300 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



A*^ 



C 



STRAY STRAWS 



Dr. C. C. Miller 



GOOD deal 

 aid 

 about what 

 a queen can do 

 in the way of 

 laying eggs, and 

 it may be of in- 

 terest to figure 

 out just how 

 many eggs she 



actually does average daily when she has 

 occupied a certain number of combs. If 

 she fills three-fourths of the available cells 

 in a Langstroth comb, counting both sides, 

 she will occupy 7,300 cells. If it is 21 days 

 from the time an egg is laid until the young 

 worker emerges from its cell, then she has 

 laid 7,300 eggs in 21 days. Dividing 7,300 

 by 21 gives 347.619 as the average day's 

 work during the 21 days. Of course she has 

 not laid that number of eggs each day. Some 

 days she has laid more; some days less; and 

 there is likely to be a wide rang© from the 

 minimum to the maximum. 



Taking that 347.619 as a basis, and reliev- 

 ing the queen of the difiiculty of laying less 

 than a whole egg at a time by throwing 

 away the fractions, we may make out a ta- 

 ble showing just what a queen actually has 

 averaged daily when she has filled a certain 

 number of combs. It will be: For 1 comb, 

 347; for 2 combs, 695; for 3 combs, 1,043; 

 for 4 combs, 1,390; for 5 combs, 1.738; for 6 

 combs, 2,086; for 7 combs, 2,433; for 8 

 combs, 2,781; for 9 combs, 3,128; for 10 

 combs, 3,476; for 11 combs, 3,824; for 12 

 combs, 4,172. 



Dr. E. F. Phillips thinks a good queen 

 ought to fill 10 combs. That would call for a 

 daily stunt of 3,476 eggs, some laying. Per- 

 haps some of us have hardly realized what a 

 good queen ought to do. At any rate I 

 should hardly want to call any man a slack- 

 er whose queens should average 2,000 eggs 

 dailv, keeping 6 combs filled. 



Some one may say that when a queen oc- 

 cupies 10 combs the outside combs are not 

 half -filled. True enough; yet these are more 

 than balanced by inside combs more than 

 three-fourths filled. I've seen plenty of 

 combs that I think were nine-tenths filled. 

 Yet I don't guarantee that "three-fourths'' 

 as anything more than a rough guess, and it 

 will be a useful thing if some one makes ac- 

 curate observations showing just what a 

 good queen does. Then I'll gladly readjust 

 my figures to fit the facts. I have merely 

 shown what a queen actually does average 

 if she fills a certain number of frames three- 

 fourths full. 



1 



On page 232, commenting on the Michi- 

 gan experiments showing a loss of four de- 

 grees of heat when one side of a hive was 

 left unprotected, and feeling quite safe that 

 I knew the multiplication table, I said that 

 leaving four sides unpacked would cause a 

 loss of 16 degrees. Then I got a letter con- 

 taining this: "If this is true, why could 

 not the physicists reach 273 below zero by 



May, 1919 



means of a large 

 unpacked b e e - 

 hive"? And since 

 nothing is said 

 about outside 

 temperatures, it 

 is just possible 

 we might use 

 large beehives 

 for ice - cream 

 freezers on the fourth of July." When I 

 had got up and rubbed the gravel out of my 

 eyes, the only thing I could think of was to 

 wonder why it had not been suggested to 

 have hives octagonal so there would be more 

 sides to lose heat. Anyway, some one in 

 Gleanings otfice please tell us what 's wrong 

 with my figures, and what 's the right thing 

 to believe. 



[Whoever criticised you for that little 

 l)oint must have had a lot of nerve. It 

 seems to us that with a given outside tem- 

 perature, if the inside temperature was in- 

 creased at such a rate that there was no fall 

 in temperature inside the hive (in spite of 

 the loss of heat), then one would be practi- 

 cally correct in multiplying the loss of heat 

 during a unit of time by four. Otherwise, 

 certain other factors would need to be con- 

 sidered. However, the real trouble seems to 

 have been with the original experiment. It 

 seems to us that no very accurate results can 

 be expected when electricity is substituted 

 for a colony of bees. — Editor.] 



After reading the clear directions for 

 turning a frame over to look at the second 

 side, together with the four illustrations, 

 page 250, I got a brood-frame, set it before 

 my assistant. Miss Wilson, and said, ' ' Now 

 play that this frame is covered with bees, 

 and look for the queen. ' ' She raised the 

 frame, with well-simulated care looked over 

 one side, then without using any of the or- 

 thodox motions, but with a single motion, 

 and revolving the frame on the top-bar as 

 an axis, she turned over the frame to ex- 

 amine the other side. I then asked her to 

 do it the second time. Sorely puzzled to 

 know what I was getting at, she repeated 

 the performance in exactly the same way. 

 I then showed her the pictures and told her 

 she wasn't orthodox. "I don't care for 

 your orthodoxy ' ' was the retort. The fact 

 is that she has always handled combs so well 

 fastened in the frames that they needed no 

 care in handling. I think I usually go thru 

 all the motions, from habit — it takes hardly 

 any more time — but it's not a bad thing to 

 have combs so well fastened that no espe- 

 cial care is needed. [Yes, having well-fas- 

 tened combs does away with one objection, 

 but there still remain two others. During 

 a honey flow, revolving a frame on the top- 

 bar as an axis is bound to spill out more 

 newly gathered honey than the way suggest- 

 ed. But far more important than this is the 

 chance of injuring a choice queen. We have 

 seen more than one queen fall in just this 



