Ma 29, 1906 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



273 



Now by placing the thermometer as close to these abdomens 

 as I could and not hit them, I found that with a temperature 

 of zero outside I had a temperature of 40 degrees about 

 J4 of an inch away from the cluster ; and a temperature of 

 45 degrees' when the mercury outside stood at 28 degrees 

 above zero. From this it will be seen that this crust of bees 

 really forms the hive proper, or the walls which confine the 

 heat inside the cluster; which makes the bees really independ- 

 ent of the hive for their existence, only so far as it keeps the 

 winds and storms from them. This part is one of the greatest 

 mysteries to me there is about a colony of bees. I cannot 

 understand how this crust of bees is able to hold the temper- 

 ature inside it, so as to keep a summer heat inside, with a zero 

 temperature outside; when it looks to me that there must be 

 sufficient holes between the adbdomens in this crust to let 

 the air out through them, something as water would run 

 through the holes in a sieve. But for some reason the heat 

 does not so go out, and, furthermore, the bees seem able to 

 control this matter so perfectly that they can raise the heat 

 inside this crust of bees to nearly 100 degrees above, when it 

 is zero outside the hive, and with frost forming on the combs 

 and cover to the hive less than 2 inches from the cluster. 



Where the cluster of bees touches the hive in any place, 

 then, of course, the hive, at that place, holds the heat in ; but 

 I have seen scores and hundreds of colonies carrying on 

 brood-rearing successfully inside the crust of bees, during 

 March and April, with snow on the ground, when this crust 

 of bees did not touch the hive in any place. And another 

 thing which has always been a mystery to me is. that the bees 

 at the bottom of the cluster appear to be always warmer than 

 at the top. On the principle that heat rises, and that the top of 

 the hive is the warmest, the bees at the top of the cluster 

 should be the warmest and most active. But such is not the 

 case, as I have found by many carefully conducted experi- 

 ments. Raise a hive up from the bottom, and the first bees 

 will break through the crust right where you are looking. 

 Open the hive at the top, and unless the bees at the top touch 

 the cover of the hive, the first flying bees will come up around 

 the cluster from the bottom, the cluster remaining in perfect 

 order all along between the top-bars of the frames, and down 

 at the sides as far as you can see. In fact, the very topmost 

 bees in the crust are the last ones to start into activity, while 

 those at the bottom are the very first. Borodino, N. Y. 



= " =~ \ 



Wit. pasty's 

 Ctftertfyougfyts 



j 



The " Old Reliable " as seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. Hasty, Sta. B. Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



German Chunk Honey. 



So the German idea of apicultural how-to-do is chunk 

 honey at 25 cents a pound I Page 139. 



First Work of Bees — Check on Swarming. 



I think our books and papers very generally say that 

 the young bee's first work is at nursing. On page 140, 

 Stachelhausen indorses another view, to the effect that the 

 first work done is cleaning out cells — several days being 

 spent at it. That the current view is assumed, instead of 

 being proved up, is imaginable, to say the least. Some of 

 us would wish to hear what is the nature of the proof for 

 the new view before accepting it as a finality. 



Mr. S. also thinks that the renewed demand for larval 

 food, coming after it had been stopped once, is what checks 

 the swarming impulse, rather than premature field-work on 

 the part of young bees with nothing else to do. The latter 

 seemed rather plausible to me. What's to hinder giving 

 some credit to both ? 



Unsettled Bee-Brush Question. 



Not to be expected that the bee-brush question would be 

 settled by the Canadians at Brantford. any more than by 

 the rest of our folks. That point is likely to remain lcng 

 in an every-man-to-his-notion state. Wings and feathers 

 held up their end well. Page 142. 



Canadian Smoker-Fuel. 



Another unsettleable question was — not settled — but illu- 

 minated quite a bit at Brantford — the smoker-fuel question. 



Jacob Alpaugh has a mixed fuel, gotten up on the principle 

 of that famous drink which comprised — 



" A little lemon to make it sour, 



A little suj*ar to make it sweet, 

 A little brandy to make it strong, 

 A little water to make it weak." 



This fuel hath planer shavings for bulk, cheapness and 

 solidity ; some rotten wood to keep it from being too solid ; 

 some bits of maple bark to hold fire and keep the thing from 

 going out ; some water sprinkled on just right to keep the 

 fire from burning its own smoke. He says the dampening 

 and maple bark are specially important. Some of us will 

 still be liable to say : " The kind I use " is good enough; 

 but perhaps some will vote it of great value to themselves, 

 as compared with their previous fuel. Page 142. 



When Bees Get Short of Winter Stores. 



If your bees get out of grub in winter-time you'll have 

 to feed 'em a man. One man, it appears from page 145, 

 brought a September swarm through in extra order by feed- 

 ing in a large flight-box, in which bees brought home their 

 supplies on the wing (none of your " gittin up stairs " for 

 it). Very likely one colony saved was not enough to pay 

 for the hours spent ; but probably the experience did pay 

 for it richly. 



New Table of Contents. 



Hello ! Here's a new table of contents — minutely 

 itemized, so you can find everything you want right in one 

 spot. As I did not discover it for three weeks maybe my 

 " Eureka " will direct some other wayfarer to it who other- 

 wise would languish without it. Page 154. 



Wide Frames vs. T-Supers— Soft-Wood Fences. 



F. Greiner says he can empty 4 wide-frame supers in 

 less time than one T-super. If we should say, " Dr. Miller, 

 can you beat that?" we should surely have our genial men- 

 tor in a corner where his heart would forbid him to say, " I 

 don't know." 



The experience that soft-wood fences get almost en- 

 tirely eaten up in the course of years should be valuable to 

 those who contemplate going into fences. Page 160. 



A Sister's Experiences— Feeding Mulberries. 



The Colorado sister who reports on page 162, gives sev- 

 eral worth-repeating experiences. On a very slender har- 

 vest 6 colonies of goldens averaged 4 times as much surplus 

 as the hybrid colonies did — the latter numbering 25. She 

 finds her hybrids even worse than those recently reported 

 about cleaning up combs and sections in the fall. Very 

 generally refuse to take feed from inside feeders, and that, 

 too, when they urgently need it for the coming winter's 

 supply. And feeding crushed white mulberries, a la Dr. 

 Peiro, wouldn't run with her bees. If Dr. Peiro would only 

 give us a variety of mulberries ripening in the fall, I'm 

 pretty sure any strain of bees could be made to take them 

 (not upstairs, perhaps) ; but in ordinary mulberry season 

 bees mostly have their ideas raised above fruit-juice. And 

 in the fall, who would laboriously pick mulberries when 

 slicing up watermelons is so much easier? 



(Dur*Sister 

 Beekeepers 



j 



Conducted by Emma M. Wilson, Mareego, 111. 



A Discouraging Season With the Bees 



Dear Miss Wilson : — I promised you once that I'd 

 write you about my bee-keeping, but you see I had such a 

 very unsatisfactory season last year that I felt as though I 

 had nothing good to report. We like to report good things, 

 do we not ? But failures have iu them an element of defeat, 

 and we would rather not speak of our defeat. I wouldn't. 



Up to last season I had always had pretty good success 

 with my bees — nothing to boast of, but just fairly good ; 

 but the past summer I got very little honey, and had to feed 

 part back and about 800 pounds of sugar besides. That's 

 something new to me. I always used to congratulate my- 

 I self when I read of others feeding their bees, on my good 



