558 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Sept. 15 



Stray Straws 



By Dr. C. C. Miller 



Louis Scroll, : speaking of keeping the 

 queen down, p 491, says he gives extra su- 

 pers underneath the first. E. D. Townsend 

 says he keeps the queen down by adding 

 the empty super above. Which is better? 



Bee pasturage changes. When I began, 

 dandeUon was not worth considering; now 

 it is more important than fruit bloom. Then 

 I had no fall flow to speak of; now it is of 

 value. Heartsease is getting to be quite 

 plentiful. 



Thanks, A. 1. Root, for encouraging fami- 

 ly prayers, p. 416. You say a man with fam- 

 ily prayers prospers better. Woman too. 

 One of my pleasant memories is of eating at 

 Adam Grimm's table when Mrs. Grimm ask- 

 ed the blessing. 



J. A. Rye, let me further reply to your 

 question, page 546. A queen /us/ hatched is 

 the easiest of all queens to introduce, and 

 will be accepted in any colony without cag- 

 ing, but will be killed when older if a satis- 

 factory queen is present. If not too long on 

 the way she might be received young enough 

 by mail to be accepted. In Europe they mail 

 eggs. 



Referring to p. 513, Mr. Editor, you may 

 say positively that bees do carry dead larvae 

 of black brood out of the hive. Perhaps not 

 when it gets too bad. [We saw no reason 

 why they could not; but in the case of ropy 

 foul brood of the old-fashioned type it would 

 be almost impossible, for the reason that the 

 dead larva in a badly decomposed state melts 

 down into a mass of nasty sticky glue. — Ed.] 



Dr. G. Bohrer, American Bee Journal, 472, 

 departs from the orthodox shaking of foul- 

 broody bees on to starters, and says brush. 

 He's right. Shaking out honey makes the 

 bees fill their sacs fuller, and then it takes 

 longer to get it used up. [Yes; and shaking 

 when honey is coming in fresh from the 

 fields is quite sure to scatter such thin hon- 

 ey with disease germs all over the clothes, 

 ground, and hives. While bees will not rob 

 during this time, if there is a sudden stop- 

 page they might get enough of this virus 

 gathered up over the ground to spread the 

 disease. — Ed.] 



L. S. Crawshaw says, British B. J., p. 237, 

 that, "however slow the process, the cell 

 must reduce in size " by the constant addi- 

 tion of cocoons, and thmks he has read of 

 bees reared in such reduced cradles at Me- 

 dina that were amusingly small. Friend 

 Crawshaw, if I remember, A. I. Root told 

 about those dwarfs being reared in cells 

 diminished by the bending of the comb. You 

 forget that the constant addition of cocoons 

 is compensated by the constant lengthening 

 of the cells. New comb is about % inch 

 thick. I have had old combs an inch thick, 

 caused by the constant lengthening of the 

 cells. The midrib was y% thick. 



J. E. Crane, p. 492, says he finds it "un- 

 safe to leave a hive during swarming time 

 ,for ten days, as the bees will rear and hatch 

 a young queen in less time, and may swarm 

 out with her." In this locality, if I destroy 

 all eggs and larvae in queen-cells, I am abso- 

 lutely sure that no young queen will emerge 

 under fifteen days if the old queen remains 

 in the hive. If I kill the old queen it is an 

 exceedingly rare thing that a young queen 

 emerges under twelve days; and if not held 

 in the cell she's a very soft thing when she 

 emerges not fit to go with a swarm till con- 

 siderably older. Who will tell us how much 

 older? 



Instead of raising hives on four blocks to 

 give ventilation, as mentioned, p. 505, I now 

 prefer a two-inch entrance and two-inch 

 space under bottom-bars, with a skeleton 

 bottom-rack to prevent building down. I 

 don't know that it's any better than raising 

 on blocks, but it's ever so much easier. 

 [Granted that it is easier, are you sure it 

 gives as good results? We doubt it. Sup- 

 pose, for example, that it is 90 in the shade, 

 and there is a slight breeze. Suppose, again, 

 that during the time you are m a sort of 

 bungalow, one story, with windows on each 

 of four sides. If you opened all the windows 

 on one side and closed those on the three 

 other sides, you would not get as much ven- 

 tilation as if you opened one window on each 

 of the four sides. In other words, the same 

 number of square inches of opening on one 

 side would not give by any means as good 

 ventilation as if that same area were distrib- 

 uted equally on all four sides. What is true 

 of a dwelling would also be true of a hive. — 

 Ed.] 



Been trying carbon disulphide for wormy 

 combs. It's great. Sulphur does well for 

 the younger try, but it's difficult for it to 

 kill an old fellow an inch long, well protect- 

 ed by its silken web. I had some bad cases. 

 In all there were 328 combs. I piled them 

 up in hive-bodies, six stories high, puttied 

 up the cracks with a batter of flour and wa- 

 ter too thick to run, spread batter on the top 

 edge, and set a teacup on top. I also puttied 

 a hive-cover on to an empty hive-body, ready 

 to cover over. I then poured the cup half 

 full of the disulphide (about six tablespoon- 

 f uls) , and quickly covered up. Some twenty 

 hours later I examined. I had purposely 

 put some of the worst cases in the bottom 

 story, and also in the top story. The miscre- 

 ants were all dead, dead, in both stories, and 

 I don't suppose the chance was good for any 

 in the stories between. 



I used Mercks carbon disulphide, which is 

 said to be the best. A pound can costs 25 

 cents at the drugstore. The work was done 

 in the house cellar, and there was no odor 

 in the room above. Indeed, no odor could 

 be detected in the cellar an hour after sev- 

 eral piles had been dosed. But there was a 

 good job of puttying. Of course, I was care- 

 ful not to breathe directly over the teacup, 

 and there was no chance for an explosion 

 from light or fire. 



