176 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



March. 1919 



%. The little jjiece's are nailed upon the 

 %-inch sides of the two larger pieces, lad- 

 der-fashion, with lA-inch space between 

 each two strips. The strips are allowed to 

 project over at each end about an inch. 

 The foregoing bottom-board and bottom- 

 rack are for an 8-frame hive. For a hive 

 of different size the proper changes must 

 be made in some of the measurements. 



Question. — Why don't you requeen eivery year? 



Answer. — It may be that under some con- 

 ditions, and for some beekeepers, it is ad- 

 visable to requeen every year; but long ex- 

 perience has made me believe that for me, 

 and I think for the great majority of bee- 

 keepers, it is better not to requeen on ac- 

 count of age, but only because a better 

 queen may be given. Perhaps I ought to 

 say unless a good deal better queen may be 

 given. So I never requeen merely because 

 a queen is old. One reason for this is that 

 the bees know better than I when a queen 

 should be superseded, and when the time 

 comes that a queen should be superseded, 

 they supersede her, whether she be three 

 months or three years old. I think their 

 superseding nearly always occurs toward 

 fall, and they make a smooth job of it, with 

 no interference in brood-rearing. When I 

 do it, there is more or less interference with 

 their household affairs, with the possibility 

 sometimes of something like disaster. Be- 

 sides, to requeen a whole apiary is some- 

 thing of a job, which I do not care to under- 

 take without the prospect of material gain. 

 One of the most important things, as I con- 

 sider, is to breed from the best. But if I 

 requeen every year, I cannot keep tab of a 

 full season 's work of each queen, and so I 

 cannot tell which is best. On the whole, if 

 I requeen because of age, I lose more than 

 I gain. 



Question. — It is not customary, when tiering up 

 hives, to put the empty super next the brood- 

 chamber, and do you think bees would carry honey 

 to the fourth or fifth story if there was room for it 

 lower down i 



Answer. — For some years, when producing 

 comb honey, I always gave the empty super 

 next the brood-chamber, without changing 

 the relative position of the supers above. 

 In a good flow the bees promptly began work 

 on the empty sections, doing more work 

 there than higher up, but still they con- 

 tinued work on the other sections, even tho 

 tiered up six or more high. Toward the 

 close of the harvest, when little honey was 

 coming in, if I put an empty super Ijelow, 

 the bees put not a drop of honey in it, mere- 

 ly passing thru it to work above. In either 

 case bees carried honey to the fourth or 

 fifth story when there was room for it lower 

 down. Perhaps you have in mind extract- 

 ing-combs. If a super of empty combs were 

 given below in a full flow, I should expect 

 more work in it than in the section-super, 

 but still that the bees would continue work 

 in the top story. If given at the wane of 

 the flow, instead of being negle-ted as was 

 the empty section-super, I should expect it 



to have chief attention, with little or noth- 

 ing done above. 



Question. — Referring to my story of the swarm 

 following the wheelbarrow, page 23, this comes: 

 "As to bees hearing, E. R. Root has made the state- 

 ment repeatedly that hybrid bees would behave as 

 you describe, but that Italians would not. Would 

 this prove that hybrids can hear and that Italians 

 cannot?" 



Answer. — I 'm unwilling to believe that 

 Italians are deaf, and I wouldn 't like to 

 imjaeach the credibility of the witness. So 

 I prefer to explain it by citing the well- 

 known fact that different kinds of bees do 

 not always act the same under the same con- 

 ditions. 



Question. — How many worker-cells to the square 

 inch ? 



Answer. — It is usual, and perhaps correct, 

 to estimate 5 worker-cells to the linear inch. 

 Based on this it is common to say there 

 are 25 cells to the square inch, or 50, count- 

 ing both sides. This would be correct if the 

 cells were square; but they are hexagonal. 

 A little comparison will show that a hexa- 

 gon a fifth of an inch across does not con- 

 tain as much surface as a square a fifth of 

 an inch across. So as the hexagon contains 

 a smaller surface there must be more hexa- 

 gons than squares in a square inch. As a 

 matter of fact, if there are 5 cells to the 

 linear inch, there are 28 13/15 to the square 

 inch, as given by Cheshire, or 57 11/15, 

 counting both sides. So instead of saying 

 25 and 50 are the numbers for one or both 

 sides, it is a good deal nearer the truth to 

 give the numbers as 29 and 58. The differ- 

 ence is such that a surface containing 1,000 

 cells, estimated the usual way, will contain 

 1,155 cells, estimated correctly. 



Question. — On page 28 Dr. Miller says that 

 " near the top-bar is the very place where the foun- 

 dation stretches the most." Do you mean stretches 

 or expands, Doctor? Douglas D. Brearley. 



Answer. — English is one of the languages 

 that has always troubled me, and I 'm not 

 sure that I know any too well the difference 

 between expanding and stretching. And 

 when I read in the dictionary that to stretch 

 means to be drawn out or expanded, I feel 

 there is danger of failing to make the 

 proper distinction. However, when a piece 

 of beeswax thru the effect of heat becomes 

 larger in dimensions I have no doubt all 

 would agree that is expansion, and when I 

 pull on a strip of foundation six inches long 

 and make it half an inch longer, I think it 

 stretches. Then when a frame of foimda- 

 tion at 50 degrees is put into a brood-nest 

 and brought up to 90 degrees or more, I 

 feel very sure it expands. Indeed, I feel 

 quite sure of it without any measuring. 

 But when I take it out and find that a cell 

 which upon being put in was an inch from 

 the top-bar is now a quarter of an inch 

 farther down, I think I am not far out of 

 the way in saying it has stretched a quarter 

 of an inch. So while there is, if I am cor- 

 rect, both expansion and stretching, is not 

 the stretching the thing to which the bee- 

 keeper objects? 



