JULY 15, 1915 



569 



D-C.C. Miller I gTMAY STEAWS Marengo,™ 



J. E. Crane, that wetting the 

 joints of sections witli steam 

 looks good, p. 482 But whj' 

 didn't you tell us just how? Can 

 you do a whole box at a tirae? 

 j I\Iy guess would be to elevate the 

 box so as to direct the jet of 

 sli-ain from beneath. 



Wesley Foster is such good authority 

 that if he says spread brood as he seems to 

 on page 436, I don't dare dispute. I won- 

 der if it's like stimulative feeding. I don't 

 think that ever pays here; but in Colorado 

 it pays big, at times when without it brood- 

 rearing would entirely cease. Does spread- 

 ing brood come good at the same time? 

 Note that he practically says it doesn't pay 

 when nectar and pollen are plentiful. 



R. F. IlOLTEKMANN, you have my gracious 

 permission to go through three motions in 

 place of one in turning a frame over, p. 

 491, if you want to, but time's too precious 

 "in this locality." With my first comb I 

 had to do it or break combs. My assistant 

 ne^er has done it, and she's been handling 

 combs thirty years. Moreover, she holds a 

 comb flat when looking for a queen, and has 

 never broken one. Wonder why yours break. 

 It is not clear, according to p. 480, 

 "whether merely introducing a queen, with- 

 out shaking or dequeening, accomplishes a 

 cure or not " in cases of European foul 

 brood. I don't know, but I should think it 

 might at least be a helj) in most cases, even 

 if a queen of no better stock were intro- 

 duced; for in )nost cases when a queen is 

 introduced there is at least a little break in 

 brood-rearing, and that break helps the bees 

 to clean up. 



The fact, p. 433, that Mr. Chadwiek's 

 queens lay more in a year than Mr. Byer's 

 or mine explains why they should play out 

 sooner; but does it explain why he should 

 have more laying workers ? When a queen 

 goes bad my bees supersede her whether 

 she's three years or three months old, and 

 without any laying workers either. Why 

 shouldn't the same bees do the same thing 

 in California? 'Spect it's that Cyprian 

 blood. [Tn California, queens might play 

 out at a time of year when conditions were 

 not favorable for the bees to raise another. 

 Perhaps there are no eggs in the hive; the 

 queen dies, and laying workers would natu- 

 rally follow. — Ed.] 



Wesley L. Roberts, p. 415, you are 

 starting on the wrong basis when you think 

 good is more persistent than bad. It's often, 



if not generally, the other way. Also you 

 are away off if you think that crossing, 

 after the first cross, always means " a 

 breaking-up of all good qualities." I^ 

 means variation, and there may be good 

 variation as well as bad. Let me give a leaf 

 from my own experience, an experience that 

 you cannot have had unless you're grayer 

 than I think you are. I had blacks, pure 

 and simple, for five years. Then I got 

 Italians, and had a chance to compare the 

 two side by side. No room for discussion — 

 the Italians were far and away ahead of 

 the blacks. Then I had crosses, not merely 

 the first, but the tenth or more. Some were 

 very poor; some were excellent. As to 

 persistence, it's been a fight of 49 years 

 against the tendency to black blood. So I 

 feel warranted to say Italians are better, 

 blacks more persistent. 



J. E. Hand, you ask, p. 400, " Shall we 

 resort to the abnormal condition of queen- 

 lessness with its psychological depression 

 upon the energies of the bees, as advocated 

 by Dr. Miller?" Evidently you don't like 

 my idea of having the colony ten days with- 

 out a laying queen, and then, in its place, 

 you propose — exactly the same thing! For 

 don't you see that when you give a queen- 

 cell in place of the queen you leave them 

 as long without a laying queen as I do? To 

 be sure, the bees may be in a little better 

 state of mind with a ripe cell than with 

 young cells just begun ; but I don't suppose 

 the difference is gi'eat. The thing that turns 

 the trick is the same in both cases; it's that 

 ten days with no eggs laid. Let's compare. 

 You give a cell, with the chance that in 

 that cell there may be a virgin with a bad 

 wing, resulting in a drone-layer, or there 

 may be even a dead larva. I eliminate that 

 risk by giving at the end of ten days a 

 young laying queen. Isn't mine the safer 

 plan? But I've tried your plan in a few 

 cases, and it avoids all the fuss of keeping 

 the young queen in a nucleus and then in- 

 troducing her, making it, oh so much easier ! 

 that I should prefer it if I could be sure 

 that it never involved the very thing we are 

 both trying to avoid — swarming. Tell us 

 that you have tried it as many as a hundred 

 times, and that the young queen has not 

 swarmed out in a single case, and I'll ac- 

 cept yours as the better plan. But I would 

 not use either plan for the whole apiary — 

 not for money. I'd want a few of the most 

 promising queens left to make a record, so 

 that out of them I could select the best to 

 breed from. 



