512 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



c 



SPEAKING of 

 strengthen- 

 i n g weak 

 colonies by giv- 

 ing them from 

 strong colonics 

 frames of brood 

 with adhering 

 bees, lona Fowls 

 says, page 459, 



"When the frame is taken from the hive, 

 and gently sh:tken, only the young bees are 

 left on the comb, which may then be insert- 

 ed in the other hive." A beginner might 

 understand from this that without the shak 

 ing there would be danger of fighting. I 

 have thus given brood and bees hundreds — 

 yes, I think thousands of times. I never did 

 any shaking, gentle or otherwise, and I 

 never knew of harm resulting. But I was 

 always careful not to give so many strange 

 bees that they would outnumber the bees 

 of the weak colony. But the shaking can do 

 no harm, for the old bees would return to 

 their old place anyhow, and it has just oc- 

 curred to me that possibly by Miss Fowls ' 

 plan the precaution as to numbers might 

 not be necessary. [The question was not, 

 "Will the bees fight?" but "Why will they 

 not fight?" In substance I answered, "Be- 

 cause thev were not excited but acted natu- 

 rally." Don't you think, Dr. Miller, that 

 my acceptance of the latter question ought' 

 to imply a general negative to the former? 

 But perhaps I did not make it quite clear. 

 In apiaries that I believe to be free of dis- 

 ease I often give bees in this way, and with- 

 out taking the trouble to shake the combs 

 either. Nevertheless I would not guarantee 

 that one could do this thousands of times 

 with no bad results (not unless he had as 

 good a strain of bees and as much experience 

 as Dr. Miller). If the work is done with 

 cross hybrids, or with bees unduly stirred 

 up, there will be occasional cases in which 

 fighting may take place and the queen, per- 

 haps, be killed. Such trouble will not occur, 

 however, if young bees instead of old ones 

 are given. The gentle shaking sifts out the 

 old bees from the young ones. — Editor.] 



Belva M. Deniuth gives some excellent in- 

 struction, page 426, as to management of 

 sections at the winding up of the harvest, 

 and at the close says: "We extract the 

 honey from these few • remaining sections 

 and put them on a few hives overnight to 

 be cleaned out by the bees. ' ' Do you find 

 the bees always ready, Mrs. Demuth, to do 

 this cleaning out promptly? In this locality 

 they are quite unreliable. Even if they 

 promptly clean up the muss, they are likely 

 to assemble the honey in a few cells in the 

 sections, leaving one nearly as bad off as 

 before. So I had to give up years ago get- 

 ting honey cleaned up over a colony. Ai^y" 

 way, the plan wouldn't work with those who 

 produce sections on a small scale and have 

 no extractor. For many years I had the 

 bees clean out the unfinished sections with- 



STRAY STRAWS 



Dr. C. C. MiUer 



1 



August, 1919 



out first extract- 

 ing them. One 

 way was to 

 make full ex- 

 posure of the 

 secti ons so all 

 the bees of the 

 apiary could get 

 at them. If a 

 single super of 

 sections were thus exposed, the comb would 

 be torn to bits. But if there were several 

 sections for ea,ch colony, the combs would 

 be left untorn, and you could rely upon 

 their being thoroly dry. If there were not 

 enough sections to be left openly exposed, 

 then I put out the supers in piles, allowing 

 for each three of four supers an entrance for 

 not more than one or two bees at a time. 

 But in this way I sometimes found dead 

 bees in the supers, as if the bees might have 

 been fighting. Mrs. Demuth 's plan is better 

 than either of these, with danger of neither 

 torn combs nor dead bees, if you can se- 

 cure hearty co-operation of the bees. 

 * * * 



H. H. Eoot, you say, page 461, that queen- 

 excluders are practically unnecessary under 

 section-supers, since the queen is little in- 

 clined to go up to lay in sections. Better 

 put an "if" with that — if the section is 

 entirely filled with foundation. If my sec- 

 tions were only partly filled with founda- 

 tion I should certainly want to use exclud- 

 ers. When I have had an occasional section 

 only partly filled with foundation the bees 

 Avould be sure to fill out the vacancy with 

 drone comb, likely to be filled with drone 

 brood, or else held empty for the queen to 

 lay in. ^ ^ ^ 



An ad in The Beekeepers ' Item speaks of 

 boiling foulbroody honey about ten minutes, 

 and says: "This thoroly purifies the prod- 

 uct so that it may be safely fed to the 

 brood. ' ' Have there been any late investi- 

 gations to warrant such a statement? Ac- 

 cording to all that I have read, ten full min- 

 utes, not to say anything as to " about ten 

 minutes, ' ' would be much too short a time, 

 even if the honey were kept actually boiling 

 all the time. The Beekeepers' Item is a 

 good paper, printing useful, readable mat- 

 ter, and it's up to Brother Scholl to look out 

 that even its ads are kept free from error. 

 If, however, you are able to justify the 

 aforesaid statement. Brother S., the proper 

 apology will be promptly forthcoming from 

 this quarter. [Bulletin 92 0. K.'s this, but 

 in practice we find more time advisable. — 

 i;ditor.] ^ ^ ^ 



In previous Straws I have had something 

 to say about the number of cells to the 

 square inch, basing my figures on the aver- 

 age five cells to the linear inch in natural 

 comb built without any foundation. The 

 majority, however, of those interested in 

 the matter have combs built upon founda- 

 tion, and care more to know what is the 

 a.verage number of cells to the square inch 

 in combs thus built out. I measured the 



