218 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 15 



that would leave the cells measuring 13 to the 

 iach instead of 5 to the inch, and it would 

 take 634' of the bees to weigh as much as a 

 common bee. Were your workers as small as 

 that, friend Stephenson ? [Yes, yes ; you are 

 correct. I had not thought of puttii:g the 

 matter in that light. — Ed.] 



A. I. Root is a convert to the plan of hav- 

 ing hives " supported just high enough from 

 the ground to make it easy to work without 

 stooping," p. 197. In some parts of the South 

 I think there are special reasons for having 

 hives thus raised on account of auts, other 

 enemies, or water. I iufer friend Root prefers 

 it on the score of comfort, and he has a very 

 small following. More than 30 pictures of 

 hives in actual use are given in A B C, and 

 only one of the pictures shows the hives thus 

 raised, and that's in South America One 

 who works much at bees will sooner or later 

 come to prefer to work at them sitting, and 

 the ground is the place for that If raised to 

 work with ease standing, the ease is gone when 

 three to five supers are added. 



It may be that beet sugar is just as good as 

 cane sugar, p. 193, but I confess to a little un- 

 easiness so long as it is insisted across the wa- 

 ter that beet sugar is bad for bees. They're 

 not all fools over there ; there are some bright 

 men in England and Germany, but I don't re- 

 member to have seen one of them contradict 

 the statement that beet sugar is inferior to 

 cane. I only wish we could know just what 

 the truth is. It's a thing no chemist can set- 

 tle as a chemist, remember that. Can we look 

 to the experiment stations for an answer? 

 [No, indeed. Among the intelligent bee- 

 keepers across the water there are no fools. 

 In scientific investigations they are usually 

 ahead of us ; but I am inclined to believe they 

 have made out too bad a case for the beet su- 

 gar.— Ed.] 



You SEEM TO LEAN toward Ira Barber's 

 view, Mr. Editor, p. 195, but you don't answer 

 my question. If it stirs up the bees so much 

 to have just a little fresh air leak into the cel- 

 lar, how is it that it quiets them down to have 

 the whole cellar flooded with it.'' [In the 

 same way that giving swill to pigs stops their 

 squealing. If the pigs get to expecting the 

 swill they will squeal until they get it. Then 

 they are satisfied. But that does not signify 

 that they will not squeal at the next swilling- 

 time. I do not know that this hits the case 

 exactly, but it struck me that perhaps, after 

 one infusion of air, the bees are satisfied ; and 

 then, discovering that roaring will bring on 

 more fresh air, they will roar. Perhaps bees 

 do not reason like pigs ; but when robbing- 

 time comes on we do know they will show 

 greater sagacit}'. — Ed.] 



IT STRIKES ME that the Rambler-McCubbin 

 plan of having all increase go to the owner of 

 the bees is a bright one. Then there's no 

 temptation on the part of the bee keeper to 

 overdo the matter of increase. [Rambler re- 

 ferred to this disposition of increase, in an 

 article, about a year ago. It struck me as be- 

 ing so equitable that I incorporated the fea- 

 ture in a provisional contract in " Bees on 



Shares ' ' in the new edition of our ABC book. 

 The operator, if he understands his business, 

 will, on this plan, bend every energy toward 

 keeping down increase ; because, it he is to- 

 make an}' thing, he will have to realize his 

 profits from honey and not from bees. If he 

 were to share equally in the increase and hon- 

 e}-, the probaV)ilities are that both operator 

 and owner would not make as much in the 

 end as on the other plan. — Ed.] 



Some letters lately sent to Gleanings 

 show an irrepressible desire to be honest, and 

 to sell a section for no more than its actual 

 weight, and at the same time there goes with 

 it the belief that a certain size of section can 

 be found so that there will never be more than 

 a range of an ounce between the heaviest and 

 lightest weights. Friends, that's all am\th. 

 Tne average weight of one year will diff-rr 

 from that of another ; they will vary in the 

 same year ; and you'll find no reasonable size 

 that will not give a variation of three or four 

 ounces between the heaviest section of a heavy 

 year and the lightest section of a light year. 

 [Yes, you are right. Then why should we 

 place so much stress on sections holding a 

 pound? and why should we not rather sell by 

 the piece, and thus avoid all the figuring and 

 waste of time? — Ed.] 



Mating queens in confinement, that deal, 

 decayed thing that has been carried out and 

 buried, comes up smiling in Review for a re- 

 hearing, and H utchy seems to think there may 

 be something in it. And — must I make the 

 humiliating confession ? — I'm a believer in it 

 myself. Listen : If you had a cage a mile 

 high, a mile long, and a mile wide, there 

 would be no trr-uble about having queens mate 

 in it. A smaller cage might do, the practical 

 question being /zoze' small. Well, J. S. Daviite 

 has found the answer to that question, and he 

 says the cage must be 30 feet in diameter and 

 30 feet high. He had 100 queens mated thus 

 in one year. The way he manages — but I'm 

 snre the editor or Stenog will tell you all 

 about it. [Your Straws came after I had pre- 

 pared an editorial on this subject; and you 

 will note that I, too, believe that there is some- 

 thing in it. But I am afraid A. I. R., when 

 he comes home from P'lorida, will hold up 

 his hands in horror ; but if he thinks I have 

 been carried away by a new old fad I shall 

 have the satisfaction of knowing I am in good 

 company. — Ed. ] 



Prof. Comstock, the able entomologist of 

 Cornell University, sees no reason, from the 

 structure of the mouth-parts of a honey-bee, 

 why it should not be able to bite into a grape 

 or peach. Prof. Cook says, in American Bee 

 Journal, that he does not wonder at this state- 

 ment, but that the practical question is not 

 whether bees can bite grapes, but whether 

 they do. And it has been proven over and 

 over again, that, when a cluster of grapes is 

 given to bees in a time of scarcity, some of 

 the grapes punctured with a pin, the bees 

 promptly clean out the punctured grapes but 

 never bite into the sound ones. My view of 

 the case may not be scientific, but I have a 

 lingering suspicion that it is a physical im- 



