670 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15 



to provide against the dying of the queen we 

 now add to our directions specific instructions, 

 when the pasteboard has not been gnawed 

 within 24: hours to tear it off. By that time 

 the queen and bees have had 24 hours' ac- 

 quaintance ; and even if they do release her 

 within five or six hours she will probably be 

 accepted all right. The object of the paste- 

 board is to prevent the bees from gnawing in 

 to the queen before they have had an oppor- 

 tunity to become acquainted with her. As a 

 general rule, when the cage has been proper- 

 ly placed the fibrous material will be eaten 

 away, the candy consumed, and the queen re- 

 leased. The pasteboard, under the right con- 

 dition, is a great improvement. — Ed.] 



A PUTTY- KNIFE seems the favorite hive-tool 

 at Medina. Have you given the Muench hive- 

 tool a fair trial? After using one for two 

 years I wouldn't give it for fifty putty-knives. 

 [Yes, I have used the tool, and so have our 

 men ; but in the course of two weeks they 

 will lapse back to the putty-knife. This very 

 morning I went out to the apiary to ask Mr. 

 Wardell why he preferred the last-named tool. 

 "Mainly because it is flexible," he said. By 

 putting the square end of the knife on top of 

 the top-bar, at a very acute angle, he can 

 scrape off propolis and burr-combs, with less 

 effort and jar to the frames, than if he used a 

 blunter tool that will not bend. A thin blade 

 will bend, forming an arc of a circle on the 

 surface scraped. In this shape it will shave 

 the surface clean and easily. If the steel is 

 good, the thin blade can be inserted between 

 the super and brood-chamber, and a very light 

 twist of the handle causes a separation. Then 

 a thin blade — one that is flexible — he thinks 

 would enter a crack better than a sharp blunt- 

 er blade that will not bend. The Muench 

 hive-tool has a scraper on it at right angles, 

 like the blade to a hoe ; and when in the act 

 of scraping, the scraper-blade necessarily has 

 to stand at quite an obtuse angle, with the re- 

 sult that it jars the frame. — Ed.] 



When bees rear a young queen for swarm- 

 ing or superseding, a cell is built whose bot- 

 tom is quite different from the bottom of a 

 worker or drone cell, being smoothly concave 

 like the inside bottom of a teacup. The cell 

 is much larger than a worker or drone cell, 

 its diameter being about {'^ of an inch. Be- 

 cause it is built of this large size before it is 

 occupied, it is called a/rt'constructed queen- 

 cell. After a preconstructed cell is built out 

 to a certain extent it is called a cellcup, and 

 many cell- cups are started that are never oc- 

 cupied. If a colony becomes queenless when 

 no occupied queen-cells are present, the bees 

 proceed to rear one or several queens from 

 larvae in worker cells. The first change no- 

 ticed in one of these worker-cells is that the 

 outer part of the cell is enlarged, the walls 

 having the appearance of being pushed apart 

 so as to increase the diameter. Then a hood 

 is built over the cell, and this is built down- 

 ward to make the full size desired. In the 

 meantime the larva has been lavishly fed so 

 that it is floated out of the narrower part of 

 the cell. Because such a queen-cell is built 



from a cell after it has been started as a 

 worker-cell and is occupied by a larva, it is 

 called a /!>05/construcied cell. You may not 

 always be able to tell from outside appearance 

 whether a cell is preconstructed or postcon- 

 structed, but you can always tell by tearing it 

 down and seeing whether it has a smoothly 

 concave base, or an angular and smaller base 

 like a worker-cell. A preconstructed cell has 

 an egg deposited in it, never a larva at the 

 start. A postconstructed cell is built over a 

 worker-cell containing a larva, although in 

 very rare cases it may contain an egg. [There, 

 now we understand what is meant by pre- 

 constructed and postconstructed cells. But 

 there is not one reader in ten who has any 

 knowledge of Latin ; and if he does not, he 

 may become confused as to the meaning of 

 the terms ; and, what is more, I do not re- 

 member to have seen the terms used outside 

 of your own writings in any American bee 

 literature. It strikes me that far better terms 

 would be " emergency cells " and "swarm- 

 ing cells." The last named would take in 

 the supersedure cells as well as those built 

 during the height of the honey-flow, when 

 the bees are not compelled to do something 

 on the spur of the moment. The first-named, 

 emergency cells, would apply to those cups 

 that are built when the bees find themselves 

 suddenly deprived of a queen ; for, under the 

 stress of the condition, they hurry things. 

 Why not adopt the simpler and more descrip- 

 tive terms — or, rather, terms that will be more 

 easily grasped and retained by the average 

 farmer bee-keeper? You say that a precon- 

 structed cell, or what I should prefer to call a 

 swarming-cell, never has a larva deposited in 

 it. Would that not seem to argue that, if the 

 bees were given their own way, they would 

 prefer an egg? — Ed ] 





i^fiOMOU/l N£JGHB0R5 FIELD 



August, month of drouth and heat, 



Now o'er all hold.s sway ; 

 Fields are brown as touched by fire — 

 • All for showers pray. 



Of 



L'APICOLTORE. 

 In the April issue, Mr. Dubini takes the fol- 

 lowing figures from Gleanings : 



In the United States, out of 30,372 colonies visited by 

 the inspectors 7253 were found to be infected with 

 foul brood. They ordered 5972 to be disinfected, and 

 1281 destroyed. 



Mr. Rauschenfels, the editor, says : 



We should like to know what Mr. Charles Dadant 

 would say to that, who, in 1895, wrote in the Revue de 

 Ay on: 



"I do not know on what document Mr. Rauschen- 

 fels based his assertion that the pest follows the 

 American hive like its shadow, breaking out more 

 rapidly there where the hive with movable bottom is 

 in use; for, although I have ust d such hives for 33 

 years, aird although I have opened them often to look 

 for queens, etc., the very thing which, according to 



