152 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



June 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



BY H. E. HILL. 



1 find that with me the large hive, 

 the large colon}' and large surplus 

 have traveled hand in hand. — J. A. 

 Nash, in Gleanings, 



Bees of a weak colony leave their 

 brood to gather honey with great 

 reluctance, hence if surplus honey is 

 the object, one good, strong colony 

 is to be preferred to a larger number 

 weak in bees. 



Speaking of the giant cactus which 

 tower like great sentinels upon the 

 deserts of New 3Iexico and Arizona, 

 to a height of 40 to 60 feet, the Chi- 

 cago Blade says that '' swarms of 

 bees have been known to take posses- 

 sion of the hollowed-out trunk of 

 these monsters, that the woodpecker 

 has first attacked, and fill them with 

 the choicest of wild honey." This 

 " choicest " honey must be gathered 

 from mesquite or cactus. 



E. W. Moore, in . Progressive Bee- 

 Keeper says : ' ' We can start with a 

 black virgin queen and have her 

 mated to a pure Italian drone, and in 

 five generations, by having all mated 

 by pure Italian drones, we can have 

 as light colored five banded bees as 

 anyone can from pure Italians or a 

 cross between Italians and C^'prians. " 



C. 1. Dugdale, of West Galway , N. 

 Y., in A. B. J., corroborates my 

 theory, expressed in the Bee Keeper, 

 Oct. '94, that the bees probably 

 gnawed away the cells when the 

 cocoons became a hindrance to brood 

 rearing, and built anew. Mr. D. has 

 been favored with an opportunity of 

 witnessing this tearing down and re- 

 building of cells, though the remod- 

 eled comb still retained its dark col 

 or, which would discredit my idea of 

 the addition of new wax in reconstruc- 

 tion. Could they have utilized the 

 old wax of which the comb was orig- 

 inally built ? It seems so. 



Replying to the question, "How 

 old do you allow your brood combs 

 to. get before changing to new?" 

 Rev. M. Mahin, in A. B. J., says: 

 " say 35 or 40 years orso, " which 

 is in accord with the opinion of the 

 veterans generally, and tends to 

 strengthen the theory that the bees 

 remodel the combs when necessary 

 themselves. Mr. Mahins repl}' is 

 figurative, of course, and implies that 

 thev need not be changed at all. 



A good suggestion by C. W. Day- 

 ton, in the Progressive BeeKeeper 

 is : When setting bees out of winter 

 quarters or moving an apiary place 

 the light ones all in a row by them- 

 selves, thus concentrating the work 

 of caring for those that need special 

 attention. 



The Nebraska Queen, in an etfor- 

 to establish a new idea regarding co- 

 coons, b}' its own citations clearly 

 defeat its own theor}'. If the Queen 

 man, with combs in which brood has 

 developed but a few times, will re- 

 peat his expersence the next ' ' hot 

 da}' in August," he will find the 

 ' ' linings " will not be as leather-like 

 as those of the old combs to which 

 he refers , but will collapse, as if tis. 

 sue paper, which ought to be convinc- 

 ing evidence that the " lining " does 

 become "thicker" with continued 



The laborious task of handling 

 hives heavy with honey, of which so 

 much is said in the large vs. small 

 hive discussion, will not be consider- 

 ed an objectional feature by Florida 

 Ijee-keepers for a few years, at least. 

 Large apiaries with too light hives 

 have a tendency to more clearly define 

 the wrinkles of premature old age, 

 now depicted upon the faces of some 

 yet young in years, and younger m 

 the business. 



New Smyrna, Florida. 



