300 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 15 



both, and says the only time to make it prof- 

 itable would be early in the season so as to 

 have a strong force for the harvest. But, 

 friend Dadant, why didn't you go a step 

 further? Early in the season no more brood 

 can be matured than the bees can cover, and 

 at that time there are generally not enough 

 bees to take care of all the eggs one queen 

 can lay; so if ten queens were added how 

 could it increase the force of bees? I have 

 never taken any stock in doubling queens to 

 get strong colonies, but counted it a big thing 

 if we could thus winter extra queens and 

 prevent swarming. If these things fail us 

 we can only sigh over blighted hopes, and 

 start looking for some other thing new and 

 good. 



G. M. DooLiTTLE, page 23, says buds for 

 basswood blossoms are formed in June and 

 July in the preceding year, and that we can 

 distinguish these blossom-buds in May; and 

 H. S. Wheeler wants to know if I have found 

 it so, and if the same thing is true as to the 

 grape. I never watched the grape very 

 closely, so I can not say about that, and I do 

 not know exactly how long before blooming 

 I have recognized basswood-buds; but i am 

 quite familiar with blossom-buds on fruit- 

 trees, and can go out any time in the winter 

 and show you the blossom-buds of apple, 

 pear, plum, or cherry. So characteristic are 

 the blossom-buds on apple-trees that I can 

 tell quite often by the look of a bud in Jan- 

 uary whether it was taken from a Dutchess 

 tree, a Talman Sweet, or some other variety 

 with which I am acquainted. Blossom-buds 

 on cherry-trees are easily distinguishable be- 

 fore the leaves fall the preceding summer. 



Prohibition, nowadays, is all the while 

 cropping out in new places and in new ways. 

 The great mail-order house of Sears, Roebuck 

 &Co., Chicago, handed each of its employees 

 a circular, saying, "Entering any saloon 

 within a certain proscribed district at any 

 hour of the 24 hours of the day is absolutely 

 prohibited. This district is bounded by 

 Jackson Boulevard, West 40th St., 16th St , 

 and California Ave. This prohibition went 

 into effect April 1, 1906, and employees 

 discovered in saloons in that district will 

 have placed themselves in a position where 

 their services are no longer desirable." The 

 general manager says, Jan. 21. 1908, "This 

 attitude we still rigidly maintain, and we 

 feel that the policy has worked great benefit 

 to our institution as well as to the employees 

 themselves." [The action of the railroad 

 companies and other industrial concerns 

 along the same line only goes to show that 

 the liquor-traffic has got to step down and 

 out very soon.— Ed.] 



Mr. Editor, you say, p. 140, that if supers 

 with the Miller escape are piled distant from 

 hives you don't see how it is possible for 

 young bees to get back to their hives; but if 

 placed near the entrance they might crawl 

 in. Why, man alive, they fly — why shouldn't 

 they? I suspect you have in mind that some 

 are so young that they have not yet flown, 

 and so do not know the way home. I won- 



der if bees ever leave the brood-combs before 

 their first flight; at any rate, in the hundseds 

 of times we have used Miller escapes I have 

 yet to see the bee so young that it didn't 

 come out and fly away — somewhere. Don't 

 you think it would go to its own hive? Even 

 if it should go to some other hLve, what 

 harm? [This whole question hinges on 

 whether young bees leave the brood-combs 

 before they can fly. We would have said 

 that they would, but possibly we are mis- 

 taken, if so, we stand corrected. We shall 

 be glad to get expressions from our subscrib- 

 ers on this point — that is, if a pile of supers 

 containing bees, just as they come from the 

 hive, be placed at some point remote from 

 any colony, do all the bees, old and young 

 alike, after passing the escape, go back to 

 their respective hives? or will some of the 

 young bees be lost? It is our impression 

 that, some years ago, when we tried this Mil- 

 ler bee-escape on a pile of supers, there was 

 a lot of young bees clustered around the out- 

 side of the pile; and that is why we have al- 

 ways supposed that a bee-escape so placed 

 as to deliver the bees back into the brood- 

 nest whence they came was better than one 

 that delivered them out in the open air. — 

 Ed.] 



That section Straw, p. 140, looks as if it 

 were footnoted by the Artful Dodger. My 

 five or six questions are utterly ignored, and 

 some talk given that doesn't bear any too 

 much upon the subject. Please go into your 

 secret chamber, Mr. Editor, taking your con- 

 science with you, and answer to yourself the 

 questions I asked, and see if you don't think 

 it better to call a story a story, and not a 

 section. You think the phrase "sectional 

 hive" would not be misunderstood "unless 

 one iswoef uUy ignorant of apicultural terms. ' ' 

 Neither do I, for "sectional" has not been 

 in use with regard to sections. But "sec- 

 tion " — and that's the word we were talking 

 about — might be misunderstood if used in 

 the two ways. Only this morning I happen- 

 ed upon it in reading, where it was hard to 

 decide which meaning it had; and I am not 

 so "woefully ignorant " as I might be, either. 

 [You have apparently jumped to the conclu- 

 sion that the editor was arguing against you, 

 when, as a matter of fact, he thought he was 

 helping to establish your position, in part. 

 Read the footnote over again and see if you 

 do not come to that conclusion. The foot- 

 note in question was based, not on your par- 

 ticular statement, but on all the discussion 

 that had been going on. concerning which 

 your last statement was the "last straw." 



We did not say that we sanctioned "sec- 

 tion" as referring to a shallow b.ood-cham- 

 ber. If our space had not been limited we 

 would have (and hereby do now) tabooed 

 that word in that connection, and shall en- 

 deavor hereafter to cross it out when it is 

 used by a correspondent. We are of the 

 opinion that we nearly if not quite agree ; 

 but we see no need of coining new terms for 

 "sectional hives," "divisible brood-cham- 

 bers," "stories," etc., as urged by some. — 

 Ed.] 



