422 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



July 1' 



Stra^ Straws 



By Dr. C. C. Miller 



Yellow alfalfa— is it common? A few 

 stalks on my place. 



Bees busy, July 1, on alfalfa on my place. 

 [But you do not say whether they are busy 

 on any thing else. — Ed.] 



Sweet clover of white variety 26 days 

 later than the yellow, here, in blooming. 

 [About the same here.— Ed.] 



One time I put brood over enamel cloth on 

 top of sections, as mentioned on p. 398, and 

 sections were badly darkened. 



L. C. Taylor's experience, p. 412, agrees 

 with my preconceived notion, but is not con- 

 clusive. The result might have been the 

 same without excluders. 



Let me add an amendment to E. D. Town- 

 send's plan for preventing a second swarm, 

 p. 408. Instead of setting the old hive at a 

 distance right away, let the two hives stand 

 together for a week, then move the old hive 

 away. That stops all honey coming in about 

 the time for second swarming, and is a surer 

 prevention. 



An item copied from Gleanings is going 

 the rounds of the German journals, advising 

 to stop robbing by piling hay or straw at en- 

 trance, but leaving one corner of the entrance 

 open for the bees of the colony. That last nul- 

 lifies the whole business. Pile straw a foot 

 deep all about the entrance; don't leave any 

 opening for anybody, and keep straw well 

 drenched with water. It greatly discourages 

 the robbers, but will hardly act permanently 

 with a weak queenless colony. The bees of 

 the colony will dig their way through the wet 

 straw. [Our German contemporaries have 

 certainly got our instructions a little mixed. 

 We never have advised leaving one corner 

 of the entrance open for the bees of the col- 

 ony. This must have been an interpolation. 

 We endorse all that Dr. Miller says, and we 

 do not know how it would be possible to 

 check robbing by the wet-grass plan by leav- 

 ing part of the entrance open or exposed, as 

 is quoted from the German journals. — Ed.] 



' T. W. Cowan says wax is yellow from the 

 start. I sent him a bit of virgin comb melt- 

 ed up that was dirty, but fairly white. Brit- 

 ish Bee Journal's bright paragrapher, L. S. 

 Crawshaw, wants to know more about it. 

 I think all virgin comb 

 (I'd hardly call melt- 

 The rendering has 

 I doubt if there's any 

 perceptible tinge of yellow in the wax-scales 

 as they come from the wax-pockets. In Eng- 

 land they're yellow, at least well tinged. 

 How is it at Medina and elsewhere in this 

 country? Remember that a single scale will 

 not show the tint like a melted mass. [This 

 question of the color of new wax depends 

 very largely upon the conditions of locality 

 and season. In our locality new comb is 



There's little to tell, 

 in my apiary is white, 

 ed cappings virgin.) 

 nothing to do with it. 



usually pearl white; but this year, owing to 

 the large amount of dark-colored honey-dew 

 and much pollen that have been gathered, 

 the new combs are taking on in some casis 

 a very light yellow hue, while in others they 

 seem to be almost white We suppose this is 

 owing to the fact that some colonies will 

 gather more of this dark stuff, while others 

 will gather less of it and more of the white 

 honey. In some localities we have seen that 

 the new combs are muddy white. In most 

 instances this is due to their proximity to 

 old combs; but in others it is clearly owing 

 to the character of the honey and pollen that 

 are gathered. But the question may be ask- 

 ed, "Why is commercial wax yellow and 

 brown?" Probably because most of it comes 

 from old combs containing more or less of 

 pollen and some dirt. — Ed.] 



A pretty mess you've got me into, Mr. Ed- 

 itor. Three different German bee-journals 

 are saying things about me for saying it was 

 "stupid clannishness " for Austrian bee- 

 keepers to come so near the size of the Lang- 

 stroth frame and not have its exact dimen- 

 sions. See Straw, page 98. Good German 

 friendsr I never said any thing of the kind. 

 It was that editor in a footnote. Go for him 

 — good and hard. I cheerfully concede that 

 I don't know as well as you what fits your 

 conditions. The one bad thing about you is 

 that you print such good bee journals in a 

 language so hard for me to read. [But you 

 do know, doctor, that a frame that has only 

 ten square inches more of brood space than 

 the regular Langstroth can not be appreci- 

 ably better than the standard Langstroth, 

 that is standard in the United States and 

 Canada, and standard in a good many of the 

 South American colonies, as well as in some 

 parts of Europe and Africa. The point we 

 were trying to make is that, when the Aus- 

 trians were adopting a standard that was al- 

 most the same thing as our Langstroth, why 

 did they not take something that would be 

 exactly the same, and thus save a great deal 

 on the cost of the supplies? Many orders 

 come from Europe for American goods, and 

 our Austrian bee-keepers would have saved 

 materially in the cost of frames and hives 

 from this country by adopting Langstroth di- 

 mensions. In this case a miss is as good as 

 a mile. If they had adopted dimensions that 

 were essentially different, both as to the 

 number of square inches and as to the shape 

 of the frame, then we could see, perhaps, 

 some reason why their local conditions might 

 demand such dimensions. 



A few years ago you used a frame that was 

 almost Langstroth, but not quite. You found 

 it enough advantage to discard all of your al- 

 most-Langstroth hives and frames to adopt 

 the regular standard Langstroth, not because 

 you found you would gain in honey or in 

 convenience in handling the bees, but be- 

 cause you would save materially in the cost 

 of the supplies; and, what is more, those 

 same bees when housed in standard hives 

 and frames would bring a higher price in the 

 open market than on something that is just 

 a little different.— Ed.] 



