July. 1919 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



441 



would be necessary to keep tlic queen from 

 laviuij in that drone comb. 



"From October till May an eight-frame 

 Langstroth seems preferable to a larger 

 one, ■ ' says J. E. Crane, page 370. Y-e-s, 

 provided the beekeeper always sees to it 

 that there is honey enough in the hive so 

 that the bees will not starve during that 



time. 



* * * 



"It is not considered practical to produce 

 comb honey in outyards, except in certain 

 favored localities, ' ' says J. M. Buchanan, 

 page 360. Coming from such an experienced 

 beekeeper, that makes one wonder just why 

 a locality that does well as a home yard 

 for sections will not do as an outyard. All 

 my work in outyards was for sections, and 

 Mr. Buchanan 's view is new to me. 

 « » * 



You admit, Mr. Editor, page 368, that 

 you along with me and certain others know 

 precious little about the sense organs of 

 bees, and ask, ' ' Won 't the others please ad- 

 mit the same?" I can't speak for the other 

 fellows, but I 'm ready to admit for myself 

 — confidentially, of course — that I have a 

 good stock of ignorance, not only about 

 bees ' sense organs, but about a lot of other 

 things about bees. But please don't expose 



Mrs. Demuth says, page 359, "When the 

 honey flow is good we go over the super 

 every three days. " J. M. Buchanan says, 

 page 361, "A visit is made about once a 

 week during the honey flow. ' ' Isn 't either 

 one of these practices rather intensive, es- 

 pecially for out-apiaries? I have always 

 thought I did well enough to get around 

 once every ten days, varying from 7 to 11 

 or 12 days, according to weather and other 



circumstances. 



* * * 



The carbolized cloth, with which to drive 

 bees, has been rather popular in Great Brit- 

 ain, but for some reason has been used little 

 on this side. I am rather pleased to note 

 that J. M. Buchanan uses it (page 361). 

 Note that he leaves it on the upper story 

 ' ' two or three minutes ' ' to drive a queen 

 down into the lower story, and ' ' a minute 

 or two ' ' when driving bees down out of 

 an extraeting-super. Some have objected 

 that a carbolic taste and odor is given to 

 the extracted honey. I wish Mr. Buchanan 

 had told us about that. 



* * * 



E. S. Miller says, page 36.5, that it's all 

 right to breed from the best, but it 's hard 

 to tell which is the best, and ' ' it certainly 

 is not always the colony which stores the 

 most honey, ' ' and explains that the colony 

 with the best queen may fall short on ac- 

 count of unobserved swarming. Now look 

 here, my good brother of the floury name, 

 do you think that's playing entirely fair? 

 Of course an unobserved swarm at the be- 



ginning or middle of the harvest would cut 

 down the crop of that colony. So it would 

 if an unobserved thief should carry off half 

 the crop. But that 's no argument why the 

 relative value of queens should not be meas- 

 ured by the yields of their respective colo- 

 nies, of course making proper allowance for 

 items that interfere. And you dassent tell 

 any better way. 



• « « 



' ' Why not just exchange places with the 

 laying-worker colony and a good colony and 

 then requeen the former?" (page 379.) Are 

 you sure you 'd be any better off after mak- 

 ing the exchange than before? You have 

 merely added a lot of field bees, and they're 

 the ones antagonistic to a strange queen. 

 By the way, is it not hard to get a queen 

 nccepted in a laying-worker colony largely 

 because the bees are old? Remember there's 

 no one bee to which all have a strong attach- 

 ment. [This reasoning sounds all right; 

 but, when this method is put up to the bees, 

 so good an authority as L. S. Griggs of 

 Michigan finds it quite successful. We 

 would be interested in hearing from others 

 who have tried it. — Editor.] 



* * * 



It isn't nice to ha\e a colony swarm just 

 about the time it is doing its best work in 

 sections. It will help at least a little to 

 avoid that if you give supers early- — ^before 

 they are really needed — and be sure to put 

 at least one bait section in the first super 

 you give to a colony. That bait is a section 

 that was partly built out the previous year, 

 and emptied out by the bees. If this is your 

 first year of beekeeping and you have no 

 such sections on hand, you can do just as 

 well — likely better — to cut out a bit of 

 brood-comb and fasten it in a section. The 

 older and blacker, the more promptly will 

 the bees take possession of it. It will be 

 anything but a fancy section, but it may 

 give you a number of sections you would 

 not have without it. 



« * * 



A Canadian correspondent refers to Bro. 

 Valentine 's second plan of increase. May 

 Gleanings, page 295, and says: "Imagine 

 giving a virgin queen to a lot of old bees at 

 the time of the first frost, when in this lo- 

 cality it is nearly impossible to introduce 

 successfully any kind of queen. Is it the 

 fact that it is so helplessly queenless that 

 they accept a virgin then? What do you 

 think of it?" I should expect trouble ex- 

 cept with a very young virgin. I think it 

 is a fact that a virgin not 24 hours old will 

 be accepted at any time in any kind of a 

 colony, even in a colony with a good laying 

 queen. Please do not understand that to 

 mean that you can requeen a colony simply 

 by putting a virgin in, for altho a virgin 

 will be kindly accepted as a baby in a colo- 

 ny having a laying queen, just as soon as 

 she begins to put on airs as a young lady 

 she will be hustled out of that colony in 

 short order. 



