390 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



July I 



Stray Straws 



By Dr. C. C. Miller 



Last winter I fed a good deal of alsike 

 hay, and liked it exceedingly — as did the 

 stock. The only objection 1 have heard to 

 it is that it doesn't yield as many tons to the 

 acre as red clover. 



Texas is now the onion State, claiming to 

 produce onions as good as the Bermuda on- 

 ion. With 6000 acres devoted to the fragrant 

 bulb, there ought to be a still further increase 

 of the honey crop. 



White, red, yellow sweet, and alsike clo- 

 ver and raspberry all showed first bloom on 

 the same day, June 5. [Yellow sweet clover 

 is just starting in our locality, and the bees 

 are working on it strong. — Ed.] 



Kramer insists that it is not enough that a 

 colony be strong and queenless to start good 

 queen-cells, but that a colony should be 

 chosen which shows itself in the right humor 

 by having already started cells of its own ac- 

 cord. [Kramer is probably right. — Ed.] 



Sections should be perfectly square, and 

 the foundation in them should be cut per- 

 fectly square, just as E. D. Townsend says, 

 p. 365. But the danger of having one corner 

 of the foundation strike against the side of 

 the section is greatly reduced by using a bot- 

 tom starter. 



L. S. Crawshaw, British Bee Journal, 69, 

 says the swarming trait "is of value, even if 

 only for the purpose of increase." L. S. 

 Crawshaw, I like you, but please don't talk 

 foolishness. Swarming eliminated, we could 

 increase as much or as little as desired, and 

 always from choice stock. 



You ask, Mr. Editor, if I am sure cork 

 chips are ever so much better than blocks of 

 wood for bees' watering-places, p. 357. Oh, 

 my! just try them once, and you will never 

 ask such a question. Neither did they cost 

 me a cent. Grocers who get them as pack- 

 ing for grapes are glad to have me take them 

 out of the way. 



G. Lehzen, the veteran German authority, 

 says, Deutsche Imker, 381, that bees are more 

 diligent after being hauled. If any one 

 doubts this, let him trundle a colony on a 

 wheelbarrow for an hour in the evening, and 

 he will notice the difference the next day. 

 But in the next breath the beginner is told 

 to refrain from continually disturbing bees. 



Please tell us how many sections an 

 hour can be filled by the melted-wax plan. 

 [We have put in full sheets with melted wax 

 at the rate of 200 an hour. Mr. G. J. Yoder, 

 when following his plan of fastening the 

 sheet at the top and two-thirds the way down 

 the sides, as described in the .A.pril 1st issue 

 last year, is able to fill 3000 sections in one 

 day and put them in the supers. — Ed.] 



A German trick with robbers is to close 

 the entrance with mud or clay and then 

 thrust a lead-pencil into it to make a passage 

 for a single bee. [This looks as if it might 

 work. — Ed.] 



An experienced hand, with a Daisy foun- 

 dation-fastener, can put top and bottom start- 

 ers in sections, and fill them in a T super 

 (not separatoring), at the rate of 24 sections 

 (43 starters) every 5 minutes, and keep it up 

 all day. 



Referring to Swan Anderson's experi- 

 ence, p. 320, a correspondent wants to know 

 whether it is a defect of the artificial stone 

 press to have the foundation worked by the 

 bees into drone comb. I don't know. With 

 the incipient cells of the same size, I should 

 expect the same result in the finished comb, 

 no matter how the foundation might be made. 



Wesley Foster, p. 333, says the bottom- 

 starter in a section should not be over >^ inch. 

 I have good success with 5^ inch. But I use 

 thin foundation. Perhaps he uses extra thin. 

 [Say, you fellows are splitting hairs fine. If 

 a starter is made of " extra-thm "foundation, 

 perhaps >i inch would be high enough; and 

 possibly ^s would be too high. If one used 

 an ordinary "thin super," then :^s would 

 not be too high, perhaps. — Ed.] 



I wish I had known enough, when giving 

 the plan of uniting by setting one colony 

 over another with newspaper between, to 

 utter a caution that the upper colony should 

 not be in an excited condition. An esteem- 

 ed correspondent put a freshly hived swarm 

 thus over, and it was promptly smothered to 

 death. I generally punch a very small hole 

 through tne paper; but I don't think that 

 would have saved it. A swarm is in a very 

 excited condition, and needs a great abun- 

 dance of air. If the colony had been put 

 over the swarm it would have been all right. 



Wm. Findlay says his bees build down 

 comb with deep space and opening, front 

 and rear (Blunk fashion), and wants to know 

 how to make a bottom-rack to prevent build- 

 ing down. Just now the favorite is a plain 

 ladder. The two sides, running from front 

 to rear, are 17 < /s ^ ^4. Cross-pieces (nail- 

 ed on the K-in. side of the sides are 10>2 X 

 ><X's, with a ^'2-in. space between them. 

 This for an eight-frame hive. Possibly a 

 shorter rack rtiight do, leaving more open 

 space in front, but I haven't tried it. [While 

 we understand just exactly how your rack is 

 made, we think it would be better if you 

 would send us by express one of them so 

 that we can have an engraving of it made. — 

 Ed.] 



Mr. Editor, that divided skirt you speak 

 about photographing, p. 374, wouldn't show 

 in a photograph — at least not as worn in this 

 locality. The divided skirt simply takes the 

 place of the ordinary petticoat, worn with an 

 outer skirt over it. But if I were a woman 

 there would be no outer skirt on a hot day. 

 [Even if the outer skirt is not worn, the di- 

 vided part, as usually made, is n«at and be- 



