50 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 15 



Stray Straws 



Dr. C. C. Miller 



J. W. George, here's my hat ofF to you and 

 your Imperial crowd, p. 37. 



"White clover being an annual," page 40. 

 Isn't that a mistake.? In this locality it's a per- 

 ennial. [Yes, everywhere Thanks for calling 

 our attention to the uncorrected error. — Ed.] 



T. B. Terry, in Practical Farmer, wonders 

 why I don't continue eating wheat. Friend Ter- 

 ry, in college I was my own cook. I'm married 

 now. But my wife swears by Terry; and if you 

 say I ought to be eating wheat, no doubt I'll be 

 at it again. 



Not so long ago I wrote a honey leaflet in 

 which I gave 60 lbs. of sugar as the average con- 

 sumption in the United States. The increase 

 since then has been enormous; latest United States 

 reports say 82.6 lbs. for each man, woman, and 

 child, of continental United States. 



The Emperor of Gervany has sworn off 

 drinking. President-elect Taft has done the same 

 thing. Ohio has a new county going dry every 

 few days. Oh! we are living in glorious times. 

 [If more of our big men will take this stand it 

 will help still more to further the cause of tem- 

 perance. — Ed.] 



Friend Hand, I'm with you for improvement 

 in breeding, p. 26, and I believe supersedure is 

 bad with bad stock; but I believe it's good with 

 good stock. I know that, in nature, there's sur- 

 vival of the fittest; but did it never occur to you 

 that every fittest queen that survives ends her ca- 

 reer by supersedure .? 



George W. Williams asks me what I think 

 of shaking up bees as a stimulus to honey-get- 

 ting. Fiiend Williams, it looks to me like rank 

 nonsense; but when two such men as you and 

 SchoU get after me it shakes me. Your testimo- 

 ny is strong; but it will be stronger if, next 

 year, you shake and then report difference. [See 

 editorial in this issue, page 48, on this subject. — 

 Ed.] 



R. C. AiKiN, in addition to what you say, p. 

 25, I've seen bees plaster white wax on a feeder. 

 I wonder if it may not really be that all secretion 

 of wax is an involuntary result of gorging with 

 honey, which gorging may be voluntary or in- 

 voluntary. If so, we might say that secretion is 

 generally voluntary, but sometimes involuntary. 

 [Mr. A. has something to offer in this issue on 

 the subject. See page 61. — Ed.] 



Government reports say that in 1907, for 

 the first time, the production of beet sugar ex- 

 ceeded that of cane— 967,000,000 lbs. of beet 

 against 544,000,000 of cane. [I think what you 

 say applies to the world's production of sugar — 

 about 5,000,000 tons of beet and the same of 

 cane. The United States alone consumes about 

 3,000,000 tons as follows: Cuba (1909), 1,500,000;" 

 Porto Rico, 250,000; Hawaii, 400,000; Louisi- 

 ana, 250,000; beet, 400,000, and the West Indies 

 and Java for the rest. The per capita consump- 

 tion for the United States is 82 lbs., and Great 

 Britain 95 lbs. (mostly beet sugar).— W. K. M.] 



Harry Griffin wants me to tell why I think 

 " it is honest as well as profitable to use full 

 sheets of foundation in sections." What can 

 there be dishonest about it.? Foundation is pure 

 wax, and I don't notice any difference in eating 

 it. If it were dishonest to fill the section, would 

 it be honest to use a starter.? It is profitable be- 

 cause bees do faster work, fill the section more 

 evenly and securely, making all worker comb, 

 which makes a better-looking section, and does 

 not tempt the queen to go up as drone comb 

 does. [Quite fight you are. — Ed.] 



A. I. Root, if you can get people to use that 

 Coward shoe, p. 1514, or even if you can do any 

 thing to get them to wear shoes half way com- 

 fortable for their feet, you will accomplish a feat. 

 It isn't altogether that the present shoe differs in 

 shape from the foot. The greater trouble is the 

 insisting that a No. 6 foot shall go into a No. 5 

 shoe. Personally, although I'd rather have a 

 shoe the shape of my foot, I get on fairly well with 

 the ordinary shoe. Never a corn to my name — 

 or to my foot. But I've always insisted that, 

 whatever the shape of the shoe, there must be 

 room in it for my foot. After you get everybody 

 to wearing Coward shoes, there's another thing 

 for you to tackle. That's the stoutness of the 

 shoe. Take a man and a woman of equal 

 strength, with feet of the same size, and the wo- 

 man will insist that she can not wear a shoe as 

 heavy as the man's. Now please tell me why. 



|oHN Silver, Irish Bee Journal, page 74, says: 

 " Concerning the remarks of Editor Root and 

 Dr. C. C Miller, in Gleanings, on my statement 

 in Augu t issue of Irish Bee Journal on queen- 

 rearing, permit me to suggest to Dr. Miller that 

 it is not the heat of the hive nor the strength of 

 the colony which accounts for the difference in 

 the time of a queen's hatching. For example, I 

 have had three cells sealed during the same 

 morning. One would hatch in six or seven days 

 after beeing sealed, another eight days, while the 

 third might take nine or ten days. I have fur- 

 ther observed that some of the best-developed 

 queens are those which take nine days to hatch 

 after being sealed; consequently I can not agree 

 with Dr. Miller that it is the heat of the hive, be- 

 cause different times occur in the same hive, or 

 that a queen is any the worse for taking 17 or 18 

 days to hatch." Thanks, friend Silver, for ad- 

 ditional facts. Every fact helps. If I under- 

 stand you aright, in the same hive there was a 

 difference of about three days in the time occu- 

 pied by two royal larvae from sealing to emerg- 

 ence. But we are to conclude from this that 

 there was a difference of three days in the length 

 of time from the laying of the egg to the emerg- 

 ence of the queen.? Might it not be that there 

 was a difference of three days in the ages of the 

 two larvje at the time of sealing.? I do know 

 this: That I have been very much surprised in a 

 few cases, upon opening a sealed cell, to find the 

 larva quite small. It looks a little as if the bees 

 said to themselves, " Here's a larva in this cell 

 that's pretty young yet; but there's more food in 

 the cell than it can possibly use, and we may as 

 well seal it up and done with it." At any rate, 

 if my observation is worth any thing vou may 

 take it as a fact that at times a very much smaller 

 larva is sealed than at other times. 



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