632 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1 



I am of the "same opinion still." Either 

 your glasses are cross-eyed are else mine 

 are. Say — I wonder if they were cross- 

 eyed when you were measuring- that dis- 

 tance of the brood from the top-bar. — Ed.] 



Mr. T. W. Cowan writes, "Mr. Root 

 need not send all the way to Europe for a 

 sight of the automatic smoker, for I have 

 one here, and some time ago sent you a 

 sketch of it. It may be called 'ein Vulkan,' 

 but it is 'un enfumoir mecanique.'" Mr. 

 Cowan is evidently under the impression 

 that the Vulcan is identical with the auto- 

 matic that he has. That they are widelj' 

 different in outer appearance Mr. Cowan 

 will easily understand when I tell him that 

 in the picture the Vulcan looks much like a 

 coffee-pot. The pictures of the two smok- 

 ers give the impression that the Vulcan oc- 

 cupies much less space, but pictures are 

 often deceiving as to relative sizes. [In a 

 letter which Mr. Cowan sent to me in refer- 

 ence to this same smoker, he said: "I have 

 had it now for some years, and have used 

 it occasionallj'; but we never want a co}i- 

 tinuous stream of smoke." Italics mine. I 

 think Mr. Cowan is correct. A continuous 

 stream is too much of a good thing. A 

 mere breath of smoke over the top of most 

 colonies is sufficient, and far better than 

 too much. I can not conceive how any fan- 

 ning-mill device can be constructed without 

 making it bulky and unwieldy. There is 

 nothing that will "raise the wind" more 

 easil}' and satisfactorily for bee-smokers 

 than a light bellows. ^Ed.] 



" Brehd from the best" should be the 

 slogan, not merely of a few queen-breeders, 

 but of every bee-keeper, during the present 

 3^ear. That without settling the question 

 as to what is best ; whether it be F. B. 

 Simpson's queen of moderate increase that 

 will most surely perpetuate its qualities, 

 or the one whose workers store the largest 

 surplus without regard to other qualifica- 

 tions. Settle what you think is best to 3'our 

 own liking, but don't keep right on another 

 year allowing most of your increase to be 

 from inferior stock. [I had a notion to 

 have all this put in italics; but what would 

 be better would be for you to repeat it about 

 once in three or four months. Say — our 

 observations in the apiary do not quite co- 

 incide with those of Mr. F. B. Simpson 

 when he says, breed from moderate queens. 

 The breeding of bees and the breeding of 

 horses may be too different propositions. 

 We, like Doolittle, make it our practice to 

 breed from the best queens — that is, those 

 that show up the best in honey, and the 

 progeny of those same queens is prett}' apt 

 to duplicate those of its grandmother; at all 

 events, the bees show themselves to be de- 

 cidedly superior to the common run of stock. 

 If we breed from moderate queens we get 

 jnoderaie results. If we breed from the best 

 queens we get the best results ; and consid- 

 ering the fact that we are rearing queens 

 by the thousand everj' season, this should, 

 we believe, count for something. — Ed.] 



I've been trying to learn how thin a 

 syrup bees would take. In a feeder awa}"^ 

 from the hives I put one part sugar and 

 three parts water; then one of sugar to four 

 of water, and so on. When it came to one 

 of sugar and ten of water, the bees still 

 took it, but were rather lazy about it. They 

 were gathering at the time a little from 

 flowers. In a time of entire dearth of nec- 

 tar they might take a much weaker solution, 

 and I suspect that, when the feeding is done 

 earl}' enough, it may be well to use consid- 

 erably' more water than sugar. [Yes, I 

 think you are right. The thinner the sj'rup, 

 up to a certain point, the more thoroughly 

 will the bees digest it, and the less it is lia- 

 ble to candy in the combs in winter. The 

 old rule, to feed three parts of sugar to one 

 of water, for winter feed, was a mistake, 

 and I think that was the cause one winter, 

 at least, of our losing bees very heavilj-. 

 We have never had any sugar syrup cand}' 

 in combs, containing one part sugar and one 

 part water; but it now strikes me that if we 

 feed earlj' enough, as 3'ou saj', three parts of 

 water and one of sugar would give better 

 results still. It would be interesting to 

 know what the proportion of saccharine to 

 water is in ordinary nectar. Can some 

 professor of chemistry tell us? — Ed.] 



Replying to your footnote, page 588, Mr. 

 Editor, I do not mean that every one of mj' 

 frames is filled clear to the top-bar with 

 brood, nor that the majority of them are; 

 but I do mean that it is a common thing, 

 and that the average is so nei.r to the top 

 that there is little more to be gained. Cer- 

 tainly they are verj' far from your estimate 

 of being "filled about ^wo-thirds full of 

 brood. ' ' I have just been out to the apiary, 

 and, without picking out any particular 

 hive, took the one mj' assistant happened to 

 have open. One of the frames had brood 

 touching the top-bar, and an outside frame 

 had brood 1'4 inches from the top-bar. I'll 

 give you the distances of brood from the 

 top-bar for the whole eight frames: >s, ^s, 

 1, y&, -h^ ¥i^ 0, \%. That makes the aver- 

 age distance between brood and top-bar 

 .585, or a little more than !2 inch. Of 

 course, I measured at the point where brood 

 came nearest the top-bar. My assistant 

 protested that I ought not to have taken a 

 colon}' that was not verj' strong, but one of 

 the strong ones with more of the frames 

 having brood touching the top-bar. It is 

 only fair to saj' that it seems to me that, 

 years ago, the combs were not so crammed 

 with brood, and you have not been here in 

 summer for several j'cars. [After having 

 read over 3'our footnote very carefullj' to see 

 there was no "joke" about it, I went to in- 

 terview our Mr. Wardell, who has been a 

 bee-keeper for over thirty years, and I be- 

 lieve he is one of the best queen- breeders in 

 the United States. Said I, "Mr. Wardell, 

 how full are the average Langstroth frames 

 filled with brood, in our apiaries?" 



"That depends on the time of year," he 

 answered. "Before the honey-flow, when 

 the bees are breeding strongl}', the brood 



