1894 



GLEANINGa IN BEE CULTURE. 



305 



have a poworfully restraining influence to keep 

 the bees from going into the sections in full 

 force, is manifestly, at a great disadvantage,"' 

 you ask how I know all that; whether the bees 

 say so: and whether it is a fact that a greater 

 amount of brood and honey below restrains 

 from going into the sections. Yes, the bees say 

 so, and it is a fact. As regards property and 

 children, bees are very human; and it is hardly 

 necessary to say more on this point than that 

 He who spake as never man spake said to the 

 human family, " Where your treasure is, there 

 will your heart be also." And the greater the 

 treasure, the stronger the restraint. You cer- 

 tainly must admit that the extra spaces be- 

 tween the combs will be occupied by the bees, 

 and that the extra brood must be fed and kept 

 warm, and that a large number of bees will be 

 required to do all this. 



Then you ask, '"If you take away all the 

 brood and all the honey from below, will the 

 bees go up into the sections with a rush?" 

 ]Most assuredly— at least, that is what my bees 

 tell me, always suiting the action to the word. 



"If the brood-chamber be chock full of brood 

 and honey, will the bees be entirely restrain- 

 ed?" you ask. No, not entirely, but power- 

 fully; and especially is it so with honey when 

 the bees are permitted to put it in quantities in 

 the upper part of the brood-combs. When you 

 accept this truth, and adapt your practice to it, 

 you will no longer spend your time fiddling with 

 '•bait sections." 



But there is so much to say that strength and 

 space would fail, and I may as well close ab- 

 ruptly here, and will do so with this question: 

 If blood and honey do not powerfully restrain 

 the bees from going up, what influence is it you 

 so sedulously seek to overcome with your bait 

 sections? R. L. Taylor. 



Lapeer. Mich.. April 7. 



[The foregoing was sent to the Doctor, who 

 replies:] 



By Dr. C. C. MiUcr. 



Dear Brother Taylor:— If all the readers of 

 Glkanings enjoy the reading of your letter as 

 much as I have done, I'm sure there's one num- 

 ber of Gleanings worth the subscription price. 

 You've such a good-natured way of knocking 

 a body down that he feels he must get up with 

 a smile, even if he has hard work to keep from 

 crying. You've pretty nearly persuaded me 

 that I'm arguing for the sake of argument, and 

 mixed me all up in general. But I'll try to hold 

 out for another round. 



I confess you make the difficulty in the mat- 

 ter of experiment look a little greater than it 

 did, and perhaps I must agree with you in that, 

 but it seems to me it ought not to take so many 

 years. C. P. Dadant thinks it ought to take 

 three years; and when you say "a series of 

 years" I'm afraid you mean even more than 

 three. But it seems to me that two years ought 

 to tell a good deal about it. 



You object to my making you say that we'll 

 " get all the bees we want by June ir)th in an 

 eight-frame hive." Then you quote what yen 

 did say. but you don't quote the words from 

 which I tried to condense your statement. 

 Here's what you said: "In 99 cases in lOf). the 

 eight-frame hive would contain all the brood 

 that can return a profit, etc.," and then you 

 spoke of rearing unprofitable bees afterward, 

 so I had no thought of quoting you unfairly, as 

 I thought you didn't want the unprofitable bees 

 that would be afterward raised. I'm sorry I 

 tried to shorten and didn't quote verbatim, for 

 I see how that word "want" may be under- 

 stood wrong. I think I meant it right. 



It isn't a bit kind of you to poke fun at me 

 because I'm trying to get bee-terms somewhat 

 straight in the dictionary. I'm having a hard 

 enough time of it without having one of my 

 friends make me cry out, "Et tu. Brute!" 

 [Printer, br' sure to use a capital B there; and 

 if you have any Latin letters, use them so that 

 will not be understood to be an English word.] 



I don't quite understand you, in speaking in 

 your former letter, about "brood that will prove 

 a damage," and now speaking as if it would 

 not be a damage: and I'm sure I'm willing the 

 word " lot " shall stand for just the amount of 

 brood you meant, whatever that may be. In 

 any case, I think the question remains open as 

 to whether " brood that is a damage" and " un- 

 profitable bees " are raised in the lat-jror hive. 



While I don't quite get the drift of some of 

 your talk, some of it is quite reassuring, and 

 makes me think that, after all, the small-sized 

 hives that I like so much better to handle may 

 be all right. 



But to come back where we started. What 

 troubles me is, that I am using small hives just 

 because others do. with some theoretical rea- 

 sons for doing so. but with veiy little evidence 

 from actual practice that, in the long run, the 

 smaller hives are better. You and others tell 

 me they are better. Still others, and among 

 them bright men and successful men, toll me 

 the smaller hives are not so good. But from, 

 neither do I get much in the way of figures as 

 practical proof. 



I am troubled, too. by that question of Da- 

 danfs: " If large hives are better for extracted, 

 why are they not better for comb? " 



I don't get as large crops with the small hives 

 as I did with the large. Just how much of that 

 is to be charged to the seasons, I don t know. 



I have much more trouble with swarming, or, 

 in other words, have much more swarming, 

 with the smaller hives. 



It is difilicult to get enough stores in the eight- 

 frame hive to last through winter and spring, 

 as the bees occupy so much of the combs with 

 brood that there is not enough room for stores. 



But the eight-frame hives are, oh so much 

 nicer and lighter to handle! A super that 

 holds 24 one- pound sections is, I think, better 



