890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CUI.TUKE. 



Nov. 1 



ty carefully during- the last twenty years, 

 and have found that half a mile is as good 

 as a much greater distance.' " 



"I don't believe that. Do you? How did 

 he come to any such conclusion?" 



"He went on to state the length of time 

 the queen was g^one from her hive on her 

 wedding-trip, from which I suppose he 

 reached his conclusions. He gave this time 

 as five minutes, from which I judge that he 

 thought a queen would not fly over one mile 

 in that time, or half a mile and return in 

 the five minutes." 



"But what about the flight of the drones? 

 Don't they play any part in the matter?" 



"Regarding the flight of the drones he 

 wrote: ' Drones will sometimes fly a mile or 

 more, but queens will not.' But about the 

 length of time it took the drone to fly that 

 mile he was silent." 



"But what was to hinder those drones 

 from being- that mile from home when the 

 queen got to the end of her half-mile? No 

 wonder you said such was guesswork." 



"And there are many more who think 

 that from half a mile to three miles is all 

 right; but I have knowledge that says the 

 distance must be greater than any yet 

 named." 



"What about that knowledge?" 



"One fact is always stronger than many 

 theories, or any thing based on supposition; 

 and so I will lay a fact alongside of what 

 we have been talking, and allow you to 

 form your opinion as to which is right. My 

 experience dates back to where there were 

 no Italian bees nearer than five miles, I 

 keeping only black bees. In other words, 

 my original stock was all black bees when 

 I procured it, and so continued until Ital- 

 ians were introduced five miles away. 

 Upon the introduction of these Italians, 

 about one out of ten of my young queens 

 gave hybrid bees, or those which were part 

 yellow and part black. Not long after this 

 a man living four miles from me purchased 

 twenty colonies of Italian bees, increasing 

 them that year to fifty colonies. The year 

 following I found nearly a third of my 

 j'oung queens giving hybrid bees." 



"Well, those are truly facts that are 

 worth remembering, and show conclusively 

 that, if any race of bees is to be kept pure, 

 said race, must be more than five miles 

 away from any other bees. But suppose 

 there are other bees nearer than this, what 

 can be done then?" 



"The only thing is to get the owner of 

 such bees to allow you to put queens of 

 your race into each hive of his bees, and 

 then you will be master of the situation, 

 barring some colony that may be in some 

 cave or hollow tree. And many a queen- 

 breeder has done this very thing of Italian- 

 izing all the bees all about him, at a cost 

 of much labor and money, that he might 

 rear pure queens." 



"I thank you very much for this little 

 talk; but the time has come when I told 

 Mrs. Jones I would return, and I will go. 

 Good evening." 



AMOUNT OF HONEY NEEDED IN THE BROOD= 

 NEST. 



The Prolificness of a Queen Dependent on Tent= 



perature; Bees Going into the Supers; Queen 



Laying Eggs in the Super, etc. 



BY J. M. GIBBS. 



Mr. Root: — I notice on page 588, July 15, 

 also page 676, Aug. 15, that Dr. C. C. Mil- 

 ler is "at sea" as to the proportion of hon- 

 ey and brood-nest area in brood-chamber 

 (in frames of comb) at different seasons 

 and under varying circumstances. After 

 some years' careful study and observation 

 I am convinced that the solution of the prob- 

 lem is almost entirely one of inside hive 

 temperature. We know that in cold or cool 

 weather the brood-nest is small compared 

 with what it is in warm weather. We also 

 know, or should know, that this nest or 

 brood-center must be held at all times at 

 the same temperature, no matter what the 

 outside temperature may be; and to observe 

 their brood-center as the temperature goes 

 up or down, whether advancing to the hon- 

 ey season or warm weather, or retiring aft- 

 er the honey season is over, is to prove the 

 above statement to be correct. 



It is clearly a matter of temperature when 

 the queen decreases the circle of egg-laying, 

 thus allowing the bees to fill a larger space 

 under the top-bar with honey; whether the 

 temperature is lowered by cool weather or 

 by swarming, and, as is often the case, by 

 careless operators allowing the air to cir- 

 culate through the hive, lowering the tem- 

 perature below the point where the bees can 

 counterbalance by the heat of their bodies. 

 And I have also observed that this nest is 

 decreased in size when work is begun in 

 the supers, simply because the temperature 

 has been lowered in the brood-chamber by 

 a larger number of bees being transferred 

 to work in the supers, it being necessary 

 for a number of bees sufficient to gain and 

 maintain a comb-building temperature at 

 that point. 



The prolific queen does not lay eggs near- 

 er the top-bar than an unprolific one, as 

 such, but because she is likely to have rear- 

 ed a larger colony, which large colony is 

 capable of heating a larger area of brood- 

 nest than a smaller one. If you will trans- 

 fer a prolific queen from her large colony 

 to a small one she will circumscribe her 

 nest-area to fit the capacity of the small fl 

 colony to heat up and care for brood; or if f 

 you will put a poor or unprolific queen into 

 a large colony she will enlarge upon her 

 former nest-area, as her colony can main- 



