1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



391 



coming, and on a hot day we see no reason 

 why our women folks who have to do with 

 bees should not be willinoj to wear it, espe- 

 cially when accompanied by a male relative. 

 One thing sure, and that is, the men folks 

 would never be willing to submit to the in- 

 convenience of a long skirt, to say nothing 

 of stings. — Ed.] 



An easy way to make a nucleus for a be- 

 ginner who doesn't want to look for a queen: 

 From a full colony in hive A, take one or two 

 frames of brood with adhering bees and put 

 into an empty hive B, adding a frame with 

 some honey. Set B in place of A, and set A 

 where you want your nucleus to remain. 

 Four days later, if eggs are found in B take 

 all but one or two frames with adhering bees 

 from .\ to put in B, and your nucleus is left 

 in A. If no eggs are found in B, let the hives 

 swap places, and there you are with your 

 nucleus in B. [Could not that same begin- 

 ner save time by finding the queen in the 

 first place rather than go through all this 

 hive manipulation, especially should Her 

 Majesty get into the wrong hive? Of course, 

 we understand it is not easy for a beginner 

 to find the queen; but if he is going to do 

 any thing with bees at all he had better learn 

 first as \vell as last how she looks, and how 

 to locate her in the hive. He can scarcely 

 keep bees unless he does. — Ed.] 



I'D LIKE TO BELIEVE that W. M. Whitney is 

 ri^ht in thinking that sufficient ventilation 

 wul always overcome the tendency to greasy 

 sections, p. 362. The Funics were the worst 

 bees I ever had in that respect. I really won- 

 der if the grease could have been ventilated 

 out of their sections. [Now that you recall 

 it, we remember very distinctly that there 

 was a general complaint against Funics be- 

 cause the capping of their honey was so dirty- 

 looking — apparently travel-stained. We 

 remember very distmctly that the combs of 

 two or three colonies we tested looked dirty, 

 and the cappings themselves presented any 

 thingbutan invitingappearance, even though 

 the honev itself was clover and basswood. 

 The significant fact was that other colonies 

 of Italians and Carniolans under like condi- 

 tions showed white cappings. We say "like 

 conditions," because, so far as we can re- 

 member, thev were the same. Like Dr. Mil- 

 ler we woulci doubt whether sufficient ven- 

 tilation would change this trait in Funics. — 

 Ed.] 



E. D. TowNSEND, I don't wonder that your 

 sections swelled if you poured water into the 

 groove from the spout of a tea-kettle. We 

 use a fountain syringe to wet ours, the water 

 ver>- hot, pinching the rubber tube with the 

 thumb and fingers so as to allow a very small 

 stream of water that wets just the groove 

 and nothing else. Even this makes the sec- 

 tions swell enough to make them tight in the 

 crate, so one end of the crate must be loosen- 

 ed to get them out easily. We have wet 

 many tnousands in this way with great satis- 

 faction. [When we visited L. A. Aspinwall 

 a year ago he showed us a little trick of the 



trade of how to run hot steam through the 

 grooves of the sections. He puts a shallow 

 pan with a little water in it on the stove. 

 This pan is a little less in length than the 

 section blanks before being folded. When, 

 the water is boiling hot and steaming well, 

 two or three handfuls of sections are placed 

 lengthwise on their edges, across the top of 

 the pan. There should be enough of them 

 to cover the entire pan. The steam will now 

 rise up through the grooves of each section 

 in the course of a minute. They may now 

 be taken off, when they can be folded with 

 perfect safety, and without any swelling of 

 the joints. Mr. Aspinwall showed us that it 

 is really quicker, and far better in results, 

 than any hot or cold water poured along the 

 grooves, for the reason the steam rises al- 

 most instantly through the inside of the tri- 

 angular grooves in the sections. Hot steam 

 so applied is a great deal better than hot wa- 

 ter, because it does not raise the grain on the 

 outside of the section. Of course a kerosene- 

 stove might be used for heating the water in 

 a workshop. — Ed.] 



"We KEEP corn and soaked oats constant- 

 ly before the fowls," page 353. Bro. A. I., 

 how long can you keep that up without mak- 

 ing them too fat to lay well? [Well, doctor, 

 we have kept it up in Florida, and kept it up 

 here in Ohio, for the last two years, and I 

 think we get about as many eggs as those 

 who go to the trouble of feeding their chick- 

 ens regularly two or three times a day. If 

 they are permitted to get very hungry, and 

 then given all they can "cram," I presume 

 they sometimes overeat; but where they 

 have the grain so they can go to it at any 

 time, my opinion is that they seldom gorge 

 themselves. I have always fed the wher'.t 

 with the corn and oats until the present sea- 

 son here in Ohio; but when wheat got to be 

 so expensive I gave them only the corn and 

 oats to see what the result would be, and I 

 find they lay as many eggs, or at least near- 

 ly as many, as when they had the wheat also. 

 Where they can have their choice they seem 

 to prefer wheat; and, as nearly as I can make 

 out, they use two bushels of wheat to one of 

 corn, and, say, one of oats. A few of the 

 old hens get to be pretty fat; but my strain 

 of Leghorns that I had down in Florida — 

 those that have some game blood, and espe- 

 cially where they have large yards, or, bet- 

 ter still, where they are permitted to go out- 

 side of the yard, and ramble through the 

 woods, seldom get too fat. If confined to a 

 smaller inclosure I think it might not have 

 worked as well; but it is a very great saving 

 of time to have nothing to do with the feed- 

 ing. You know I am working for a plan, 

 doctor, where there will be " nothing to do 

 but gather the eggs." And, by the way, my 

 experience has been that, where hens are 

 fea just so much every day, sooner or later 

 somebody forgets to feed them. I have no- 

 ticed that whenever the poultry suffer fr.<im 

 a lack of food the owner is sure to " suffer " 

 also in a lack of the usual output of eggs. — 

 A. I. R.] 



