MARCH 15, 1913 



173 



SIFXINGS 



J. E. Crane, Middlebury, Vt. 



We are still greatly interested in the 

 cheap shipping of bees without combs, and 

 expect great things are yet to come out of 



it. 



* * * 



One of the best things I have ever seen 

 on the subject of feeding back extracted 

 honey in order to secure comb honey is fur- 

 nished by friend Doolittle on page 44, Jan. 

 1"). It is all there, and all right. 



* * * 



Those Germans do some original thinking 

 or they would not be supplying their sol- 

 diers with tubes of honey while on the 

 march. If it is good for German soldiers it 

 is good for most peojile engaged in hard or 

 laborious pursuits. 



« » -» 



I read with pleasure of Mr. Chadwick's 

 efforts, at the California State convention 

 of beekeepers, to learn whether alfalfa pro- 

 duces honey of different colors, p. 48. I 

 formerly thought there could be no differ- 

 ence; but after having white-sage honey 

 offered us of a decidedly amber color, and 

 with scarcely a trace of sage flower, and 

 alfalfa that was dark in color and of doubt- 

 ful flavor, I concluded that " locality " must 

 play a part in the production of honey, of 

 which I had no conception. 

 ^ ^ ^ 



Mr. A. B. Marchant, Jan. 15, p. 45, gives 

 some facts of immense importance to the 

 beekeeping fraternity about the value of 

 pollen in building up weak colonies. "We 

 of the Xorth, where pollen is so abundant, 

 have been accustomed to think of honey as 

 a most imi^ortant item in stimulating bees 

 to rear brood. But it seems- that the bring- 

 ing in of pollen is quite as im23ortant. In 

 the North we used to feed v\e meal or buck- 

 v.heat, sometimes in early spring, and we 

 know bees will take it with great eagerness. 

 I wonder if any one has ever tried it in 

 localities where pollen is scarce, and yet the 

 supi^ly of honey is abundant. 

 * * * 



Friend Doolittle, will you please sit up 

 and take notice, for I have somewhat to say 

 to you? In Gleanings for Dec. 1, p. 759, 

 you appear to be laboring under so many 

 misapprehensions and misunderstandings 

 that your statements would appear to be 

 \ery misleading. In a former number of 

 Gleanings you took up the subject of find- 

 i::g black queens during a time when rob- 

 bers are bad. In Gleanings for Dec. 1 you 

 say, " After reading this, Mr. Crane wrote, 



page 615, Oct. 15, 1911, ' Hello, friend Doo- 

 little ! I want to know if you can do that 

 for an hour, when no honej' is coming in, 

 without music about your ears in the key of 

 seven sharps.' Yet we have here been find- 

 ing them this season for many days, sorting 

 out the old or defective ones with great 

 rapidity. We use a ciueen-sieve, and are 

 not troubled by robbing." You say that the 

 first thing to attract your attention in read- 

 ing this was that " friend Crane would have 

 the readers of Gleanings think that he uses 

 only black and hybrid queens." Beg your 

 pardon, not at all. I would have the read- 

 ers of Gleanings think that, when I have 

 mismated queens or black queens, as we 

 sometimes do after buying in a new yard, 

 we would sort them out as we have time or 

 opportunity, and replace with pure young 

 queens. 



Again you say, " The next thing to take 

 my attention was that the editor of one of 

 the departments in Gleanings should put 

 off hunting out ' his old and defective ' 

 cjueens until a time of scarcity of nectar had 

 arrived in the fall." Will you please put 

 on your spectacles, my good friend, and 

 read just what I did say? You will see that 

 I said, " We have been finding them this 

 season for many days." Nothing was said 

 about the fall. The season of scarcity dui'- 

 ing 1911 was pretty much all summer. But, 

 again, you say, " But to allow the beginner 

 to believe that a time of scarcity is the best 

 time to supersede old poor failing queens is 

 something hardly admissible in the columns 

 of a paper like Gleanings.''^ If you wrll 

 adjust your glasses once more and read 

 what I said, you will, I think, see that I said 

 absolutely nothing about the best time to 

 supersede old or worthless queens. I refer- 

 red, as you did, to a time when bees are in- 

 clined to rob. 



In the fourth paragrai^h of your depart- 

 ment you try to prove that black queens can 

 be looked up in a season of scarcity of nec- 

 tar without danger of stings or robbing if 

 they have been properly handled and man- 

 aged^ by saying that you often work from 

 10 a. m. to 2 P. M. without robbers or stings 

 at such times, and yet you have already told 

 us that you have no black bees. 



In writing as I did I simply desired to 

 call attention to a very simple and effective 

 device that I had found very useful in find- 

 ing queens when colonies Avere strong and 

 nectar scarce. In the spring, while colonies 

 are not very strong, it may not be of as 

 much service. 



