380 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1 



times observed that the queen had laid, dur- 

 ing the previous 21 days, 3400 eggs daily, on 

 an average." Three weeks later about all the 

 bees from that 21 days' laying ought to be on 

 hand, making 71,400. If we count the life of 

 a worker 6 weeks, then there ought also to be 

 present bees from the eggs of the preceding 

 21 days. Say the queen during that time laid 

 2000 eggs daiiy, and allow that half that num- 

 ber had been lost by fatalities, we should have 

 21,000 to add to the 71,400, making 92,400 in 

 all. Perhaps that is not often reached, but I 

 suspect it's nearer the right mark than 40,000. 

 [Some years ago, when we used to buy swarms, 

 just as they clustered, from farmers, we bought 

 them by weight. The swarm would be hived 

 by the farmer into a box, and then brought 

 up to Medina at night. The box of bees was 

 put on the scales, and the weight recorded. 

 The bees were then dumped on some frames 

 of foundation, in a hive in the j'ard, and the 

 box was then brought back to the scales and 

 reweighed. Now for the results : We had 

 some tremendous swarms brought to us that 

 we sometimes had to hive in a double story 

 chamber. The heaviest of those swarms weigh- 

 ed from 8 to 8^^ lbs. The average of them ran 

 about 5 or 6. There are about 4-500 bees to 

 the pound, on an average ; so you can see that 

 my estimate of a "large force" of worker 

 bees, of from 40,000 to 50,000, can not be far 

 wrong. Now, those eight - pound swarms 

 would fill two stories full of bees, and of 

 course you know these would all be working 

 bees, and that is what I was talking about. 

 But, again, I think you are wrong, clear wrong, 

 in assuming that a given number of eggs laid 

 by the queen will give the same number of 

 bees. There are hundreds and thousands of 

 eggs that disappear, we know not where. 

 Over and over again I have seen frames well 

 filled with eggs in the working season, and 

 yet when these same frames were put into a 

 queenless colony there would be only about 

 two-thirds of the number of cells occupied 

 with sealed brood that were occupied with 

 eggs in the frame in the first place. This 

 spring we noticed that the queens in our home 

 yard would keep on laying eggs, and yet there 

 would be no sealed brood or larvae to speak 

 of. It was too cold for the bees to take care 

 of much brood and so they reared only what 

 they could cover. I should think we would 

 be safe in saying that, out of 70,000 to 90,000 

 eggs laid by a queen, we could not expect over 

 40,000 or 50,000 bees. In rearing poultry we 

 should consider that we were doing well if we 

 got half of the eggs hatched into chickens. — 

 Ed] 



Thick vs. thin top-bars.— S. T. Pettit, 

 p. 227, comes down pretty hard on deep top- 

 bars, although he thinks he can't do with 

 less than ^i. His strong point is that, by 

 having X-inch more depth, the space of 1600 

 to 2000 cells is lost. The mistake is in count- 

 ing that the same number of bees are occu- 

 pied brooding those sticks as would be occu- 

 pied in brooding X"inch depth of comb. 

 The space between the top-bars is X'iQch, 

 and that between brood-combs about )4 inch, 

 thus knocking out half his objection at a clip. 



But even that half of the objection will not 

 stand. When the weather is hot, as it gener- 

 ally is when supers are over the top- bars, 

 there is no trouble about keeping up the heat; 

 and at any time when it becomes cool the 

 bees will shrink away from the space between 

 the top-bars, and cluster on the combs above 

 and below. Suppose you have a colony fully 

 occupying two stories. Now put between 

 those two stories another story filled with 

 dummies an inch thick. Do you suppose it 

 will take 50 per cent more bees to man the 

 combs than it did before ? I suspect 5 per 

 cent would be plenty. 



Even if ihe loss were all he supposes — 1600 

 to 2000 cells, or ^ of the brood-chamber^I 

 should still want the top-bar J4 deep. At one 

 time I used, entirely, wide frames holding 8 

 sections ; and when I put on a super I put in 

 the middle of it a brood-comb from below. 

 The bees very promptly occupied that super, 

 but it did not answer to leave the brood comb 

 there very long. If I left it long enough for 

 the bees to begin sealing the sections, they 

 would carry across some of the old comb, and 

 the sections would be about as dark as the 

 combs opposite. With }i top-bars, which I 

 used exclusively for many years, the same 

 thing would happen to a certain extent if no 

 slat honey-board was used, especially if the 

 sections were left on some time after being 

 sealed. 



So if the prevention of burr-combs by deep 

 top-bars be all a delusion — which I do not be- 

 lieve—and if there is a loss of 1600 to 2000 

 cells to a colony — which I am very far from 

 believing — I still want J4 top-bars for the sake 

 of having the sections so far from the brood- 

 combs that the bees will not find it convenient 

 to carry up a lot of black wax to spoil the 

 snow-white sections. [It seems to me our 

 friend Pettit assumes, or indirectly assumes, 

 that those 1600 to 2000 cells are lost because 

 of the brood that might have been reared in 

 them ; but it is very seldom that brood is rear- 

 ed any closer than within an inch of the top- 

 bar, with ordinary L- frames. Well, then, if 

 those 1600 to 2000 cells are lost for honey, 

 where will the surplus of honey go? Why, 

 it will have to go into the supers, if there is 

 not room below, and in the supers is where 

 we want it. There has been a very strong ten- 

 dency toward shallower brood-nests. If the 

 use of thick top-bars cuts down the inside 

 depth of the L. frame, it is a move in the right 

 direction. And, again, if these 1600 to 2000 

 cells to a colony are so valuable, why would 

 not 5000 or 10,000 cells be more valuable ? If 

 we need more cells in the ordinary brood-nest, 

 why not add to the depth of the brood-cham- 

 ber ? I believe that if we could by some pro- 

 cess cut down the depth of all the L. frames 

 in use throughout the country, we should be 

 conferring a favor on the great class of bee- 

 keepers using such frames ; and the use of 

 thick top-bars, besides ridding of burr and 

 brace combs, reduces the depth of the frame 

 slightly. No one talks about making frames 

 deeper unless he wishes to go clear over to the 

 other extreme of making the frames so deep 

 that eight or ten of such frames will accom- 



