714 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Sept. 1 



The grading-rules proposed by you are ex- 

 cellent. Now how shall we carry them into 

 effect? The bee-journals could probably do 

 more than any other agency, and Gleanings 

 would be glad to co-operate with any of its 

 cotemporaries. — Ed.] 



ABOUT HIVE-COVERS ; THE USE OF SAW-CUTS 

 ON THE UNDER SIDE. 



About eight years ago I wrote you from Or- 

 lando, Fla., that I had discovered how to keep 

 the flat hive-covers from warping. The letter 

 was published in Gleanings ; and when the 

 patented Danz. hive was offered, I found one 

 of its features was in line with my suggestion. 



I called your attention to this fact, and re- 

 ceived a very cordial letter from Mr. Danzen- 

 baker, explaining that this particular was not 

 included in his patent, for the obvious reason 

 that it was not original, but had been for a 

 long time in common use among woodworkers. 



Each time I hear or read complaints of the 

 flat cover warping, I wonder that people are 

 so slow to profit by a good thing when told of 

 it ; and what can be simpler than to cut saw- 

 grooves Yz inch or yi deep in the under side 

 of the cover, in line with the grain of the 

 wood, and \%ox1 inches apart? Then nail 

 on the cleats, and the board simply <:«« 7 warp, 

 whether in Cuba or Alaska. With such covers 

 Rambler can lose his harrow-tooth, and Dr. 

 Miller stuff his rags in his smoker. It is 

 equivalent to a cover made of ^Xl>^-inch 

 strips, and the cleats hold it securely flat un- 

 der all conditions. Again, it is like a "4: -inch 

 cover, with all the strength and weight and 

 smoothness of a solid Js-inch board. 



Here in Pennsylvania the solid board cover 

 does not warp much, a >4^-inch crack being 

 the maximum ; but in Florida I used to pile 

 50 lbs. of brick on diagonally opposite corners 

 to keep them anywhere near flat. One day 

 when applying the method to the parts of a 

 small box which I was gluing together, I fair- 

 ly blundered on the idea that it would keep 

 my cantankerous hive-covers flat. It did, 

 does, and will. 



Try a few, and see if it is not a very effectu- 

 al and simple remedy for the only fault of the 

 flat cleated cover. E. J. Baird. 



Lock Haven, Pa. 



[The fact is, we did give the idea of saw- 

 kerfs on the under side of the cover-boards a 

 most thorough test. While they might give 

 good results in Florida, with its great amount 

 of humidity, they will not do at all in a west- 

 ern or dry climate. In fact, they give a great 

 deal of trouble right here in Northern Ohio. 

 Boards having saw-cuts will check and split 

 right along the line of the cut ; and then we 

 find they are bad to ship. Our conclusion 

 was that it was far better to have solid boards. 

 The best of hive lumber, under conditions 

 that prevail in various parts of the United 

 States, will check and crack soon enough with- 

 out making matters worse by inviting such 

 checks by cutting boards half way through. 

 We have, therefore, abandoned the u.se of 

 these saw-kerfs, not only on our own covers, 



but on the Danzenbaker ; and I believe Mr. 

 Danzenbaker himself is satisfied that that idei 

 was not a success, for I have sent him some 

 samples of covers that would almost invaria- 

 bly start to check at the saw-kerf ; and we 

 found that, as manufacturers, we could not 

 afford to assume the loss in shipping on such 

 covers. — Ed.] 



THE ROUGH handling OF A VIRGIN QUEEN. 



A young queen, after her wedding flight, 

 returned to the wrong hive, one in which 

 there was a laying queen. About two hours 

 after her return I discovered, by an unusual 

 commotion among the bees of the hive from 

 which she took her flight, and by examina- 

 tion, that she had failed to return. I had 

 seen her take her flight, and at once suspect- 

 ed that she had made a mistake and had gone 

 into an adjacent hive. On opening it I found 

 the bees " balling" her at the bottom of the 

 hive. I at once removed this ' ' ball," succeed- 

 ed in liberating the queen, and putting her 

 into the proper hive. The bees which balled 

 her had torn away from her the appendage 

 usually appearing after the wedding flight, 

 leaving the parts gaping open as if she were 

 injured. I watched her closely to see wheth- 

 er she would take another flight. She did not 

 go out any more, but in two or three days she 

 began to lay, has proved herself to be quite 

 prolific, and her bees are all right. May not 

 her accident affect the length of her egg-lay- 

 ing life? H. W. Williams. 



Elberton, Ga., July 12. 



[The mere fact that the drone's appendages 

 were pulled away by the bees would not, I 

 think, necessarily imply that the queen would 

 not lay so long on that account. Even if she 

 had returned to the right hive in the first 

 place, her own bees would have taken away 

 the visible portions protruding from her body, 

 and hence the result would have been just the 

 same. In the arrangement of nuclei it is al- 

 ways desirable to have something by which' 

 young queens can discriminate between their 

 own entrance and that of some other of the 

 same general appearance. — Ed] 



cell-building on dry combs. 



I removed the queen from one of my hives 

 to cause them to rear queens, and I find they 

 are building queen cells on cells where there 

 are no larvae ' I took a frame of Carniolan 

 larvse from a colony, and put it into a colony 

 of hybrids after making it queenless. My 

 object is to raise some Carniolan queens, with 

 the result that they are not building on ariy 

 larvae. Wm. J. McCarter. 



Port Republic, N. J., Aug. 2. 



[The circumstances you relate, of bees 

 building cells on combs without any larvse or 

 eggs in them, is quite unusual ; yet our Mr. 

 Wardell says he has had two cases of it this 

 season. But when they do build cells on such 

 combs they will transfer the larvse from the 

 comb having J:hem in the first place to the 

 queen-cells that are empty. 



