906 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Dec. 28, 190S 



of the hive and the first inch of the sides, and using porous 

 cloth at the full-width entrance ? 



8. The foregoing- is all based on the statement recently 

 printed in italics, that "The air within the hive and sur- 

 rounding the cluster is very little higher than that outside 

 the hive." Has any experiment proved this statement, or 

 is it an assumed fact? Indiana. 



Answer. — You are getting things down pretty fine, and 

 I don't know enough to be any too positive about some of 

 them, but I can at least say how they look to me. 



Statement 2 maj or may not be true, according to the 

 difi^erent interpretations put upon it by different persons. 

 Some will read it through, and then add a there/ore som&- 

 thing like this (and I rather understand that to be your 

 therefore, too) : Therefore, any part of a telescope cover 

 more than an inch below the top has no practical effect in 

 keeping a hive warm. While it is true that so long as the 

 telescope cover is open below there is no dead-air space, yet 

 there is an approximation, and such a cover is quite different 

 from leaving a hive entirely uncovered, just as stock will 

 discover the shelter of a clump of trees or bushes in a cold 

 wind. 



Statement 5. I think that if you will put a thermome- 

 ter in a hive, you will find that the air in the hive is quite a 

 bit warmer than that outside during zero weather. 



Statement 6 will -hardly hold. It says practically that 

 DO heat is lost from the cluster except that which is lost by 

 radiation directly upward. Doesn't heat always radiate 

 equally in all directions ? Neither is radiation the only 

 means by which the heat of the cluster is lost. The likeli- 

 hood is that very little heat is lost by radiation compared 

 with that lost by convection, and convection affecs the 



lower part of the cluster at least as much as it does the 

 upper part. 



You say that the outside wall prevents the heat of the 

 sun from getting in during warm days. Aren't you just a 

 bit in danger of clashing with yourself there ? For if the 

 outside wall is a bar to the passage of heat inward on a 

 warm day, is it not equally a bar to the passage of heat out- 

 ward on a cold day 7 



Is there not just a little bit of clash between statements 

 7 and 6 ? In 7 you want the cluster to remain quiet until 

 the heat of the outside air penetrates "through the en- 

 trance," while in 6 you apparently want it to penetrate 

 through the walls of the hive, for you say the telescope 

 cover interferes with warming up. 



Your scheme of closing the entrance with wire-cloth 

 and burlap might work all right, only wouldn't there be 

 danger that a quarter-inch entrance-hole would get clogged 

 with dead bees ? 



Statement 8 is just a bit indefinite, the expression, 

 " very little higher," being so elastic that one person might 

 understand it to be many degrees more than another. Yes, 

 the French scientist, Gaston Bonnier, and perhaps others, 

 have told us just what difference there was between the 

 temperature in and out a hive, but I can not give the figures. 

 Of course they would vary according to conditions, and you 

 can try it as well as any one else. At any rate, there is so 

 much difference that it would hardly be safe to conclude 

 that the walls of a hive are of no value in the way of protec- 

 tion. 



I believe you are quite right that it is of more conse- 

 quence to protect well above, but as to the rest — well, I 

 don't know. 



Some Oo ofl GluDDin g Oilers 



A good many subscriptions to the American Bee Journal should be renewed 

 at once. We wish to call special attention to the clubbing offers below, which 

 we are sure will commend themselves. The American Bee Journal one year 

 and your choice of one of the following: 



BOTH FOR 



No. 1 — Dr. Miller's " Forty Years Among 

 the Bees" (Ijook alone, SI. 00) $1.75 



No. 2— Prof. A. J. Cook's "Bee-Keeper's 

 Guide," (book alone, S1.20) 2.00 



No. 3— Dadant's " Langstroth on the 

 Honey-Bee," (book alone, *1.20) 2.00 



No. 4— Doolittle's " Scientific Queen- 

 Rearing," (cloth bound) bookalone,$l. 1.75 



No. 5 — Doolittle's " Scientific Queen- 

 Rearing," (leatherette bound) book 

 alone, 75c 1.50 



No. 6— A Standard-Bred Untested Italian 

 Qaeen, next May or June (Queen 

 alone, 75c) 1.50 



No. 7 — " Novelty Pocket-Knife " with 

 your name and address on it (knife 

 alone, $1.25) 2 00 



No. 8—" Wood Binder," for holding a 

 year's numbers (binder alone, 20c) 1.10 



No. 9—" Emerson Binder," (stiff board) 

 binder alone, 75c 1.50 



BOTH FOR 



No. 10— Monette "Queen-Clipping De- 

 vice," (Device alone, 25c) |1.10 



No. 11 — Newman's " Bees and Honey," 

