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 i£PtRYEAR'"'\9 Medina-Ohio- 



Vol. XXX. 



SEPT. 



15 1902. 



No. 18 



^^^^Dr C C.Miller. 



Thk failure of the crop of white honey 

 has one redeeming feature: it makes one 

 wonderfully thankful for a fall flow. [Then 

 you are getting- that fall flow, and therefore 

 are thankful. We are now getting a strong 

 flow from goldenrod. We are thankful too. 

 —Ed.] 



GuKNTHER says in Imket'schule that in 

 an experience of 50 years with hundreds of 

 colonies he has never known drones to be 

 wintered over with a laying queen, and he. 

 is doubtful about it with queenless colonies. 

 He thinks drones found in spring are rear- 

 ed in spring, an occasional drone being 

 reared in the middle of the brood-nest. 



Mrs. Harrison uses granulated honey to 

 sweeten tea and coftee, p. 739. Why granu- 

 lated? I've used a good deal of it liquid 

 for the same purpose; and every morning 

 as soon as the tea-kettle boils I have a bowl 

 of hot water sweetened with extracted al- 

 falfa honey. But it has just occurred to me 

 that possibly granulated might be better 

 than liquid if the thin part were drained 

 off and only the dry granules used. Guess 

 I must try it. 



In making a forced swarm, is it best to 

 leave part of the bees on the combs or to 

 make a clean sweep of it? Depends entire- 

 ly on what is to be done with the combs aft- 

 er the bees are shaken off. If the combs 

 are to be set on a stand by themselves, leav- 

 ing them without any bees would result in 

 chilled brood often if not always in this lo- 

 cality (it might be different in a hotter cli- 

 mate), to say nothing about robbing. If 

 the brood is to be placed over other strong 

 colonies (and this practice is highly com- 

 mended across the water), then every bee 

 should be brushed off. [Locality certainly 

 should have a bearing in this case. — Ed.] 



Bko. Doolittlk thinks a nucleus can do 

 trood work building coinb, p. 722. Let me 

 indorse that by telling what a one-frame 

 nucleus has done for me this summer. I 

 gave it an empty frame with a starter of 

 foundation of perhaps 20 square inches. 

 In a week the frame was filled nearly full 

 of beautiful comb, every cell worker. I 

 took it away and gave another empty frame, 

 and this has been the weekly program 

 throughout the whole summer. [We have 

 had a like experience. — Ed.] 



In view of A. J. Wright's article, p. 737, 

 Mr. Editor, you think it may be a mistake 

 to believe the drones of laying workers vir- 

 ile. There is nothing in the article to prove 

 the impossibility of their being virile. Al- 

 though he found no spermatazoa, yet he 

 saj's, "cells were found in limited number, 

 from which I believe the spermatazoa are 

 developed." So if a queen were fertilized 

 by such a drone we might expect her to 

 play out in a little while. [You are possi- 

 bly right. I'd like to see this question gone 

 into more deeply. — Ed.] 



Speaking of shook, shaken, shooken, or 

 shooked swarms, some of the talk about 

 them sounds as if it made a difference 

 whether they were shaken or brushed. I 

 don't see how it could make a particle of 

 difference how the bees are got off the 

 combs, only so they are got off. I should 

 shake in all cases to get most of the bees 

 off, using the brush for the last few bees if 

 the combs are to be left clean of bees. Nei- 

 ther should I refrain from shaking if there 

 was a lot of thin honey in the combs; it 

 doesn't hurt the bees a bit to get a bath of 

 that kind. 



W. K. Morrison gives us an interesting 

 article, page 727, but is rather pessimistic 

 when he discourages undertaking bee prob- 

 lems at State experiment stations because 

 the right men for the work are not to be 

 found. Hon. K. L. Taylor did some excel- 

 lent work of that kind, his work being en- 

 hanced in value by the fact that he kept 

 bee-keepers constantly informed through 

 the bee journals as to what he was doing. 

 J. M. Rankin may be doing good work in 



