June, 1919 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



gotten Doujiias Faiibaiiks oiitclasspcl. No, 

 sir; ho would never dare go up tlicri' wlicro 

 all those bees are. ^' 



The stunt was not very difiicult, because 

 I could light a little piece of paper and stick 

 it into the hole where the bees were. Aftei' 

 the paper had burned out, and while tlie 

 colony was in a roar from the smudge, I 

 took the honey out. Easy enough when you 

 know how, if it hadn 't been so high up. 



Yon can see from one of the pictures that 

 I might have broken my neck when I was 

 looking into the beehole to see where the 

 bees and combs were. While that did not 

 happen, I did lose the top of my head. The 

 other man in the picture was one of the 

 movie men who came to help me, and he 

 stood his ground, or, rather, his rock, "un- 

 til the show was over. ' ' 



The view in the background is of Holly- 

 wood, one thousand or more feet below. ' ' If 

 I had lost my hold, would I have fallen that 

 distance?" No. But I don't think I would 

 have told this story. 



The movies have not shown this picture 

 yet, and I have been wondering whether the 

 "stunt" busted the camera; and I am like- 

 wise wondering what kind of story there 

 will be about honey, and how many millions 

 of housewives will use honey after they see 

 me taking it out of a rock. 



By the way, those wild (?) bees were the 

 finest Italians one could ever wish to see. 

 They were real nice until I began to take 

 away their honey. I was glad when the job 

 was over; and when I went down into the 



Tlie Piitlu^ cami 1 ' tb I i . . li d off one thdusand feet 

 of movie film, (,itiliiii_ tlic editor wliilc lie was in 

 the act of takins' wild honey out of the roek, as 

 shown on pa2;e 356. It was no s.iiall job m )iintin<; 

 this camera, but after a prodigious amount of work 

 the thing was located, when the " grind " was begun. 



Zoological gardens below to wash my hands 

 a big grizzly came up, and sniffed and snort- 

 ed. I could not imagine what was the mat- 

 ter with him until I thought of the honey 

 that was on my hands. It was evident he 

 was a good judge of good honey, and I was 

 sorry afterward that I did not bring down 

 some of that wild honey covered with crawl- 

 ing bees to see whether he would eat bees 

 and all. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE HIVE 



NEAELY a 

 half - cen- 

 tury ago, 

 A. I. Eoot wrote 

 the following 

 significant words 

 for the pages of 

 the then infant 

 Gleanings in Bee 

 Culture: "Per- 

 haps none of us has ever succeeded in in- 

 ducing a colony of bees to do all they are 

 capable of doing. In our apiary we feel 

 satisfied that fully one-half the time of the 

 bees has been wasted, judging from the way 

 in which new swarms do business. ' ' Dur- 

 ing the half-century of development in bee- 

 keeping much progress, undoubtedly, has 

 been made in providing favorable condi- 

 tions to induce the "bees to do all they 

 are capable of doing"; yet in the hands of 

 experienced beekeepers, even now, some 

 colonies apparently waste one-half or more 

 of their time during the honey flow. 

 Difficulties in Selecting Breeding Queens. 

 In our earlier efforts to improve the bees 

 by selecting breeding queens largely' from 

 the colonies which had given the greatest 

 yield of honey, we were convinced that, un- 



Conditions Which Tend to decrease 



or Increase Colony Activity. Strain 



of '^ees Only One Factor 



By Belva M. Demuth 



der our manage- 

 ment at that 

 time, the yield 

 was influenced 

 more by condi- 

 tions which de- 

 press or stimu- 

 late the activity 

 of the workers 

 than by inbred 

 characteristics. This made the proper se- 

 lection of a breeding queen difficult, for in 

 some cases colonies known to be of an in- 

 ferior strain, and sometimes even of medium 

 strength, gave the highest yield because of 

 some fortunate combinations of conditions 

 which stimulated them to do their utmost. 

 The next year this same colony might come 

 up to the honey flow in better condition as 

 to number and vitalif^' of workers, but give 

 only an ordinary yield because of the pres- 

 ence of another set of conditions which tend 

 to depress the activity of the workers during 

 the honey flow. On the other hand, a queen 

 suitable for a breeder may remain undis- 

 covered one year because her colony gave 

 an ordinary yield, while the next year her 

 colony with, no more and no younger work- 

 ers at the beginning of the honey flow but 

 with different colony conditions, might give 



