GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



April. 1919 



and you seem to have that matter pretty 

 well under your thumb. I wish you could 

 measure the purity of the air, and then had 

 an exact measure of the uneasiness of the 

 bees at different grades of purity. 

 » * * 



A. I. Eoot, when I read what you and 

 Prof. Thorne have to say, page 182, there 

 came to mind these fine* lines from Pope's 

 Essay on Man, which I here transcribe for 

 you : 



Heaven from all ireatiires hides the Book of Fate. 

 All hut the paare prescrihed, their present state: 

 From brutes what men. from men what spirits 



know ; 

 Or who could -suffer being here below ? 

 The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today. 

 Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? 

 Pleased to the last he crops the flowery food, 

 And licks the hand .iust raised to shed his blood. 

 Oh! blindness to the future! kindly given, 

 That each may fill the circle marked by heaven, 

 Who sees, with equal eye, as God of all, 

 A hero perish, or a sparrow fall. 



That Byer-Crane controversy, page 157, 

 may lead to some useful experimenting . Mr. 

 Crane says he crammed hives with honey in 

 October with bad results. But one impor- 

 tant item in the case he doesn 't tell us 

 about. Please tell us, friend Crane, how 

 much room there was for clustering below 

 the bottom-bars. With little room there I 

 should expect bad results; with plenty of 

 room I should expect good wintering with 

 not an empty cell in the combs at the start. 

 I '11 tell you why I think so. In the winter 

 I have the beautiful sight of great clusters 

 below the bottom-bars, reaching to the floor 

 two inches below. How much deeper the 

 cluster would be wdth more room I don't 

 know. If the bees enjoy clustering below 

 the bottom-bars when there is the usual 

 room above, don 't you believe they would 

 like it with only honey above? 



* * * 



It is somewhat of a problem to prevent 

 drifting when placing bees on their summer 

 stands and at the same time keep the colo- 

 nies warm enough. To avoid any trouble 

 from bees flying back to their winter loca- 

 tion, bees should be put on their summer 

 stands quite early, say in . March, before 

 they have flown enough to mark fully their 

 location where they have been thru tiie 

 winter. Aside from that" one difficulty, it 

 will be better to leave them packed till soft 

 maples are in bloom, or even till the middle 

 of May; and this one can do by taking a 

 little extra trouble in this way: When one 

 has removed the bees from their winter 

 quarters, let him put in their old place a 

 hive with empty cofnbs. The returning bees 

 will assemble on these, and at evening can 

 be brushed in front of any hive where they 

 will do the most good, a repetition being 

 necessary for a few days. 



* * * 



How many worker-cells in a Langstroth 

 frame? The frame is 17% by 9Vh outside 

 measure. If the thickness of the top-bar be 



% inch, the bottom-bar \i inch, and each 

 end-bar % inch, then the inside measure is 

 16% by 8, or 13.5 square inches. If we count 

 25 cells to the square inch, as is often done, 

 there will be 3,.375 cells on one side, or 6,750 

 on both sides. But if there are 5 cells to 

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

 the square inch, making 3,897 cells on one 

 side, and 7,794 on both sides, this last being 

 1,044 more than when we count 25 cells to 

 the square inch, a difference of a little more 

 than 15 per cent. 



But this is counting on perfect combs, 

 and perfect combs are not the rule. The 

 bees are likely to have a passage between 

 comb and bottom-bar part way or the whole 

 way of the bottom-bar, and often for some 

 distance between comb and end-bar. Per- 

 haps it may not be out of the way to count 

 that the deficiencies will amount to as much 

 as half an inch in depth for the length of 

 the bottom-bar. That will give us for the 

 average comb 3,653 worker-cells on one side; 

 3,650 is near enough, and that 's easy to 

 remember, for the first three figures at the 

 left give the number of days in a year. For 

 both sides the number will be 7,300. 

 * s * 



R. H. Pettit, Entomologist of Michigan 

 Experiment Station, has given out some in- 

 teresting results of experiments as to ma- 

 terials for winter packing, concluding that 

 ' ' ordinary leaves, raked up, dried, and firm- 

 ly packed, give the best results of any ma- 

 terial tried." He says: "From our tests 

 it would appear that the heat-insulating 

 values of the various substances compare 

 about as follows: Dead-air space, IS; cor- 

 rugated card-board, 33; planer shavings, 

 34%; mineral wool, 35%; forest leaves, 41." 



From this we may figure out that if forest 

 leaves are taken as the standard, or 100 per 

 cent, we shall have the following: Forest 

 leaves, 100; mineral wool, 86.6; planer shav- 

 ings, 84.1; corrugated paper, 80.5; dead-air 

 space, 43.9. 



' ' Tests, ' ' says the report, ' ' were also 

 made to determine the relative rates of heat 

 loss when one surface of the chamber was 

 left unpacked. When the bottom surface 

 was unprotected there was a loss of about 

 3% degrees F. in temperature. One unpro- 

 tected side produced a loss of 4 degrees. 

 With the top surface alone unprotected, a 

 loss of nearly 5 degrees resulted." 



That shows that the top is the most im- 

 portant part to protect, and that to leave 

 the bottom unjirotected is nearly as bad as 

 to leave one side bare. But these findings 

 do not warrant the view (that I think has 

 been held by some) that to have the top 

 protected is more important than to protect 

 the four sides, for the loss from an unpro- 

 tected top is 5 degrees and from four un- 

 pro'tected sides it is 16 degrees. 



[We rather question the conclusion as to 

 relative loss of heat at top and sides as here 

 stated. Would not the proportional loss be 

 greater at the top than given above? — 

 Editor.] 



