Apr. 1, 1912 



189 



Dr. C. C. MiiiiiER, Marengo. 111. 



J. E. Crane, that paragraph of yours, p. 

 153, about the beauty of flowers, thrilled 

 me. Shake, old fellow, shake! 



Of all the appropriate things said about 

 Prof. Cook in last Gleanings, none is more 

 appropriate than the one which calls him 

 lovable. 



Miss Mathilde Candler had much ex- 

 perience with carbolic cloths as super-clear- 

 ers before the advent of the Porter escape. 

 They do the work quicklj'^ and efficiently, 

 but sometimes kill brood. Have our British 

 friends ever observed this? — American Bee 

 Journal, 73. 



A. C. Miller thinks bees leave supers for 

 brood-nest cold nights to warm their feet; 

 J. E. Crane thinks it's to warm the brood. 

 If I may risk butting in, 1 think both are 

 right. The Creator sends them down to 

 warm the brood and they think they're do- 

 ing it to warm their toes. 



Geo. M. Steele wants me to retract that 

 statement, p. 126, "We do not believe there 

 are a dozen colonies showing all five band- 

 ers in all the United States." He thinks 

 he can produce the goods. But, friend 

 Steele, I didn't say that. It was the editor. 

 Go for him. I have troubles of my own. 



Mr. Editor, I see you have "honeybee," 

 p. 154. The dictionary says "honey-bee." 

 But the dictionary has only been waiting 

 for you to make the lead, and will be glad 

 to make the change. Two words used as 

 one word should be joined by a hyphen; 

 then when the word has passed its novitiate 

 the hyphen should be thrown away, leaving 

 the word all in one. A number of bee-terms 

 should be thus shortened, as topbar, queen- 

 cell, beekeeper, etc. 



After all, the frantic efiforts to clear the 

 four murderers, mentioned on page 119, only 

 succeeded in postponing the hanging a few 

 days. They were hanged Feb. 16. Wheth- 

 er death or imprisonment be the punish- 

 ment for murder in any given State, the 

 great thing needed is promptness, both in 

 conviction and execution of sentence While 

 I believe in capital punishment, I believe a 

 man would hesitate more about committing 

 murder if he were sure he would be securely 

 imprisoned for life within a month of the 

 murder, with no chance of a subsequent par- 

 don, than he would if death were the penalty 

 with nine chances in ten that he would get 

 off scot free. 



A STUDY of tho.se census figures, page 68, 

 brings some surprises. One would hardly 

 guess that West Virginia would head the list 

 as the State having most bees to the s(juare 

 mile rather than one of those we call great 

 honey States, such as Texas and California. 

 As a matter of fact these come 24th and 26th 

 on the list. Let us place the bees of each 



State in apiaries of 100 colonies each, and 

 then distribute them evenly over the State. 

 Then make a list, giving each State its 

 number in the list, and ihe number of miles 

 apart its 100-colony apiaries will be. Here 

 are some of those at each end of the list: 



1. West Virginia, 4.7; 2. Kentucky, 5.1; 

 3. North Carolina, 5.2; 4. Tennessee, 5.3; 5. 

 New York, 5.6; 6. Delaware, 5.7; 7. Missouri, 

 5.8; 46. Nebraska, 36.5; 47. Wyoming. 46.2; 

 48. ISIontana, 48.0; 49. North Dakota, 119.6. 



Doesn't look as if North Dakota beekeep- 

 ers would be v^ery sociable at a distance of 

 nearly 120 miles apart, does it? 



Take it another way. In these same 

 States establish apiaries 3]/^ miles apart all 

 over the State, and then divide the bees of 

 the State equally among these apiaries. 

 Here's the number of colonies that will be 

 in each apiary of each State: 



West Virginia, 44.66; Kentucky, 37.87; 

 North Carolina, 36.17; Tennessee, 34.36; 

 New York, 31.80; Delaware, 31.27; Missouri, 

 29.28; Nebraska, .76; Wyoming, .47; Mon- 

 tana, .43; North Dakota, .07. 



Pity those statistics are not full and en- 

 tirely reliable. 



Brother Doolittlb has made a good 

 job of showing up the importance of having 

 many bees rather than many colonies, page 

 102. No one who has given the matter 

 much thought will dispute that it takes a 

 larger projjort ion of the bees of a weak colo- 

 ny to stay at home and keep the brood warm 

 than of c\ strong colony. I feel a good bit 

 like going a step further and saying that at 

 least in some cases the absolute number re- 

 quired to stay at home in the strong colony 

 is less than in the weak. Take a colony of 

 20,000 bees, and there may be a day warm 

 enough to work on the flowers, but so cool 

 that 10,000 of those 20,000 bees must stay at 

 home or the brood will be chilled. Close by 

 it is a colony of 80,000 bees, with brood in 

 proportion. On that same day only 5000 

 bees will be needed to stay home for the 

 purpose of keeping the brood warm. (Just 

 now we're not considering at all the number 

 required to stay home to feed the young- 

 sters.) Please bear in mind that sealed 

 brood is a producer of heat, and when a big 

 lot of it is massed together very few mature 

 bees are needeil to keep the brood warm 

 enough. Put it another way. Fill a hive 

 with combs entirely filled with sealed brood, 

 but not a bee in the hive outside the cells. 

 Let the weather be warm enough so that 

 none of that brood will chill, but cool enough 

 so that, if it were any cooler, the brood 

 would chill. Now in another hive at the 

 same time let there br' a single frame of seal- 

 ed brood, and that frame will certainly be 

 chilled. It's hard to hammer too much on 

 the importance of having colonies strong. 



