1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



215 



other evening I wrote off a song containing 300 

 words, in ten minutes, making only five mistakes. 

 William B. Gould. 

 Fremont, Mich., Feb. 9, 1889. 



It does not seem to me that you hit the 

 point exactly until you come to the conclud- 

 ing part of your last sentence. The ques- 

 tion is, " Will bees store more honey in a 

 whole crate of partly finished sections than 

 they will in a crate of new sections filled 

 with foundation with, say, three or four part- 

 ly finished ones in the middle as decoy sec- 

 tions?" We should like to have more facts 

 from actual experience in regard to this lat- 

 ter point. 



HOW MUCH IS. CONSUMED IN 'WIN- 

 TER? 



NOTES ON MARCH GLEANINGS. 



AND NOW PROF. COOK TAKES FRIEND COKNEIL TO 

 TASK A LITTLE— SEE PAGE 173. 



IS IT FAIR TO ESTIMATE FROM OCT. 1 TO MAY 15 ? 



fRIEND ROOT:— In your comments on page 61 

 to the answers to Question 102, you ask 

 whether your explanation of the widely dif- 

 ferent reports is not a good one. I don't 

 think you have touched the real root of the 

 matter at all, so please let me give my idea. 



The time specified, from October to May, includes 

 time that can not be properly charged to wintering, 

 but includes much time when bees can fly freely, 

 when more or less honey is gathered, and when 

 large amounts of brood are raised. In my answer 

 I estimated the amount of honey in the hive Oct. 

 1st, less the amount on May 1st, without making 

 any account whatever of the amount gathered and 

 consumed during the time. The amount of honey 

 gathered in the spring before May 1st varies very 

 widely in different localities and in different sea- 

 sons in the same locality. In Northern Iowa I have 

 known over 40 lbs. per colony, over and above what 

 ever might have been gathered, to be consumed be- 

 tween the dates mentioned; and I remember one 

 season at least where there was fully as much if 

 not more honey in the hives on May 1st than there 

 was Oct. 1st previous. It can easily be seen how 

 impossible it is to get accurate reports to cover so 

 long a time. Again, it is very evident that several 

 of those who answered this question did not do so 

 with reference to the full time covered by the 

 question; in fact, Prof. Cook and Dr. Miller name 

 other dates. 



On page 41 friend Doolittle speaks of the climatic 

 changes going on in his section of country on ac- 

 count of the destruction of forest-trees. In the far 

 western prairie States the opposite change is tak- 

 ing place, as more artificial groves are being raised 

 than natural ones are being destroyed. And right 

 here let me repeat what I have already written, 

 that it is useless to expect success in outdoor win- 

 tering in the far North, unless the hives are well 

 protected from direct winter winds. A thick grove, 

 not simply a hedge of evergreens or other brushy 

 trees, is best; but I have known success obtained by 

 the use of high tight board inclosures. 

 Havana, Cuba, Feb. 2, 1889. O. O. Poppleton. 



Friend P., your points are well taken. 

 We have been accustomed to say May 1, be- 

 cause we can not say that our bees are safe- 

 ly wintered until about that date. I do not 

 believe that anybody has overdone the mat- 

 ter of providing windbreaks, very much. 



8DITOR GLEANINGS:— I read March Glean- 

 ings, as I do ever j- number, with much inter- 

 est. You are to be praised and congratulat- 

 ed for giving us such a rich meal each fort- 

 night. 



Mr. Corneil's article, like all of his writings, shows 

 honest, painstaking, conscientious work. His au- 

 thorities and quotations are excellent and correct, 

 but his conclusions may not be warranted. True, 

 we must have the three kinds of food, and that at 

 frequent intervals. Neither one nor two of the 

 three kinds, carbo-hydrates (starch and sugars), fats, 

 and albuminoids will answer. All must be present. 

 But, can we reason that bees must have the same, 

 and at as frequent intervals? Nay, verily, I think 

 not. I have known the Texas horned lizard— usual- 

 ly called horned toad— to live for months with no 

 food. Such reasoning as Mr. Corneil adopts above 

 would pronounce this absurd and impossible. A 

 bear will live in winter, and breathe very little, al- 

 most none at all, yet the circulation continues. 

 Our hearts would not propel such blood at all. They 

 are not made that way; but the bear's is and does. 

 Now, it is my opinion that bees may pass the win- 

 ter with no air other than may pass through the 

 hive, and that they may also do well with no nitrog- 

 enous food except that which is already in the 

 blood. The bear passes the winter with only the 

 fat of its own body to keep the vital engine at 

 work. May not bees, then, live on pure carbo-hy- 

 drates during their winter quiet? I b,elieve so, and, 

 as I said in a recent article sent to Gleanings, I 

 shall soon know. 



As to air, I kept a colony sealed in ice, at the 

 opening of the hive, one whole winter. It was cov- 

 ered with snow, and wintered exceptionally well. 

 The ice was still intact in spring, when I dug out 

 the hive. Now, there can be no mistake about this. 

 I have tried to repeat the experiment, but without 

 success. It needs a nice adjustment of conditions 

 which 1 have failed to arrange. Let me say that 1 

 froze up the entrance after a very severe winter 

 had commenced. Those bees secured all their air 

 through the hive— doubt it who may. 



Sorry, friend Root, that you say science and art 

 are at variance. I say, never. In our haste to gen- 

 eralize we assert what is not science. Thus pseudo- 

 science and art, or practice, differ. The chemist 

 said there are no nutritive elements in the silage 

 not in the dried food. That was true. Had he said 

 the dry food is as easy to digest and assimilate as 

 the silage, he would have stated, not a scientific 

 fact, but an untruth, and the cow would have 

 shamed him. We ought all to be careful in our gen- 

 eralizations and statements. Even then the best 

 will make some mistakes. 



I like Rambler's bee-dress very much, and Er- 

 nest's new Dovetailed hive. How can the board cov- 

 er be made so it will not twist or warp? 



Agricultural College, Mich. A. J. Cook. 



And now, friend Cook, are you not a little 

 mistaken ? As soon as I read the sentence, 

 " Sorry, friend Eoot, that you say science 

 and art are at variance," I carefully scanned 

 my remarks to see where I have even inti- 

 mated that science and art might be at va- 

 riance, but I do not find it. All I do find is 



