GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



July, 1919 



c 



STRAY 



J_ been interest- 

 ed in skunks. 

 I don't know 

 that I have ever 

 lost a bee I3 y 

 them. Yet I 

 thank O. L. Her- 

 shiser for forc- 

 ing the malodor- 

 ous subject upon our attention on page .364, 

 June Gleanings. There are thousands like 

 me who don't know that they have ever 

 lost a bee by skunks, but do they know 

 that they have not lost by the "varmints"? 

 And Mr. Hershiser docs well to stir up a 

 smell on the subject. Who knows but some 

 of the mysterious cases of colonies going 

 wrong with no apparent cause may not be 

 attributable to the miscreant under con- 

 sideration? At any rate it may be a good 

 thing to start a general effort to have all 

 laws repealed that especially look toward 

 the protection of any animal that parades 

 under the imposing name of Mc'i]iiti'< uir- 

 pliitica, or appears just as plain skunk. 

 * * * 



Wallace C. Greenleaf thinks I overesti- 

 mate the number of cells in a Langstroth 

 fiame in the figures I give on page 232. In- 

 stead of counting 3,650 cells on one side, he 

 thinks it should be 3,318. He says "In 

 the foundation I have been purchasing 

 I find that there are only 52 cells in 11 

 inches," and he estimates that there are 

 26.8383 cells to the square inch. Apparently, 

 however, he fails to notice that I said, "if 

 there are 5 cells to the linear inch," and if 

 he keeps in mind that I worked on that 

 basis I am sure he will find my figures cor- 

 rect. 



Evidently, however, he would question the 

 assumption of 5 cells to the inch, and that 

 raises the fundamental question, "How 

 many worker-cells are there to the linear 

 inch"? ' ' 



In one of the latest books, "Beekeeping," 

 by Dr. Phillips, we find that worker-cells 

 "are about one-fifth of an inch across." 

 Dadant 's Langstroth says, ' * They are usu- 

 ally somewhat larger" than five to the inch. 

 Root's ABC and X Y Z says they are 

 ' ' about five to the inch, ' ' but ' ' it will be 

 found that they are by no means all of them 

 five to the inch" as the cells are not perfect 

 hexagons. Perhaps no one has gone into 

 the matter more painstakingly and thoroly 

 than T. W. Cowan. He says, "The average 

 size of a worker-cell between the parallel 

 sides is 1/5 of an inch, or 0.2. ' ' He gives 

 a summary of a surprisingly large number 

 of experiments, and of one set he says: "In 

 order to reduce the possibility of errors oc- 

 curring from measuring only one cell, we 

 selected ten cells, which, allowing 1/5 of 

 an inch to each cell, should occupy the 

 space of 2 inches. In all, 36 measurements 

 were taken, and we found the greatest 

 aggregate diameters of any one series of 

 ten cells to amount to 2.11 inches, and 



STRAWS 



Dr. C. C. MiUer 



1 



the least to 

 1.86." In other 

 words, the diam- 

 eter of a cell va- 

 ries from .211 to 

 .186 of an inch. 

 With these 

 data from Mr. 

 Cowan, and re- 

 membering that 

 to get the number of cells to the square inch 

 we divide 1.1547 by the square "of the diam- 

 eter, we find with the average cell (.2 in 

 diameter) there are 28.867 cells to the 

 square inch. With the largest cell (.211 in 

 diameter), there are 25.936 cells to the 

 square inch. With the smallest cell (.186 in 

 diameter) there are 33.377 cells to the 

 square inch. (Incidentally it may be said 

 that if there are 52 cells in 11 inches there 

 are 23.133 cells to the square inch; not 

 26.838, as Mr. Greenleaf has it.) 

 * * » 



On page 3S9 I said ' ' the best drone is 

 the drone with the best grandmother," and 

 a footnote wonders whether it would not be 

 more accurate, instead of saying "grand- 

 mother," to say "grandparents." It would 

 be a grave error to ignore the influence of 

 the drone with which the grandmother mat- 

 ed. Some think it even greater than the in- 

 fluence of the queen herself independent of 

 any mating. But when we speak of a laying 

 queen do we not always include the drone 

 she met? On page 369 I said: "Suppose 

 two virgin sisters, A and B, just alike in 

 every respect. A meets with the best drone 

 ever, and B with the worst ever. A will 

 rear good workers, and we shall call her a 

 good queen. B will rear poor workers, and 

 we shall call her a poor queen. ' ' If that is 

 correct then clearly when speaking of a 

 laying queen we include her drone consort. 

 Now suppose some objector arises and says: 

 ' ' It is not accurate to say that A is the 

 better queen; she is no better than B, ac- 

 curately speaking, only she met a better 

 drone." For one, I think I should feel like 

 saying, "Put him out!" I wonder, Mr. 

 Editor, if you wouldn 't feel somewhat the 

 same way. [Instead of saying "grand- 

 mother," leaving the reader to infer we 

 also had in mind the drone consort, we be- 

 lieve that in an article especially empha- 

 sizing the influence of the drone it would 

 be quite worth while to say "grandpar- 

 ents. ' ' Then even the beginner would catch 

 the point. — Editor.] 

 " * * * 



A Nevada beekeeper gets best results in 

 straight even combs in sections by using 

 top starters that are V-shaped, page 353, 

 "under his conditions." I hope those con- 

 ditions do not generally prevail. Under my 

 conditions I have no trouble with full start- 

 ers, and if my top starters were V-shaped 

 I 'm sure I should have less honey and not 

 so good combs. Drone comb would certain- 

 ly fill some of the vacancies, and excluders 



