784 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15. 



er. My strongest colonics I call double stocks. 

 They have an average of 20 lbs. of surplus hon- 

 ey, and my other colonies have at least their 

 vi^inter stores. The only fault with the heather 

 honey is. it can not be extracted, as it is too 

 slimy, and adheres to the combs in such a way 

 that the combs in the exti'actor will sooner break 

 than the honey will fly out. 



Some of the German bee-keepers have also 

 had a honey crop, as I have; others only in the 

 spring, from rape, etc.; others only in June and 

 July. Upon the whole, the average yield per 

 colony in Germany is in no way bett(;r or as good 

 as in America. C. J. H. Gravenhorst. 



Wilsnack. Sept. 13, 1890. 



Friend G.. we are greatly obliged to you for 

 giving ns this glimpse of bee culture in youi- 

 own country. You do not manage things just 

 as we do; but very likely you succeed best on 

 your plan and with your surroundings, and no 

 doubt you would get ahead of us if we were 

 there with you; but if you were here, we are 

 inclined to think you might somewhat modify 

 your plan of working. 



COMB-SPACING. 



MORE GOOD TESTIJIONY FOR V^s INCH. 



In transferring I invariably find the founda- 

 tion of combs laid 1)4 inches apart. Combs are 

 built on this foundation to the thickness of X 

 inch ^^ iien the first batch of brood is capped. 

 This brings the combs the proper distance apart 

 for brood-rearing, while this part of the comb is 

 used for that i)urpose; but as the foundation is 

 laid out further down, the queen follows after 

 the workers, laying while the comb is building, 

 it seeming to be handiest to lay in an unfinished 

 cell; but as the workers build about as fast as 

 she can lay eggs— she preferi'ing to lay in such 

 cells— she does not return to the first cell as they 

 hatch empty, to again deposit brood therein. 

 Now, the bees, wishing to lay up a supply of 

 stores to maintain the rising generation, occu- 

 py those recently vacated cells at the top of the 

 comb, which, in order to economize space and 

 perhaps heat also, they draw out until the in- 

 tervening space is in the neighborhood of ^s^ 

 inch. As the tops of the combs are now drawn 

 too closely together for convenience in breed- 

 ing, and the cells too deep for the queen to use 

 them as easily as more shallow cells (I have 

 seen eggs not more than two-thirds the distance 

 to the bottom of those deep cells), they are 

 thereafter used exclusively for stores. Then this 

 would be natural spacing, ^^ inch for stores and 

 3^ inch for brood. 



Some writers hint something about following 

 the dictates of nature in this matter; but I ob- 

 ject to such a thing; foi', should we follow the 

 dictations of Dame Nature, whei'e would the 

 frame hive be in a few short years? Why, we 

 might yet be relishing a chunk of black, pollen- 

 mixed honey out of a lion's carcass if man in his 

 diversion from the laws of nature, in ordei- to 

 bring the world into subjection, had not given 

 us the frame hive. I believe in getting just as 

 far fi-om nature in this matter as possible, 

 which, in my experience, I find to be a ^-inch 

 space between X combs. This is a compromise 

 between nature and convenience, giving room 

 for breeding, with ample room for winter stores. 

 I for one don't like to handle combs with a great 

 " bay window " at the tops where they are 

 drawn out to I'eceive stores; and, so far as I 

 have seen, this is the case where combs are 

 spaced more than ^ inch. I experimented with 



three colonies this season, with spacing less 

 than '^f^, being somewhere near ^ inch, with the 

 following result: 



Wiiere any sink in the comb permitted of ^^- 

 inch space, I found capped brood; at }i inch, 

 honey partly capped; less than ^4 inch, nothing 

 much but pollen and uncapped, but there was 

 very little brood in the brood-nest: liut, oh my I 

 July 1 I took off from one hive what should 

 have been 50 lbs. of surplus, \\iicn I found that 

 one-third of the combs at the bottom were the 

 nicest kind of thin brood-comb built just as I de- 

 scribe above. One inch may be the thickness of 

 capped brood, but I am confident that % inch is 

 an abundance of space. It would be a good thing 

 if this matt<'r were pcrfccUu understood, in 

 order that persons starting to make hives would 

 know just how widi? to make them. 



OLD COMBS AND QUEEN-CELLS. 



Did any of you or your readers ever try put- 

 ting an old black comb in a hive to get eggs for 

 queen-rearing? If not, I would advise you not 

 to. unless it is for an exijeriment. Such cells 

 will almost always be as black as the comb, 

 with texture so fragile as to become flattened 

 by heat that will have no efl'ect on the common 

 yellow cells. I have seen them "wilt" down 

 flat before the bees had time to cap them. I 

 have also seen them after they were capped 

 become flattened on all sides, making them 

 wedge-shaped. Such cells must necessarily 

 produce deformed queens, as described by friend 

 Doolittle in Gleanings of July 1.5. I lately 

 took an old black comb, full of honey, from a 

 hive where the frames had been spaced too 

 close to admit of capping, and put it in a nu- 

 cleus where it was capped over with material 

 just as black as the comb. The bees seem to 

 think it useless to use material for cappings or 

 queen-cells in these cases better than the foun- 

 dation they have to work on. 



Carbondale, Kan., Aug. 3. J. H. Markley. 

 , Thanks for your testimony. If you will turn 

 back to page 491 you will find that your conclu- 

 sions agree almost exactly with those expressed 

 by the writer. A space of '^^ between capped 

 brood and }.4 between uncapped brood would 

 make just exactly 1^^ spacing from center to 

 center. See also pages oi'A, 639. and (573. Verily, 

 the evidence for l?^-inch spacing is accumulat- 

 ing. E. R. 



WHAT SPOILS THE GRAPES1 



DR. MILLER SAYS IT IS NOT THE BEES. 



Previous to the summer of 1889 the bees each 

 year worked on the grapes, and whole clusters 

 were left nothing but skins and seeds. In every 

 instance the first beginning on each grape was 

 a slotted hole, perhaps an eighth of an inch 

 long, in the form of a dumb-bell; that is, a 

 round puncture at each end and a straight cut 

 connecting the two. Last year and this year 

 none of these slotted holes were seen, and the 

 bees did no damage to the grapes. This year 

 the bees were gathering nothing to speak of 

 when the grapes were ripe; and if a basket of 

 gi'apes were left standing, the bees would work 

 their way all through it to lick up the juice 

 where a grape happened to be broken: but aft- 

 er a basket had stood all day you would not 

 say that they had been damaged by the bees. 

 It seems, therefore, that the bees did not make 

 the slotted holes; and without this first punc- 

 ture the grapes remain unhurt. Now, what is 

 it that makes the first attack? As it was lack- 

 ing this year and last, is it not possible that we 



