AUGUST 15, 1913 



583 



in the winter, and started with six good colonies in 

 the spring with hardly a sign of foul brood in the 

 hive. Although in this county a good many small 

 beekeepers have lost all their bees, I have not noticed 

 a sign of disease in two years. 



I have never seen an expert handle bees, nor have 

 I done any thing original; but I have transferred 

 bees for men who had kept them long before I 

 thought of it. I have raised some good queens ; have 

 divided bees, and have introduced queens for begin- 

 ners. I have tried to increase the interest in bee- 

 keeping among the small beekeepers in this neigh- 

 borhood. 



Waynefield, Pa., Feb. 17. Wm. Rosemergey. 



The Striking Appearance of the Cocoons in Combs 

 Melted by the Sun's Heat 



I have recently had some old brood-comb exposed 

 to the sun in such a manner that it has become 

 disintegrated in such a way as to be very interest- 

 ing. Since seeing this I have wondered if it is gen- 

 erally known how that each individual cell is made 

 complete and united with the adjoining cells, and 

 also to the central walls, by a substance of a differ- 

 ent consistency from that of which they are com- 

 posed. If information along these lines, together 

 with photographs which might be taken illustrating 

 such structure, would be of interest to your readers, 

 I should be glad to furnish such. 



Duluth, Minn., July 21. S. Geo. Stevens. 



[What you describe in your letter has been ob- 

 served by all those who melt their combs in solar 

 wax-extractors. The same condition will very often 

 appear when combs are melted by artificial heat in 

 hot water. What you observe are the cocoons left by 

 the bees from brood-rearing. When their combs are 

 melted by the sun or in such a way that the struc- 

 ture of the cocoons is not disturbed, the appearance 

 is quite striking and remarkable to one who has 

 never seen any thing like it. There -have been nu- 

 merous photographs of it. Indeed, it is quite a com- 

 mon sight to one who has any thing to do with melt- 

 ing up old combs. New combs when melted up will 

 show nothing of this kind, because there will be no 

 cocoons left as a residue. — Ed.] 



Where to Keep Honey 



What kind of place is the best to keep honey 

 fresh ? What should the temperature be ? 



New Lenox, 111., June 26. M. J. Simmee. 



[The best place to keep comb honey is in a warm 

 or hot dry room. A cellar, refrigerator, or cold room 

 is the very worst place. W^hen we say hot dry room 

 we mean a room where the temperature may go up 

 to 80 or 90 degrees in hot weather, and where it 

 will never go below 70 degrees in cold weather. Ex- 

 tracted honey, however, may be kept in a colder 

 room, but it will granulate. If the honey is in bot- 

 tles it should be kept in a warm dry room the same 

 as comb honey. Otherwise it will granulate, especial- 

 ly if the temperature is inclined to go down to freez- 

 ing, then go up to ordinary living temperature. — 

 Ed.] 



Bees' Turnstile 



Please mail me copy of Gleanings containing 

 the follovring clipping, which was printed in New- 

 ark, N. J., Morning Star July 8, 1913. 



Elizabethtown, N. J. Elmer E. Guy. 



A novel and ingenious device known as a bee 

 meter, which serves much the same purpose as the 

 turnstile at an amusement park, is in use by a west- 

 ern beekeeper. The bee, in passing through an en- 

 trance or exit, deflects a thin delicate spring. To 

 this spring is attached a wire, and the deflection of 

 the spring causes the wire to hook over a tooth on 

 the rim of a paper counting-dial. As the spring re- 

 turns to its normal position the dial is rotated slight- 



ly, and counts one unit. A lug on the unit operates 

 the ten-unit dial, as in the ordinary counting-ma- 

 chine, and this system is continued to include a 

 1000-unit dial capable of registering 20,000. The 

 spring is so shaped to prevent a bee from going out 

 through an entrance or entering through an exit. 

 This device renders it easy to estimate the activity 

 of a colony, and to determine the number of bees 

 that go out but fail to return. — Popular Mechanics. 



[The clipping did not appear in Gleanings. We 

 doubt very much whether the thing was ever done, 

 although we concede that it would be possible, per- 

 haps, but decidedly improbable. There is such a 

 thing known as a bee-escape. This has two sensitive 

 springs between which the bees pass, but, so far as 

 we know, no recording-device was ever used in con- 

 nection therewith. — Ed.] 



Why a Queen Sometimes Lays in the Sections 



My colonies all succumbed but one, and that is the 

 strongest one I have. It is boiling over with bees 

 all the time ; but the queen in this colony has been 

 laying eggs up in the sections. Tlie first super I 

 took off had drone brood in some of the sections. The 

 next had bees and a queen-cell. I should like to 

 know the cause of this, and the remedy. This colony 

 has made at least 150 lbs. of honey, which would 

 all have been perfect sections had it not been for 

 this brood. The upper part of the section would be 

 honey and the lower part brood. Twelve of my colo- 

 nies have averaged 100 lbs. of honey each. 



Shelby, Ohio, July 21. Saea A. Keee. 



[As a general rule, in the production of comb 

 honey queens will not lay in the sections. Occa- 

 sionally, however, we find one that has a tendency 

 to go above. In such cases it is advisable to use a 

 queen-excluder ; but while such devices are common- 

 ly used in the production of extracted honey they 

 are rarely used in the production of comb. 



It sometimes happens that a queen will lay in the 

 sections for the simple reason that there is no drone 

 comb in the brood-nest below. When only starters 

 are used as sections the combs built below will very 

 often and generally be drone. If there are no drone- 

 cells in the brood-nest the queen is quite inclined to 

 go above and lay in these cells. Usually there will 

 be enough drone-cells in the brood-nest to satisfy aU 

 reasonable demands of the queen. 



Rather than destroy the queen that you have, 

 your better way is to put a perforated zinc honey- 

 board over her next year. — Ed.] 



Start in Beekeeping Made by Capture of a Swarm 

 of Bees 



One day the last of June, several years ago, a 

 swarm of bees clustered in a tree near our house. 

 Mother saw them and called father and myself. It 

 was the first swarm I had ever seen, and father had 

 never seen a swarm hived. We borrowed from a 

 neighbor an old-style chaff hive, and, putting it in 

 a buggy, we ran it under the swarm — father with 

 his stockings over his pants, a rain-proof coat, a 

 pair of mittens tied over his coat-sleeves, and a veil 

 made of a bag and mosquito-bar. He shook the bees 

 into the top of the hive, and put on the cover. 



Father gave me his share of the bees, and a few 

 nights later I set them on the ground and took the 

 buggj' away. The bees acted lost for about a day. 



The neighbor from whom I had borrowed the hive 

 told me to put a newspaper over the frames, and not 

 to put any sections on, for the bees wouldn't make 

 more than enough to winter them. 



In a few days the bees had gnawed the paper full 

 of holes, and were carrying it out. I piled on more 

 paper. 



Next I visited an old beekeeper who told me to 

 use oil-cloth instead of paper, and to put on some 



