1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



691 



found that the one great desideratum was 

 unsealed brood at all times in the nuclei. 

 " In all those years," he says, "during which 

 I had thousands of young queens in nuclei 

 containing larvae, I never saw any indication 

 that the presence of the larvae had any ten- 

 dency to cause the bees to injure the queen." 



F. Greiner is just right, p. 594, that Ger- 

 man bee-keepers know better than we what's 

 right for their conditions. We Americans 

 are apt to think we're it; but although there 

 are things Germans can learn from us, we 

 can also learn a lot from them. There's no 

 good in so much national prejudice on either 

 side. "We be brethren;" and Americanized 

 Germans like F. Greiner are doing a good 

 work in bringing about a better understand- 

 ing on both sides. 



J. G. Creighton, thanks for data, p. 644. 

 Those 13 observations showed an average of 

 13.692 bees that that plant entertained 

 throughout the day. As the plant occupied 

 9 square feet, an acre would contain 4840 



&lants, and these would entertain 66,269 bees, 

 ow, how many bees does a strong colony 

 keep afield throughout the day? How woiild 

 22,000 do for a guess? At that rate, an acre 

 of sweet clover ought to keep three colonies 

 busy. 



That hive-tool, p. 632, is good. I'd like 

 it better with the square end rounding. 

 [While a tool with a rounding blade is a little 

 nicer for prying the hive-bodies apart, it is 

 practically useless for scraping wax or pro- 

 polis off from bottom-boards, frames, or hive- 

 sides. A tool with square edges is just as 

 handy for prying the hive-bodies apart, and 

 has the additional advantage that it may be 

 used as a scraper. A hive-tool that could 

 not be used as a pry and a scraper at the 

 same time would be, to our notion, only half 

 a tool. 



We submitted a good many different mod- 

 els, among them some having round ends; 

 but these were thrown out by practically all 

 of those to whom tools were sent for sug- 

 gestions and criticisms. Give a square-edged 

 tool a good careful test for a season; and if 

 you do not admit that it is "oceans ahead" 

 of a round-ended tool, the editor will bind 

 hirnself by an iron-clad contract to buy you 

 a silk hat. He is sending you by separate 

 mail a square ended hive-tool, and requests 

 you to use it for a year. — Ed.] 



J. A. Yeoman's beesraised on four blocks, 

 p. 638, don't swarm. Other extracting men 

 whose bees need severer measures will do 

 well, in addition, to leave ventilation between 

 each two stories by shoving them backward 

 and forward. I never had a colony swarm 

 when thus treated. [This is a rather inter- 

 esting question, and an important one also, 

 and we should be glad to get reports from 

 our subscribers generally, as to how far rais- 

 ing hives up on four blocks will arrest or 

 check swarming. Then we should like to 

 know how many have tried the additional 

 ventilation suggested by Dr. Miller, of shov- 

 ing the stories back and forward. During 

 our winter months this would be a profitable 



subject for discussion, for "in the multitude 

 of counselors there is wisdom." 



E. M. Gibson, I'd rather have a plain bot- 

 tom-bar with the foundation waxed to it than 

 a split bottom-bar without the waxing, 

 because I think the bees are less likely to 

 gnaw the waxing than the foundation with- 

 out the waxing, and the split bottom-bar 

 squeezes the foundation, making it thinner 

 at the bottom, and so more easily gnawed. 

 But I'd rather have the split bottom-bar and 

 the waxing, for it's easier to have an exact 

 fit with the split bar. My foundation, fas- 

 tened at top and bottom, neither buckles nor 

 breaks apart, as you mention. I generally 

 fasten it in at a temperature of 80 degrees 

 or so — p. 628. 



I've tried to some extent that hive-cover 

 seat as in Fig. 6, p. 634, and I find it a tax on 

 some of the muscles which are constantly 

 kept tense to keep the cover from tipping 

 one way or the other; so for an all-day job I 

 want something more stable. [We do not 

 see why there should be any special tax on 

 the muscles. One can, if he chooses, lean 

 one knee up against the hive. Is it not true 

 that nine-tentns of the milking-stools are 

 one-legged? Do we ever hear of dairymen 

 complaining that such stools put a "tax on 

 some of the muscles"? A hive-cover has to 

 be balanced only one way, while the one-leg- 

 ged stool must be balanced in all directions. 



For all-day work we prefer a variety of 

 positions — part of the time standing on the 

 knees, sometimes sitting on the cover the 

 narrow way, and sometimes on the long way, 

 and, still again, standing up full height and 

 bending over when it is necessary to secure 

 a comb. — Ed.] 



Isaac F. Tillinghast thus quotes approv- 

 ingly the views of Mr. Alexander, Bee-keep- 

 ers' Review, 297: "He believes, that when the 

 temperature and conditions of the atmos- 

 phere are favorable, nectar is constantly be- 

 ing secreted in the flowers, and is as con- 

 stantly being evaporated and lost, so that a 

 bee will secure just as much at each visit, at 

 intervals of a few minutes only, as it will at 

 each visit after longer intervals of perhaps 

 several hours." I tnink this opinion obtains 

 somewhat generally. The error in it con- 

 sists in assuming that sugar evaporates. We 

 know that bees evaporate nectar and pro- 

 duce honey. They evaporate the water, and 

 the sweet remains. If thin honey be evap- 

 orated by artificial means, it's the same way. 

 The water alone is evaporated and the sweet 

 condensed. Now if nectar is evaporated in 

 the flowers, have we any right to believe 

 that the result will be different? That the 

 secretion of nectar is constant is, no doubt, 

 true; at least the visits of the bee make the 

 secretion neither more nor less. Suppose a 

 flower is visited once every ten minutes, and 

 all the nectar thus gathered. Suppose it be 

 visited once an hour. If the sweet does not 

 evaporate, and it is cleaned up once an hour, 

 will there not be just as much honey secured 

 as by the ten-minute visits, always supposing 

 that the sugar still remains in solution? 



