1894 



GLEANINdS IN BEE CULTURE. 



463 



Italians will be inside workers; and if this 

 change was made so this time comes in the 

 height of the honey-flow you will see none but 

 black bees going in and out of the entrance; 

 while. If you take a look at the sections, you 

 will find only Italian bees there at work, or 

 vice versa, according as the change of queens 

 happens to be. Thus it will be seen that all 

 plans to save the held beos traveling into the 

 brood-nest of any hive, by way of " comb-lad- 

 ders," etc., are fallacious. 



Again, Bro. Hains seems to expect, if they do 

 swarm, and the queen happens to squeeze 

 through the zinc, she will stop on the two out- 

 side combs; but, according to my experience 

 with the Jones plan, this will not be the case; 

 for the queen is just as anxious to get entirely 

 out and away from the hive she has formerly 

 lived in as any of .the other bees which go with 

 the swarm. Another thing I notice is, that 

 " undesirable drones should be kept in the 

 brood-nest." Don't you do it, for there is no 

 one thing that makes me feel " edgewise" to- 

 ward perforated zinc as does this matter of its 

 confining the drones to the hive, where they 

 rush around pell-mell every day from one to 

 three o'clock trying to get out, and kicking up 

 a disturbance generally till their life is worn 

 out of the them; and after they die they are 

 still worse than they were when alive; for the 

 workers will tug and pull at them in the vain 

 efiort to remove them from the hive, till the 

 hair, legs, and wings are all pulled oft' ; and, 

 finally, if there are too many of them they clog 

 up the zinc, and rot or ferment, and become a 

 stinking, sickening mass, unless removed by 

 the apiarist. No, no, Bro. Hains; either remove 

 all drone comb from the apartment where the 

 queen is, or else provide some means for the 

 drones to get out of the queen's apartment. 



Again, I notice. " Virgin queens, being small- 

 er, will be able to get through the excluder to 

 take their flight." By close experimenting 

 and measuring, I find that the thorax of a 

 virgin queen is just as large when she is hatch- 

 ed, or six days old, as it ever is; and as it is the 

 thorax which prevents a queen or drone going 

 through the perforated zinc, any queen that 

 can go through when a virgin, can go through 

 when she is fertile, providing she exerts the 

 same energy to get through later on in life. 

 This she is not apt to do, except in cases of 

 swarming, and this is the reason why so many 

 queens in full laying powers do not go through 

 the zinc, while virgins do, and not because the 

 virgin or fertile queen at swarming time has a 

 smaller abdomen. Lastly, liro. II. assumes, and 

 this assumption is accorded to him by thecditor 

 in his footnotes, thai the bees dislike to go 

 through the perforated zinc. Now, if this is 

 really so, we as apiarists of the nineteenth 

 century had better dispense with it, only in 

 cases where it is absolutely necessary to use it, 

 and have it go out to the world that, whenever 



we do use it, we do it with the full understand- 

 ing that we do so at a sacrifice of dollars' worth 

 of honey to accomplish the purpose we are 

 after. How is it, brother and sister bee-keep- 

 ers? are we using perforated metal at a loss in 

 honey ? 

 Borodino, N. Y. 



[This is timely and to the point. There is 

 always some one of our old veterans, if not the 

 editor, who is prepared to say whether an 

 idea is old and whether there is any thing in it. 

 As you intimate, we were not prepared to say 

 ourselves that loaded bees would take the 

 shortest route to the super. If it is true, as 

 you say, that they turn their loads over to the 

 young bees and they in turn deposit it in the 

 combs, there would be nothing in the new plan. 

 Mr. Doolittle has made quite a study of this 

 matter, and, if we are correct, his conclusions 

 have been indorsed by one or two others. But 

 over against this there is this fact: Years ago 

 we once left, in the height of the honey-flow, 

 some combs leaning against the entrance. The 

 loaded worker^, instead of going into the en- 

 trance, deposited their loads themselves in the 

 aforesaid combs ; and one or two observers 

 have since said that they would also store 

 in the first two combs near the entrance, leav- 

 ing the young bees to transfer it to the supers. 



But you say that this plan before us was tried 

 by D. A. Jones and others — yourself included — 

 and that there proved to be nothing in it. It is 

 indeed important to know this at this time. 

 In the mean time let us have facts from actual 

 observation as to what the field bees do with 

 their loads, as a rule, on arriving at the en- 

 trance. Definite knowledge on this point may 

 make it necessary to make some modifications 

 in the brood-chamber. Your last point is well 

 taken, if bees do dislike to go through zinc. 

 We had not thought of it in that light before. 

 The mere fact that bees will store tons of honey 

 above it, does not look as if they objected to it. 

 So far, extensive bee-keepers say that they can 

 not discover that it makes any difference in 

 the yield of honey. 



Later. — Since writing the foregoing we have 

 received a letter from H. W. Funk, of Norval, 

 III., stating that, five years ago, he tried a non- 

 swarming plan, quite similar to the Hains plan 

 on 10 colonies. They all swarmed, he says, and 

 sooner than the rest of his colonies. — Ed.] _j 



CALIFORNIA ECHOES. 



By RiunhJer. 



One dollar per colony is the assessment on 

 bees in California. 



Chalon Fowls' letter to the boys is not so 

 much boys' play, after all, out here. Hundreds 

 of colonies are caught that way in decoy hives, 

 and not a few make quite a business catching 

 and selling such swarms. 



Of course, Dr. M., there is more honey left in 

 the brood-chamber when the colony is run for 

 comb honey. There is also much honey left in 

 the brood-chamber when the colony is run for 

 extracted honey, if there is a queen-excluding 

 honey-board in use. 



Oh, no! we never laid up any thing against 

 the manufacturers of the secret flat-bottomed 

 foundation. This is a free country, and every- 

 body has a right to conduct any legitimate 