 (cloth bound) book alone, 75c 1.50 



No. 12 — Newman's "Bees and Honey," 

 (paper bound) book alone, 50c 1.30 



No. 13— Root's "A B C of Bee-Culture," 

 (book alone, S1.20) 2.00 



No. 14— A Gold Fountain Pen (Pen alone 



$1.25) 2.00 



No. 15 — "The Honey-Money Stories," 

 (book alone, 25c) 1.10 



No. 16— Maeterlinck's "Lite of the Bee," 

 (cloth bound) book alone, |1.40 2.25 



No. 17 — 3 Bee-Songs — " Hum of the Bees 

 in the Apple-Tree Bloom," '-Buck- 

 wheat Cakes and Honey," and "The 

 Bee-Keepers' Lullaby," (each 10c or 

 3 for 25c) 1.10 



No. 18-50 copies " Honey as a Health- 

 Food," (alone, 70c) 1.50 



Send all orders to 



GEORGE W. YORK & CO., 



334 Deapborn St., CHICAGO, ILL. 



CONVENTION NOTICES. 



Nebraska: — The annual meeting of the 

 Nebraska State Bee-Keepers' Association will 

 be held on Wednesday, Jan. 17, at 2 p m., at 

 the Experiment Station Building of the Ne- 

 braska State Farm, at Lincoln, Neb. The 

 meeting will be of interest to all bee-keepers. 

 E. Kretchmer. of Iowa, will read a paper on 

 " Bees and Fruit;" H. F. Smith, Assistant in 

 Department of Entomology of the University 

 of Nebraska, will read a paper entitled, " The 

 Relation of Robber-flies and the Honey-Bee." 



A general discussion will give all present an 

 opportunity to discuss subjects of interest. 

 Lincoln, Neb. Lillian E. Trester, Sec. 



Colorado.— The Colorado State Bee- Keep- 

 ers' annual convention will be held in the 

 Chamber of Commerce Building, Denver, Jan. 

 30, 31, 1906. This will be during " Farmers' 

 \Veek," when many farmers' organizations 

 will be in the city holding conventions. We 

 are assured of low railroad fares from all 

 points of the State. We are planning for our 

 usual good convention. R. C. Aikin, Sec. 



Loveland, Colo. 



Reports anb 

 (Sxpcrtcnces 



Very Poop Honey-Year 



This has been a very poor year with us — in 

 fact, the poorest since we began in the l)ee- 

 business, and that was in the early '90's. No 

 nectar in flowers and millers make a bad 

 combination for a bee-keeper. 



Dexter, Mich. K. H. Whbblbr. 



Good Ppospeets in Cuba 



Up to this date the honey crop in Cuba has 

 been very good. Aguinaldo is a wonderful 

 bloomer. Good colonies have already given 

 150 pounds of extracted honey. 



Palacios, Cuba, Dee. 10. M. C. Engle. 



Mops Black than Italian Drones 



I notice considerable discussion lately about 

 pure Italian bees sporting, or going back to 

 blacks. One writer thinks that blacks are 

 swifter on the wing; but even that will not 

 account for it all. In my opinion they have 

 not found the right solution yet. One of my 

 neighbors, with 6 or S colonies, rears more 

 drones than I do with 50 colonies, and they 

 are just the ones that always have black 

 bees. 



A modern bee-keeper reduces the drone- 

 comb to the minimum, but the farmer bee- 

 keepers hive a host of drones. The old queen 

 is hived in an empty box or an empty modern 

 hive, and it he helps any it is the second 

 swarm. I have rendered a good many box- 

 hives of combs for small bee-keepers this fall, 

 and it is surprising: the amount of drone- 

 comb I found. A slipshod bee-keeper rears 

 more drones in a few colonies than a good 

 bee-keeper in a hundred. Irving Long. 



Marceline, Mo. 



Dead Wrong About the Spappow 



Mr. Editor:— I have been reading about 

 the bees doing so much damage to grapes, 

 in the American Bee Journal. Well, any red. 

 headed man can see the absurdity of such a 

 statement. That sparrows will gladly siplhg 



