GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



OCTOBKR, 1919 



empty below when it is no longer needed, 

 the bees will not draw out the foundation, 

 but merely pass thru the empty super to 

 work on the super above. 



Now, after what I've said, at the risk of 

 being called inconsistent, I must confess that 

 during most of my years of producing sections 

 I always gave the added super on top. But 

 not for keeps.. Next time round, if another 

 super was needed, I moved that top super to 

 the bottom, and then gave a fresh super on 

 top. I count that empty on top important. 

 If I was belated in getting around, it was 

 there ready for use. If the fastening of 

 the foundation was faulty, the bees would 

 fasten it before the super was put down, and 

 when put down it would seem more home- 

 like to the bees than an entirely fresh su- 

 per. Also it served as a sort of shade-board, 

 and to that extent helped against swarming. 



* * * 



Speaking of getting bees to clean up ex- 

 tracting-combs, J. E. Crane says, page 583, 

 ' ' to get the bees to do it right used to be 

 my trouble; but if you will first place an 

 empty brood-chamber over the colony and 

 then pile the wet combs over this, you will 

 doubtless 'secure the hearty co-operation of 

 the bees.' " I have tried it, but it doesn't 

 always work here, altho I may have bungled 

 in some way. To get extracting-combs, and 

 especially unfinished sections, emptied out 

 without allowing the bees of more than one 

 colony to get at them offers a problem 

 worthy the inventive genius of some fu- 

 ture beekeeper. 



* * « 



No. 14 was a nucleus with a laying queen, 

 brood in two combs, a whole hive to spread 

 in, and everything apparently in apple-pie 

 order. On the same stand with No. 14 was 

 No. 13, with pretty much everything all 

 wrong. It was queenless and broodless, 

 with so few bees as to be not worth con- 

 sidering. I took away its few combs, leav- 

 ing not even a frame in the hive, and put 

 on the cover. On a later day I opened No. 

 14, and found not a bee in the hive. Combs 

 nice and clean, brood and honey, with not a 

 sign of robbing; only there were no bees. 

 I lifted the cover of No. 13, and found at- 

 tached to it a nice cluster of bees. In the 

 center of the cluster was a newly built piece 

 of comb of perhaps three square inches. It 

 had some honey in it, but no empty cells 

 ready for brood, altho, as I found afterward, 

 a laying queen was present. I took the de- 

 serted combs from No. 14 and put them in 

 No. 13. jarred the bees from the cover on 

 the ground, scraped off the piece of wax and 

 covered the hive, "and they lived happy 

 ever after." Has any one any explanation 

 for such a performance, or was it a case of 

 just plain crazy I I give it up. 

 « * # 



Drones from unmated queens are spoken 

 of on page 602 as being dwarfed by being 

 reared in worker-cells. Of course that does- 

 nt mean that unmated queens do not some- 



times lay in drone-cells, and then their 

 drones are as large as any, and perhaps as 

 good as any. Laying-workers have a decid- 

 ed preference for drone-cells; I wonder how 

 it is with unmated queens. The workers ap- 

 pear to decide the kind of cells to be used 

 by a mated queen, for they often prepare 

 drone-cells outside a queen's beat. If the 

 workers decide the kind of cells for un- 

 mated queens, I should hardly expect them 

 to prepare drone-cells, seeing they already 

 have too many drones. So I may be mis- 

 taken after all about unmated queens laying 

 in drone-cells. [Yes, we have noticed in lay- 

 ing-worker colonies that, altho the worker- 

 cells as well as the drone-cells contained eggs, 

 the drone-cells often contained from 10 to 20 

 eggs while the worker-cells usually contained 

 mostly one but occasionally two or three 

 eggs. But altho in drone-cells more eggs 

 are found to the cell than in worker-cells, 

 thus possibly showing a preference, the en- 

 tire number of drone-cells in the hive is so 

 small in comparison with the number of 

 worker-cells that by far the greater part of 

 the drones hatching are from worker-cells, 

 and are, therefore, dwarfed. The same, we 

 believe, holds true of drone-laying colonies. 

 In such colonies we have noticed entire 

 worker-combs filled with drone brood. As 

 to whether a drone-layer when given a 

 choice in the matter would deliberately 

 choose either drone or worker comb in pref- 

 erence to the other, we do not know, but 

 shall put it up to the bees and learn the 

 answer in a few days. — Editor.] 



* * * 



lona Fowls, you say, page 602, "priority 

 ndght give a man the apparent right to a 

 location, yet he perhaps be a renter and a 

 poor beekeeper at that. Later a man might 

 buy a home in the same locality and wish 

 to keep bees. It would be manifestly un- 

 1"air to deprive him of this privilege.'' But 

 isn 't that sort of thing going on all the 

 time with farm lands without being called 

 unfair? Anyway, you say "the puzzles are 

 worth solving," which shows you're on my 

 side of the question, and I'm so glad of your 

 company. The puzzles have been solved in 

 other countries, and surely what others have 



done we can do. 



* * * 



I wish it might be settled definitely 

 whether or not it is a safe thing to give 

 unsealed brood to a colony having a virgin. 

 Some think it's all right; others, especially 

 in New England, are dead sure it's all 

 wrong. I 've lost virgins when I gave un- 

 sealed brood, but how do I know the brood 



was to blame? 



* * * 



On page 602 it is said no harm comes 

 from pigs being occasionally stung; which 

 is probably true. When I came to Illinois 

 in 1856, rattlesnakes were plenty (I killed 

 eleven the first summer), and it was said 

 rattlers didn 't hurt pigs because their 

 hides were so thick. I wonder if that does- 

 n 't make them safe from bees. 



