502 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15 



I MOVE a reconsideration of a Straw and its 

 footnote on page 80. Sylviac scouted the idea 

 of a bee carrying a load weighing more than 

 its own body. I suppose I should have said a 

 load of nectar, and ask Sylviac's pardon for 

 the omission. But the rest of the Straw shows 

 that he meant only what was carried in its sac, 

 and Sylviac is right to rail at the idea of a bee 

 carrying in its sac enough nectar to weigh 

 more than its own body. [I stand corrected 

 with you. — Ed.] 



Schachinger'S investigations showed that, 

 when 20,000 bees stored daily ^ lb. honey, 

 30,000 " " " 1>^ " " 



40,000 " " _ "4 " " 



It's well to repeat this occasionally, to show 

 the importance of having strong colonies. In 

 the stronger colony a larger proportion of the 

 bees go afield, and a smaller proportion of the 

 product is used for daily consumption. [This 

 is according to observation and experience. I 

 have seen many colonies on this, my western 

 trip, but many — too many — are too weak to 

 get the best results in honey. — Ed.] 



Is THE LARGE INTESTINE of a bee large 

 enough to contain all the feces that will be 

 stored in it during four months' confinement ? 

 There ought to be less undigested remains of 

 a bee's food than of a man's food proportion- 

 ally ; but if it is counted the same, there will 

 be ^g residue or 7>^ mg. in four months. Prof. 

 Fisher's many weighings of bees before and 

 after a cleansing flight showed that the ex- 

 crement discharged by each bee was 15.86 

 milligrams, showing that, under good condi- 

 tions, a bee can stand not only four months 

 but eight months without emptying itself. 

 So says Illustrierte Monats Blactterfuer Bie- 

 ncnzticht. 



According to a writer in L'ApiciMeur, 

 bees in summer do not stay in the hive on cer- 

 tain days because it is too cold, but because 

 there is no nectar to be had. He finds that 

 the secretion of nectar has direct relation to 

 the amount of light and heat. Some plants 

 secrete nectar in partial shade ; but the rule 

 is, that nectar secretion ceases, even with par- 

 tial shade — the brighter the sun and the 

 stronger the heat, the more nectar. That 

 agrees with my observation that the days 

 when one is afraid of the sunstroke are the 

 ones when the honey rolls in. [This agrees 

 very well with what the bee-keepers in the 

 Salt River Valley, Arizona, have been telling 

 me. But they want the heat to be from 95 to 

 110 in the shad?, to get the best results. When 

 the temperature is below 90 there is quite a 

 perceptible decrease in the inflow of honey. 

 Apparently the Arizonians want more heat 

 than we of the North. — Ed ] 



The blue-head, mentioned on p. 465, Mr. 

 Editor, you think the same as " bareheaded " 

 bees which hatch out all right. If you will 

 read again you will hardly think the bees in 

 question will hatch out all right, for " the pu- 

 pse are dead." Possibly the observer may be 

 mistaken as to their death. [Years ago, just 

 before this matter was considered in the ABC 

 book, bee-keepers kept writing in to know 

 what disease was in their brood. Some of 



them thought it was foul brood ; but I had 

 been studying the same thing, and told them 

 they were mistaken — the brood was not dead; 

 and that, even if the pupse were so loose as to 

 shake up and down in their cells when the 

 comb was tipped, they would hatch out all 

 right. I watched them daily, and sometimes 

 almost hourly, for a good part of a season. 

 Now, I do not wish to be contrary ; but I do 

 not believe those bareheaded pupae were dead. 

 At any rate, ours did not appear to be " sinsi- 

 ble of the fact," for they hatched out into per- 

 fect live bees. — A. I. R.] 



^idliJsrG& 



ij^/fOAf OUfl NEIGHBORS FIELDS, 



Propolis dissolved in alcohol, with linseed 

 oil added, is said to give a durable red paint 

 for hives, says the Leip. Bienejizeitung. 



F. Mehring, of Germany, the inventor of 

 comb foundation, is also the first one who 

 ever transferred larvae. He described the 

 method and his experience minutely in the 

 Dorf-Zeitung for 1866. 



\i/ 



Hives were made of plaster of Paris in Ger- 

 many years ago. The latest is a hive made of 

 cement mixed with cut straw. It receives a 

 glazing on the outside which would be the 

 equivalent to paint on wooden hives. 



W. Wankler, of Germany, makes the claim 

 in L. Bienenzeitung, 1893, page 112, to have 

 invented and used an implement of his own 

 for measuring bees' tongues, in 1882. He 

 says he exhibited the same at a bee-keepers' 

 meeting and exhibition in Frankfort in 1883, 

 where he sold the instrument to Frank Ben- 

 ton. 



\\t 



"Received his just dues," as reported in 

 Ceti tra I blatt and. L. Bienenzeitung. A grocer 

 in Cologne, Germany, has been convicted of 

 having adulterated honey. For several years 

 he had been carrying on a business of manu- 

 facturing and selling a 20-per-cent honey 

 mixture. Sixty witnesses and nine experts 

 were present at the trial. The enterprising 

 grocer received one month's imprisonment, 

 and was fined $150. 



The following, from the Rural New - York- 

 er, is good advice: 



Although the time of applying Bordeaux depends 

 upon circumstances — the locality, the condition of the 

 weather, and the kind of plant treated— a general 

 practice may be followed of first spraying just before 

 the fruit-buds appear; next, just after the blossoms 

 fall, and again about two weeks later. If the season 

 is unusually wet a number of other sprayings should 

 be practiced. Under no conditions should the spray 

 be applied while the plants or trees are blooming, as 

 pollination may be seriously affected. 



