98 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 15 



Stray Straws 



Dr. C. C. Miller 



Mr. Editor, just right you are to urge pure 

 air and lots of it for bee-cellars, p. 72. 



Fie! fie! Bro. Morrison, with your honey ci- 

 der, p. 22. We say apple cider, pear cider, etc., 

 because cider is the juice of a fruit. But honey 

 isn't a fruit. 



Sections of honey, some unsealed, down cel- 

 lar beside the furnace, are keeping beautifully. 

 Instead of candying or getting watery, the honey 

 is growing thick and very stringy. 



Section honey, treated as A. I. Root tells 

 about treating extracted, p. 94, care being taken 

 not to melt the comb, ought to be proof against 

 candying, and keep over until next year. 



Bottom starters should not be so deep as 15 

 millimeters — only 12, says L'Apiculture Nowvelle, 

 385. Friend Bondonneau, I've used successfully 

 many thousands of bottom starters 15.8 mm; but 

 I used thin super foundation. With extra thin 

 they should not be so deep. 



This winter would do well for outdoor win- 

 tering here — not so much because mild, but be- 

 cause there have been at least three chances for 

 winter flights — Dec. 29, Jan. 4, and Jan. 22. The 

 last time there was a warm spell of several days, 

 a heavy thunderstorm, and a temperature of 60 

 degrees. 



I've always thought that in clover regions a 

 good rule for putting on supers was when the 

 first clover-bloom appeared. It's certainly right 

 for this locality; but Grant Stanley, p. 79, makes 

 me think it may be wrong elsewhere. What 

 crop comes in before white clover.? Dandelion 

 and fruit-blcom here, but they don't need supers. 



KisDi iNG for the kitchen fire that we like much 

 is made thus: Fill a 10-lb. lard-pail or other ves- 

 sel with ashes, and stir in kerosene till fairly 

 moist. [You will have to be careful or you may 

 have spontaneous combustion; perhaps not of the 

 ashes but of the oil. If there is any unburned 

 coal in the ashes there would be more danger. 

 You'd better consult your insurance agent or put 

 the pail out doors when not in use. — Ed ] 



Ai srRiA^ bee-keepers have settled on a standard 

 frame, to be called " Oesterreichische Breitwabe," 

 16.94 by 10.14 inches (that's about 10 square 

 inches larger than the Langstroth); extracting- 

 frame, 4.96 in. deep. [It is a great pity that they 

 did not adopt the exact Langstroth dimensions, 

 seeing that they were so near to them. Nothing 

 but stupid clannishness would permit them to be 

 so near and yet so far. As many supplies neces- 

 sarily have to come from America, if our Austri- 

 an bee-keepers had adopted our standard it would 

 save them many dollars. — Ed.] 



Harry Lathrop, endorsed hy Bee-keepers' Re- 

 'vieiv, p. 15, says it is the two-year old white-clo- 

 ver plants that furnish the crop, those younger or 

 older being of little value. If that means that 

 the only plants of value are those two years /row 

 the seed, then I question. Doesn't white clover 

 spread and take root just like strawberry-plants.'' 



Strawberry-plants go on year after year with never 

 a seed sown; why not white clover.? [Yes, indeed, 

 white clover spreads and takes root just like straw- 

 berry-plants. Right here some of our correspon- 

 dents are mixed up. One kind of clover will 

 propaga'e from seed only, while another from 

 seed and branch both. In thesame way a branch 

 of a grapevine buried in the ground will take 

 root. The white clover does this right along — 

 Ed.] 



That colony in window of warm room, p. 

 72, may be all right when "every two or three 

 weeks there has been at least one day when the 

 bees could get an airing." That proves nothing 

 as to a five-months' confinement. [That is true; 

 but probably three-fourths of the localities north 

 of the Ohio River have winters duiing which the 

 bees can have flights e ery two or three weeks. 

 If warm-room wintering is feasible at all. if it in- 

 creases the brood, if it makes a stronger colony 

 in the spring, it will mean that three-fourths of 

 those bee-keepers located in the cold latitudes 

 will be able to avail themselves of these advan- 

 tages. — Ed.] 



Fifteen years ago I also attended that Chica- 

 go convention you mention, p. 74, Mr. Editor. 

 There's an idea rattling around in my memory- 

 box that 2 cts. was talked of to be deducted for 

 freight, etc At any rate, I think I ought to be 

 a little better authority than that fellow you quote 

 who was 15 years younger than I am. [We hope 

 to locate the exact figures in the report. The 

 writer was the reporter for that convention and 

 remembers distinctly, or at least he thinks he does, 

 tak ng these figures. The reason he remembers 

 was that the cost of selling equaled one third of 

 the wholesale price. He was surprised that the 

 ratio should be so large. — Ed.] 



Virgil Weaver has an interesting article, p. 

 86; but some things will hardly bear close inspec- 

 tion. The normal thing seems to be to have " an 

 average of about a foot to a plant," that is, a 

 square foot to each clover-seed. But " if the rain 

 stops, say, the first of July, this plant covers but 

 one-third of the space, and the honey from these 

 young plants, therefore, is cut two-thirds." But 

 that's assuming that there will be only one seed _ 

 for each square foot. If there be three seeds to 

 each foot, that would fill the ground, even with 

 each seed filling only "one-third of the space," 

 and would not that give as much honey as if one 

 seed filled the ground.? If any seed start at all, 

 is there any likelihood there will be less than 

 three to the foot.? 



"Another instance of winter-killing is when it 

 rains for several years in succession, and the 

 ground becomes so thickly set in clover that it 

 starves itself out, just as corn set too thickly liter- 

 ally starves, so that the crop is destroyed. " Now, 

 if thick setting kills out the plants, it doesn't 

 need several years, for dozens or hundreds of seeds 

 to the foot are commonly present, and the crop 

 ought to he thus destroyed nearly every year. 

 We are also told that " the old clover starves the 

 young plants to death." But a little earlier we 

 are told that " the growth made by a white-clover 

 plant this year blossoms next year and then dies 

 out " How can it die out and at the same time 

 crowd out the vigorous young plants.? But for 

 all that, his main contention may be correct. 



