experience is against 

 narrow spacing for spring brood-rearing. 



New York. C. P. H. Elwood. 



