1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



661 



las better, and thus comes within reach of 

 the bees. 



A German apiarist a few years ago under- 

 dertook to settle the question and spent a 



fiart of the summer lying down in the clover- 

 ields to see how it was. He reported that 

 very few insects take the nectar through the 

 corollas, but some kinds cut a hole near the 

 bottom and help themselves through it. The 

 hole once made, a number of other insects, 

 including bees, take advantage of it; and if 

 the bees do not work on the first crop it is 

 because at that time there are only a few 

 hole-boring insects present. 



The tongue-reach secured at Medina is 

 certainly very encouraging to those who 

 would experiment in that direction. An in- 

 crease of one-third or over in a comparative- 

 ly short time, and under such disadvantageous 

 circumstances, is worth noting. 



The difficulty in mating could be minim- 

 ized considerably. In trying to maintain a 

 race of yellow bees among others, any mis- 

 mating can be detected by the marks of the 

 workers; but when the bees are all of the 

 same color it is impossible. 



However, I think the trouble would be 

 largely overcome by establishing an apiary 

 in an isolated locality, inducing the long- 

 tongued queens to raise a large number of 

 drones, and supressing those from the other 

 colonies. 



DOOLITTLE'S FIRST QUESTION, OR, RATHER, 



HIS ANSWER; THE RELATIVE NI'MBFR OF 



FRAME AND BOX HIVES IN EUROPE. 



In Europe the number of box hives and 

 skeps exceeds considerably that of the frame 

 hives. Those box hive men used to sulphur 

 the bees of the hives they wanted to "take 

 up." N'lwthey drive them and sell them to 

 the frame-hive men. It has occasionally been 

 reported that a colony thus made had winter- 

 ed without combs or foundation by simply put- 

 ting a sufficiently large cake of candy over 

 the frames. This, by the way, is a splendid 

 method of feeding in any case. 



WIN 'ER PASSAGEWAYS; HOW THEIR NECESSITY 

 DEPEN' S UPON CLIMATE AND CONDITIONS. 



« oncerning the value of passageways 

 through the combs during the winter, I will 

 say that this is merely a question of locality, 

 or, rather, of the method of wintering. In 

 the cellar the temperature varies but little, 

 and there is no inducement for the bees to 

 leave the cluster and get scattered; and if 

 they do, the temperature is high enough to 

 en-ible them to regain the cluster by passing 

 over or under the frames. 



Unoer this latitude the case is altogether 

 different. We winter out of doors. Our 

 wmters consist of an alternation of a few 

 warm days followed by rain or snow and a 

 cold wave. During the warm days the bees 

 expand the cluster considerably, fly out free- 

 ly, and scatter more or less throughout the 

 hive; and when the cold wave comes the 

 temperature falls very rapidly, and they hud- 

 dle together between the combs where they 

 happened to be. Last winter we had quite 

 a spell of warm weather for eight or ten days. 



The temperature was between 70 and 74° 

 maximum every day. One Friday, near 

 night, the rain came and soon turned into 

 snow. Saturday night the weather began to 

 clear, and Sunday morning showed 23° in 

 the city and about 19 in the open country 

 around. The smoke and numerous fires in 

 the city make about 5° difference. That is a 

 fall of over 50° in a little more than 36 hours. 

 The greatest variations occur usually in Feb- 

 ruary, and I have seen the thermometer fall 

 at the rate of 10° per hour. 



The celebrated Italian apiculturist, Dr. Du- 

 bini, was in the habit of making three small 

 holes through the combs instead of one large 

 one To prevent the bees from plugging 

 them, he always put a small tin tube in each 

 one. 



Knoxville, Tenn. 



DEE-KEEPING IN THE PECOS VALLEY, 

 NEW MEXICO. 



A Wonderful Fruit Country, but Not much 

 Better for Bees than Wisconsin. 



BY HARRY LATHROP*. 



A northern bee-keeper would naturally ex- 

 pect a much warmer climate in New Mexico 

 than in his own section, and it is warmer in 

 a way. The winter weather here seems like 

 summer to a Wisconsin man. Bees are uni- 

 versally wintered on their summer stands 

 without extra protection, and the winters 

 are very short and mild. Notwithstanding all 

 this, the one thing that seems to be the hard- 

 est to contend with is cold. It must be re- 

 membered that an altitude of about 3500 feet 

 insures cool nights the year round. The 

 great difficulty is to get the colonies up to a 

 good working strength in time for the open- 

 ing of the alfalfa flow, about May 15. Early 

 in the spring there usually occurs quite warm 

 weather; brood-rearing progresses nicely, 

 but a period of cool weather ensues and the 

 colonies dwindle badly. This is a discourag- 

 ing feature. We meet it in the North, but 

 only occasionally as bad as it is here. In 

 Southern Wisconsin, summer weather gen- 

 erally comes to stay when it does come, and 

 our colonies will be populous, and often 

 make preparations for swarming in April. 



A short warm day and cool nights which 

 cause the clusters to contract is the rule here 

 in the spring, and to some extent all the time. 



It is the continuous honey- flow of about 90 

 days that enables the careful bee-keeper here 

 to harvest an average of 100 lbs of extracted 

 honey per colony, one year with another. 

 That is no better than we can do in Wiscon- 

 sin in good seasons, but better than we can 

 average. This being an irrigated district 



*This is the second time I have visited the Pecos 

 Valley of New Mexico. After my first visit I did not 

 write a word for publication regarding bee-keeping, 

 for my information was too meager and fragrmentary. 

 Now that I am here, and have interviewed at length 

 several of the most extensive honey-producers, I feel 

 that I understand more clearly the advantages as well 

 as the drawbacks connected with bee-keeping in this 

 valley. Harkv L.vthrop. 



Greenfield, N. M.. Jan. IP. 



