310 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAl.. 



VARIOUS NOTES AND COMMEKfTS. 



BY DK. C. C. MILLEK. 



Remedy for Swarming. — Mrs. Atchley arouses my earnest expectation when 

 on page 237 she promises to give a remedy for swarming. My expectations have 

 been aroused in that direction a good many times, and just as often I've been dis- 

 appointed. Guess I can stand one more disappointment. 



Unsealed Cells. — The replies to the query on 238, show that it Isn't by any 

 means a settled question whether a colony will swarms or not when there is present 

 a virgin queen and unsealed queen-cells. I suppose the meaning is that only un- 

 sealed queen-cells are present and no sealed cells. I think, however, that some who 

 replied did not notice that feature. Otherwise Prof. Cook would hardly have said, 

 "This is always the case where second swarms issue." For always sealed cells are 

 present when second swarms issue, and it would be a rare thing to find any unsealed, 

 I think. Others answer in much the same way. It is the practice of some to give a 

 frame of unsealed brood to a colony having a virgin queen, or when it is not certain 

 whether a virgin queen is present. In such case, if unsealed queen-cells are cher- 

 ished, would not the impulse that made the bees continue such cells also make them 

 start cells from young larvae ? The experiment stations might help us out also in 

 this. 



Honey Consumed by Bees, Etc. — Hasn't S. C. Markon, page 242, got things 



just a little mixed ? He says, " What harvesting is to the farmer swarming is 



to the bee-keeper." That may be true if increase is what the bee-keeper is after, 

 but nowadays it is not swarms so much as honey he is after. In many cases swarm- 

 ing lessens the chance for a harvest of honey. 



His idea that he can double the number of his colonies without sacrificing any 

 of his surplus honey is not the idea of bee-keepers generally in his State, I think. 



He touches on one point on which I wish he would give us more light if he has 

 been experimenting. He says, " gathering perhaps five or six fold their own con- 

 sumption." How much honey does a colony use for its own consumption ? I am 

 not sure that I ever saw any estimate except one from Doolittle, and I think he 

 estimated that a colony consumed at least 60 pounds of honey in a year. If bees 

 gather " five fold their own consumption," then out of every five pounds gathered 

 one pound is for their own consumption and four for surplus. In other words, they 

 consume }4 as much as they store for surplus. If, then, 50 pounds be the average 

 surplus, the amount used for the bees' own consumption is H of that, or 123^ 

 pounds. 123^ differs a good deal from Doolittle's 60. Which is right ? 



Shade in the Apiary.— I don't know whether I have the right answer to 

 the conundrum Friend Barnum fires at me on page 243. A little depends on the 

 object of the shade. I want it for the benefit of the operator rather than for the 

 bees. With plenty of chance for free circulation of air about the hives, I'm not so 

 sure that shade is often needed for the bees in northern Illinois. The present season 

 has probably been the worst I every experienced in this regard. The thermometer 

 ran up to 100- or more, and in a few cases where hives stood unprotected in the 

 burning sun, foundation dropped in the sections. Whether this would have been 

 the case if the bees had been working in the sections, I have some little doubt. I 

 would sooner risk hives in the broiling sun, with free chance for the breeze, than in 

 a dense shade in a close place. I've had brood-combs melt down and the honey run 

 out on the ground with hives standing under the shade of trees so dense that the 

 sun never shone on them all day long. But a heavy stand of corn shut out the air 



