DECEMBER 15, 1913 



879 



SIFTINGS 



J. E. Ceane, Middlebury, Vt. 



J. L. Byer, page 670, Oct. 1, says : " For 

 our locality ' bees always strong ' is the 

 only safe rule if best results are to be ob- 

 tained." This is a pretty safe rule in most 

 places if not everywhere. 



* * * 



On page 692, Oct. 1, in a footnote the 

 editor says in regard to sac brood, " The 

 only damage it does is to kill half a dozen 

 or so of larvee out of twenty-five or thirty 

 thousand other individual larvae in the hive." 

 In my experience it is much more destruc- 

 tive than that. It is much worse some years 

 than others. Perhaps the worst thing about 

 it is that it is often mistaken by experienced 

 beekeepers for foul brood, and the combs 

 destroyed to get rid of it. 

 ^ ^ ^ 



Mr. Chadwick is right, p. 519, as to the 

 necessity of putting up honey in small 

 packages if one wishes to secure the best 

 price. Yet it.* seems doubtful whether it can 

 be made to pay if the beekeeper can turn 

 his time to profit at something else. " If 

 fifty or a hundred leading producers could 

 ship their honey to a central point to be 

 graded, and put up in packages to suit the 

 retail trade, this object could be accomplish- 

 ed and a neat profit could be turned into 

 the pockets of the producers." Co-opera- 

 tion ! 



* * * 



I appreciate what friend Doolittle says 

 on page 710, Oct. 15, about difference in 

 bees, especially in regard to temper. An 

 inspector has a chance to learn about the 

 disposition of bees as he goes from one yard 

 to another, opening hives. I have found 

 some as gentle as flies, and about as worth- 

 less, while others are as fierce and untam- 

 able as a tiger. I can't find words to de- 

 scribe their disagreeable disposition. It is 

 the part of wisdom to get rid of such, and 

 replace with such as can be handled, with 

 care, with comfort. 



* * * 



P. C. Chadwick says, p. 600, Sept. 1, that 

 both Mr. Foster and Byer condemn a record 

 book where many bees are kept, and I 

 believe they are right, especially in sections 

 where there is much propolis, as I found 

 years ago that I would get more or less 

 propolis on the leaves, and they would 

 soon stick together, and make a book a nui- 

 sance. Better by far a board five inches 

 wide and four feet long. The number of 

 the hives set near one edge and a set of 

 signs as required set opposite each number. 



Soft pine or basswood is best for such a 



record-board. 



* * * 



On page 707, Oct. 15, I mentioned sawing 

 a slot into the end-bars for the wiring of 

 frames. After seeing it, Mr. S. A. Niver, 

 of Jamesville, Cal., wrote me of a device foi 

 piercing the end-bars where you have no 

 machine with which to do it. He says he 

 had some 10,000 end-bars cut out before 

 reaching his present location, but had no 

 machine to bore the holes for wires, and so 

 set to work and made one. Here is his de- 

 scription : " Just a piece 2x6, about 6 feet 

 long, with legs. Another piece of 2x6, 

 about one foot long on top of the horse, 

 sliding forward and back with the brads to 

 punch the holes in the end-bars, fixed firmly 

 to the sliding piece, which is worked by a 

 lever bolted through the horse (as a ful- 

 crum) and the sliding block. Just straddle 

 the horse ; put the foot on the lever, put an 

 end-bar in the guide slot, and give a little 

 kick; then you have three holes, nice and 

 smooth. The motion is short and easy, and 

 you have both hands to handle bars with, 

 besides being seated. It beats boring, both 

 in speed and good work. You are Yank:ee 

 enough to get the idea and make one." 



* * * 



In a Straw on p. 705, Oct. 1, Dr. j\Iiller 

 tells of his failure to secure as satisfactory 

 results in preventing swarming as others 

 by raising his brood-chambers up on four 

 blocks and thus giving an abundance of 

 ventilation; and the editor, in a footnote, 

 makes what seems to me a very significant 

 statement. He says, " While you have been 

 breeding toward non-sw^rmers. Mi-. Burt 

 has given his attention largely to honey- 

 producers." Now, it has occurred to me 

 that the surest way to produce non-swarm- 

 ers may be to develop to the highest degree 

 the honey-gathering instinct. If we develop 

 one quality it is often at the expense of 

 some other. The draft horse is not likely 

 to be a fast road horse, or the fast horse a 

 good draft animal. Our best dairy cows 

 are not the ones the butcher selects for his 

 use. One of the best cows I ever owned 

 would be the last one would select for beef. 

 The stronger the instinct for gathering 

 honey is developed, the less will be the dis- 

 position to swarm, I believe. I have some- 

 times had colonies where the instinct for 

 swarming was much stronger than that for 

 honey-gathering, and if they could not 

 swarm thev would do nothing. 



