368 



G LEANINGS IN BEE C U L T U R E 



June, 1919 



o 



,N page 290 

 the types 

 make Mrs. 

 Demuth say 

 that there is less 

 tendency to late 

 swarming "if 

 the bees are 

 compelled to 

 build new combs 



in the brood-chamber from starters only." 

 I can hardly believe she would favor any- 

 thing less than full sheets of foundation, for 

 fear of too much drone-comb. [Those are 

 Mrs. Demuth 's words. The types are inno- 

 cent this time. — Editor.] 



* « * 



Stancy Puerden, I'm in sympathy with 

 you when you speak so vehemently of 

 ' ' man 's refined, demineralized, devitalized 

 sugar"; but don't be too sure that a "nat- 

 ural apple" may not equal a Baldwin. The 

 Baldwin is nothing but a "natural apple" 

 selected out of many thousands of natural 

 or seedling apples, and any day another 

 seedling may turn up still better than a 



Baldwin. 



* * * 



In a mention of the Miller plan of getting 

 queen-cells, page 318, occurs this: "Eemove 

 a comb from the hive of the best breeder 

 and replace with this prepared frame." 

 Some one who tries that will be disgusted 

 to find that the chances are that the frame 

 will be filled with drone-comb and honey. 

 The remedy is to have the best breeder in a 



nucleus. 



* * * 



Interesting is that statement of L. L. 

 Andrews, page 309, May Gleanings, that 100 

 colonies of bees used 20 gallons of water in 

 a day. That seems an enormous amount, be- 

 ing a trifle more than IV2 pints for each 

 colony. One wonders just a little whether 

 they would keep that up day after day, or 

 whether, having been hard up for water, 

 they would take an unusual amount the 

 first day, and then slack up afterward. 



* * * 



Grace Allen, you knew mice had been in 

 your hives because you found the remains 

 of one there. You might have had another 

 evidence. Next time you suspect mice, ex- 

 amine the dead bees. Each one will have 

 a round hole on the upper part of its thorax, 

 where I suppose a mouse had bitten or lick- 

 ed out the contents of the thorax. If you 

 close the entrance of a hive with wirecloth 

 having three meshes to the inch, it will al- 

 low free passage for bees, but not for mice. 



* * * 



Something out of whack on page 299. The 

 text seems to show the cold arrangement of 

 combs, but the cut shows the warm arrange- 

 ment. The text says the entrance of the 

 nucleus "will be at the end of the hive op- 

 posite the body entrance," but the' cut 

 shows both entrances at the same end. 

 [The legend under the cut stated that in ad- 



dition to the ar- 

 rangement 

 shown, a piece of 

 tin or zinc cov- 

 ers all but a few 

 inches on the 

 right side of the 

 excluder. The 

 double dotted 

 line and lower 

 arrow were intended to indicate an entrance 

 at the oijposite end of the hive, but appar- 

 ently do not give that impression. — Editor.] 



On page 293 it is advised to strain bees 

 thru a queen-excluder, and the heading says 

 it * ' saves time and eye-strain, and works 

 without fail." It's a good thing in a stub- 

 born case where you want to find the queen 

 "right now," but as to saving time in or- 

 dinary cases — not "in this locality." In a 

 usual case of finding 50 or 100 queens, it will 

 be done in one-third of the time without 

 the strainer. [Yes, but your bees are not of 

 the flighty, scary, unfindable kind. — Editor.] 



* X * 



Two marvels on page 316: D. M. Mac- 

 Donald gives as one the lack of delight in 

 labor of any kind in a worker deprived of 

 antennae; lona Fowls gives as another the 

 lack of delight in much of anything of a 

 human being deprived of a leg. Play fair, 

 lona, play fair. The cases are not parallel. 

 My good friend, the Scotch schoolmaster, 

 may come back at you with another marvel; 

 a queen deprived of a leg goes right on tak- 

 ing interest in her work, just as if no leg 

 had been lost, altho the loss of the leg 

 causes likely as much pain as the loss of the 

 antenna?. Your human loses interest be- 

 cause of the severe pain, and the interest 

 will come back when the pain is over. The 

 interest of the bee is lost not because of 

 pain (for then the loss of a leg should cause 

 the same loss of interest) and that interest 

 will never return. [Yes, we will be fair. We 

 admit that we, together with Mr. MacDon- 

 ald and Dr. Miller and various scientists, 

 that have been discussing the subject, know 

 but precious little about the sense organs of 

 bees. Won 't the others please admit the 



same? — Editor.] . 



* » * 



On page 322, occurs a question which is, 

 in substance, "How can a queen become a 

 drone-layer if her spermatheca contains 

 more spermatozoa than the number of eggs 

 she lays in her lifetime?" And the answer 

 is in substance, "She can't." But we all 

 know she does, and only too often. It may 

 be said — and rightly — that that ' ' She 

 can 't ' ' means that she cannot become a 

 drone-layer thru the exhaustion of the sper- 

 matozoa. That still leaves the question, ' ' If 

 not thru such exhaustion, then how?" No 

 other way is suggested, and I 'm sure I don 't 

 know of any. Moreover, begging Miss 

 Fowls ' pardon, I may quote Cheshire as say- 

 ing that the supply of spermatozoa does ac- 



