932 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 15 



place of white clover or basswood, objection 

 is immediately raised that it is adulterated 

 because it tastes different from honey they 

 have been accustomed to; hence my advice 

 to use a little alfalfa in with basswood or 

 clover, and make a blend so that the trade 

 will not cry "adulteration " when one kind 

 of honey is short and another kind is used 

 more largely in the blend to piece out. — • 

 Ed.] 



I AM DELIGHTED to know that at last we 

 are likely to be waked up as to phacelia. 

 Mr. Cowan is the only one who mentions 

 Phacelia tanacetifolia in last Gleanings, 

 and I am confident that he is right about 

 that being the forage-plant in question. I 

 think, however, he is wrong in thinking the 

 phacelia of the florists quite different, and 

 producing an unappreciable quality of hon- 

 ey. Years ago I had the phacelia of the 

 florists, and, although only a few plants, 

 they were eagerly visited by the bees. Not- 

 withstanding Prof. Ball has found no rec- 

 ord of it, there is abundant testimony as to 

 the value of phacelia as a forage-plant in 

 Europe. Let us hope for assistance from 

 Washington. It just occurs to me that, 

 years ago, Vick's catalog mentioned pha- 

 celia as a bee-plant. I don't know whether 

 this was tanacetifolia or not. 



" Be careful not to make the mistake of 

 getting confectioners' sugar " for queen 

 candy, p. 909. Please tell us, Mr. Editor, 

 how we may be sure of getting the right 

 kind. I have been so careful about it as to 

 send to Medina to be sure to have nothing 

 wrong; but how can they be sure at Medi- 

 na? [In general, confectioners' sugar is 

 brought to a finer state of pulverization than 

 ordinary pulverized sugar. If you examine 

 the former with a glass you will see besides 

 the cane-sugar crystals something else, and 

 that something else is starch. Pulverized 

 sugar should show nothing but minute crys- 

 tal cubes when examined with a glass of 

 high magnifying power. But there is 

 another way whereby you can detect the 

 starch, and that is by the taste. If you 

 can sometines get hold of some confection- 

 ers' sugar and a sample of pulverized, 

 taste one and then the other. You will 

 then perceive a difference. There is, still, 

 another dift'erence. Confectioners' sugar 

 has more of a tendency to lump up. While 

 fhe pulverized will do so to some extent, the 

 •other will cling toge'ther in chunks that 

 have a sort of flaky brittle feeling. You do 

 not need to send to Medina for pulverized 

 sugar. — Ed.] 



YOTJ ASK, Mr. Editor, p. 888, what will 

 be the difference between a colony tinkered 

 by shaking so it will not have any thought 

 of swarming, and one not tinkered up that 

 has never thought of swarming. I don't 

 know precisely the diff'erence, but should 

 say at a guess about 25 per cent. That is, 

 the untinkered colony might store 25 per 

 cent more than the other. Perhaps that 

 estimate is too low — depends on the season. 

 You ask why. I don't know, only I know 



that has been my experience over and over 

 again. One thing that ought to make a 

 material difference in most cases is that 

 taking away all the brood by shaking takes 

 away just so many future workers. All of 

 that, however, has nothing to do with the 

 fact that shaken swarms are far and away 

 ahead of natural swarms. [But a colony 

 that has not been tinkered with, and won't 

 swarm when run for comb honey, is a rari- 

 ty; so that, even if we did get the 25 per 

 cent, it is so seldom that we do get such a 

 colony that the 25 per cent does not cut very 

 much of a figure. Our hope, then, is in the 

 forced swarm. But you say that taking 

 away all the brood by shaking takes away 

 just so many future workers. It is not true 

 that a great many return all\h& bees hatch- 

 ed from the brood at a second drive to the 

 original colony. If it can be done, then 

 why shouldn't a forced swarm that has had 

 two drives of bees be the equal of the un- 

 tinkered colony that never thinks of swarm- 

 ing? — Ed.] 



Temperature is a matter of immense 

 importance, summer and winter; but don't 

 you think you are carrying it a little too 

 far, friend Gibbs, in drawing your conclu- 

 sions, page 890? Take one instance. You 

 say the brood-nest " is decreased in size 

 when work is begun in the supers, simply 

 because the temperature has been lowered 

 in the brood-chamber,"' etc. That can 

 hardly mean any thing else than that brood 

 extends no further, because immediately 

 above the circle of brood it is too cold. But 

 heat rises, and it must be that it is warmer 

 immediately over the top than at the bottom 

 of the brood; so if the temperature controls, 

 when the brood-nest shrinks it should 

 shrink away from the lower part and move 

 upward where it is warmer. How do you 

 account for it that the brood-nest is kept 

 near the entrance, in the coldest part of the 

 brood-chamber? Do you really believe that, 

 with the same temperature, an unprolific 

 queen will lay as many eggs as a prolific 

 one? You say, " It is a matter of tempera- 

 ture when queens do or do not go up into 

 supers to lay eggs." Take a case in which 

 brood-chamber and supers are both cram- 

 med full of bees, every thing closed but the 

 entrance, and do you really believe it is 

 colder up in the supers than at the place 

 where the brood is nearest the entrance? 

 And yet you know, and I know, that in ex- 

 actly such cases the queen will have no 

 thought of entering the supers. [Haven't 

 you read more out of your first quotation 

 than the actual words themselves permit? 

 What Mr. Gibbs does mean, I think, is 

 that comb-building in the supers requires 

 comb-building temperature — as high as is 

 required for actual egg-laying, for he lays 

 considerable stress on the necessity of suffi- 

 cient comb-building heat. But in order to 

 get that heat it does not mean that the 

 space above the brood would be cold, as 

 you state. But the second quotation per- 

 haps needs more modification, or, rather, I 

 think Mr. Gibbs did not state exactly what 



