DECEMBER 15, 1913 



905 



Heads of Grain from Different Fields 



Insectology 



Of work the bee is not afraid, 

 And hard times can't expel it ; 



For when it gets its honey made 

 It knows just where to coll it. 



—Cincinnati Enquirer. 



Then take the case of Mister Fly, 

 Pursued with noise and clatter; 



When he observes one's hand on high. 

 He knows just swat's the matter. 



— Denver Republican. 



Consider, too, the little gnat; 



He's fortunate in that he, 

 Whate'er the styles are — thin or fat — 



Can manage to look gnatty. 



— Chicago Inter-Ocean. 



And also there's the tiny flea. 



So thrifty and well fed ; 

 You grab him where he seems to be. 



And find the flea has fled. 



— Peoria Journal. 



And there's the little redbug, he 



Is always well and hearty; 

 He has no stinger like the bee, 



But he's ten times as smarty. 



— Houston Post. 



Is it Practicable to Ship Bees in a Refrigerator Car? 



I write to ask what data you can give about ship- 

 ping bees in a refrigerator car with ice. I have been 

 shipping for years, but do not find shipments made 

 in cattle-cars to be altogether successful. How did 

 you make your shipments last year from Florida ? 

 The question in my mind is, whether ice will keep 

 doyn the temperature sufficiently when the circula- 

 tion of air must of necessity be poor. That the 

 darkness of the freezer would tend to keep bees quiet 

 so that they will not generate so much heat, I can 

 readily see. But that the ice can absorb the rest of 

 the heat fast enough I can't see so plainly. 



Your scheme of shipping to Florida is all right. 

 I am going to do the same thing, except that my 

 chosen land is southern California. If there is suflS- 

 cient rain to start early pollen I expect to get quite 

 a crop of orange honey. Crop or no crop, I am sure 

 of making 100 per cent increase, and most likely 

 more. 



There is some difficulty in getting queens mated 

 on account of high fogs in California ; but ordina- 

 rily one can make three nuclei out of each hive. I 

 aim to have three or four frames of brood and plen- 

 ty of bees in a ten-frame hive containing seven combs 

 in all, the other space left for clustering-room. Then 

 comes the question of shipping. 



Now, if those nuclei could be brought through 

 intact by May 20 they would do finely; but so many 

 bees die in each one, and so much brood is lost, that 

 it requires a month's time for them to build up. 

 Please understand thev are given water too, either 

 en route or before starting. But the light in a cattle- 

 car keeps them so excited that they soon evaporate 

 all the water given in their combs, and eat brood 

 besides. 



Now, I want to try a freezer to avoid the loss of 

 larvae and old bees. If icing will actually do it, the 

 knowledge will save many a dollar to several of us 

 Western shippers. 



Hansen, Idaho, Nov. 17. G. C. Matthkws. 



[We question very much the wisdom of using a 

 refrigerator car to keep down the temperature of the 

 bees. We have had no difficulty in several carload 

 shipments of bees, and we have never used any ice to 



cool them down. The important thing is, plenty of 

 water along the route. A man must go with the 

 bees, of course, and he must water them whenever 

 they get to roaring. A little practical experience, 

 however, will determine when the bees need water ; 

 but it must be given much more often during hot 

 weather than one would ordinarily suppose — some- 

 times every hour or so. 



It is not quite clear to us from what you say 

 whether you supply the bees with water at the start 

 in the combs themselves, or whether you send a man 

 along to give them water every now and then. We 

 should infer, however, from the fact that you lose so 

 much brood that the bees have only water at the 

 start, and that in the combs. This is not sufficient, 

 because bees will use up an immense quantity of 

 water. 



Two years ago this coming spring a carload of 

 bees from Florida en route about eight days would 

 take up a barrel and a half to two barrels of water. 

 We have found in both cases, where we have sup- 

 plied water plentifully, that not a particle of the 

 brood was destroyed ; that even queen-cells hatched 

 out, and apparently queen-rearing would go on just 

 about the same as it would ordinarily. Even un- 

 capped queen-cells were capped over and hatched out 

 en route. 



You are referred to our article in this issue on 

 shipping bees in car lots. We use during the colder 

 weather, when we are shipping bees from the North 

 to the South, a fruit-car. This has doors at each 

 end, and, of course, doors at the side as usual. Dur- 

 ing the hot weather we use cattle-cars. The main 

 thing is to keep the bees supplied with water and 

 the car moving. When a car stands on a siding, 

 and the sun shines on the side of it, the bees get 

 very noisy. It is then necessary to put up a canvas 

 on the side next to the sun, and at the same 

 the bees must be very liberally watered. A good 

 wetting down very frequently keeps them quiet ; 

 but it is very important to get in touch with all the 

 railroad officials along the line, to the end that the 

 car may be moved promptly, and on fast freight 

 trains, so that there may be no delay between one 

 freight train and the other. As far as possible, se- 

 cure a through freight. There is not a particle of 

 need of losing any brood, and that, too, without the 

 use of ice. — Ed.] 



Making Increase in September 



The first of September I had five colonies of bees 

 that were crowded in the brood-chamber until they 

 were clustered on the outside of the hives. The 

 honey -flow in this section was over, so I decided to 

 try a new experiment. I opened each of these five 

 hives ; and when I had found the frame that the 

 queen was on I placed this frame, queen, bees, and 

 brood in a new hive with full sheets of foundation, 

 and then I moved the old hive to a new place and 

 put the new hive with one frame of bees and brood, 

 and the old queen where the old hive had been. The 

 old workers, of course, all went into the new hive 

 where the queen was. These new colonies I fed freely 

 on sugar syrup, and by the last of September they 

 were well filled up with winter stores, had a fair 

 supply of brood, and at this date, Nov. 12, there is 

 still unhatched brood in them. 



The five old hives that I made these five new ones 

 from were queenless the fourth day after removing 

 where the queen was. These new colonies I fed freely 

 cells, and gave them eggs from my choice queens. 

 Each of them raised nice queens; but one of the 

 >ounc: queens was lost in her mating-flight. I then 

 united this colony that was queenless with the one 

 that I had taken from it. They united without any 

 quarreling whatever; and by this uniting I had some 



