Gleanings In Bee Culture 



Publislied by The A. I. Root Co., Medina, Ohio 



H. H. ROOT, Assistant Editor 



A. 1. ROOT, Editor Home Department 



E. R. ROOT, Editor 



VOL. XXXVI 



AUGUST 15, 1908 



A. L. BOYDEN, Advertising Manager 

 J. T. CALVERT, Business Manager 



NO. 16 



Stray Straws 



Dr. C. C. Miller 



R. F. HoLTERMANN thinks it important that 

 no young brood be present wheie a ijueen is to 

 be introduced, p. 932. In Germany the opposite 

 view is held. Which is right? [Who else has 

 any thing to offer on this question? — Ed.] 



When bees put burr-combs between two su- 

 pers of sections they are generally of pure white 

 wax; but sometimes I find them quite dark, when, 

 so far as I know, the sections above and below 

 are all right. Do the bees bring up dark wax 

 from the old brood-combs, conclude it's too bad 

 to darken the pretty sections, and end by dump- 

 ing it between the supers? 



A yield of 174 sections from a single colony 

 before the close of July is something that doesn't 

 liappen every year "in this locality." This year 

 it has happened, and the bees are still pegging 

 away as if doing their best to kill us with work. 

 We're still alive. [This would indicate, doctor, 

 that you have had a good season. If one of your 

 best colonies gives a yield of 174 sections, your 

 average must have been high. Would you be 

 kind enough to tell us what it was.' — Ed.] 



Dr. S. p. Schroeder thinks he has positive 

 proof that the bees and not the queen do the kill- 

 ing of the other queen. Over a brood-chamber 

 was an excluder, then an extracting-chamber cov- 

 ered with wire cloth, over which was a nucleus 

 wliich reared a young queen. After the young 

 queen had been laying a week or more the wire- 

 cloth was replaced by an excluder. The next 

 day he looked for her, but she lay dead on the 

 upper excluder. Most certainly in this case the 

 queen was killed by the bees, for the queens 

 could not get within several inches of each other. 

 Pretty clear proof. [The proof here is quite 

 conclusive. We should be glad to hear from 

 any others who have been able to make any ac- 

 curate observations on the point. — Ed.] 



Ever notice that bees are more particular 

 about the combs they put brood in than about 

 those they put honey in? Give a colony a comb 

 which is so bad that it is a question whether it 

 will be accepted at all, and the bees will first use 

 it for honey, and afterward for brood. Does tiie 

 honey help to soften the comb? Even founda- 

 tion is often drawn out and used for honey be- 

 fore being used for brood. Colony No. 101 had 

 distinguished itself as a honey-producer, and I 

 wanted a freshly built comb of brood from that 

 colony to start queen-cells from. If I gave an 

 empty frame it would be mostly filled with drone 



comb. So I gave a frame filled with worker 

 foundation. It was promptly drawn out and 

 filled with honey, but not an egg was laid in it 

 till 15 days after it was given. [Yes, we have 

 noticed just what you have described. — Ed.] 



Lately I've been taking a lazy way to intro- 

 duce queens. Instead of putting the caged queen 

 between the brood-combs or over the top-bars 1 

 just stick the cage in the entrance. Then after 

 leaving her fast in the cage for three days I take 

 out the cage and uncover the candy so the bees 

 can let her out. That's much easier than to open 

 the hive to get at the cage, especially if there are 

 four to six supers on the hive. Then at any time 

 I can easily see whether the queen is out of the 

 cage, for it occasionally happens that a queen 

 stays in the cage for days after the bees have eat- 

 en out the candy. I hen, too, there may be some 

 advantage in the position of the cage, for Mr. 

 Doolittle has told us something to the effect that 

 the bees feel the presence of a caged queen more 

 if she is caged near the entrance. At any rate, I 

 have tried it in at least eight cases, and it worked 

 all right. [We believe this plan is all right, and 

 may be safely practiced in the case of medium- 

 priced queens. — Ed.] 



Years ago, on hot days my bees hung out in 

 great clusters. Just been down to the apiary, 

 this July 30, 11:30 a.m., with the thermometer 

 93 in the shade, and not a single colony hanging 

 out. Entrances are much larger now than for- 

 merly, super- room more abundant, and there is 

 ventilation at the top of the hive back of the su- 

 per. Don't know of any thing else to account 

 for the difference. 



2:40 P.M. Thermometer now 99 in the shade, 

 but not a colony hanging out. [More and more 

 the e\ idence is accumulating, to the effect that top 

 and bottom ventilation in the height of a honey- 

 fiow as here described may be profitably used in 

 preventing the clusttring-out and keeping all the 

 he bees atvjork. It used to be said that top ven- 

 tilation of a super should not be tolerated for a 

 moment; but so many of our good men have found 

 to the contrary that we may well stop to consider 

 whether the old dogma should not now be laid 

 aside. In this connection, also, more and more 

 proof is coming in that a large entrance during 

 the height of the lioney-ffow is an advantage, al- 

 though there are some good bee-keepers who 

 claim that the old entrance, f'ii inch deep, is 

 amply large. — Ed.] 



In poor seasons I've often known a bait sec- 

 tion in a super to be filled and other sections un- 

 touched. This year it happened in a ffood of 

 honey. A weak stray swarm took possession of 

 some idle combs. I straightened it out and gave 



