May 1, 1902 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



281 



« The Afterthought. ^ t 



The "Old Reliable" seen through New and Unreliable Qlasses. 

 By e. B. HASTY, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, O. 



BEKS— RACES AND SPECIES— DEEP-TUBB FLOWEKS. 



Most species ill Nature have few different races within 

 the species, or none at all. Apis mellifera has distinct 

 races, so many that it is doubtful if any other natural spe- 

 cies can equal it in that resi)ect. This is a hint for us. 

 Prof. Cook thinks that we shall find the bee very respon- 

 sive to intelligent breeding. In addition to the advantages 

 of long-tubed flowers, which he mentions, there is aucither 

 important one : They hold and keep a supply of nectar 

 which lasts over and through the spells of weather in which 

 none is secreted. I have seen dry hay in the mow in which 

 the clover heads were decidedly sweet to chew. Page 1S3. 



HONEY AND BEE STATISTICS. 



It took lots of able, very able, guessing to get so far out 

 of the old, inflated, and worthless estimates, and so nearly 

 down to hard-pan, as are the Gleanings' estimates of honey- 

 statistics on page 18S. And this estimate makes the per 

 capita over two pounds per person, which same might be a 

 little hard to prove up. It would be ten pounds for each 

 family of five ; and so few families actually consume that, 

 and such an immense number of them never eat an ounce 

 of honey from one year's end to another, that a grain of 

 doubt is still permissible. Were it not that bakers and 

 other big operators take so large a share of the extracted, 

 the grain of doubt would be something more than a grain. 



Glad Uncle Sam has gotten around at last to have some 

 bee-statistics. Of course, we are not to take them exactly 

 as we take the multiplication-table and the Sermon on the 

 Mount. We may safely draw a little on our own inner con- 

 sciousness in digesting them. Manifestly the number of 

 people keeping bees — 707,261 — is noi an exagge/aiion. 

 That's something to the good — and almost new. People 

 are not very likely to report bees where there are none, that 

 is, not when guessing colonies by the county-j ields to 

 actual enumeration. We may take also as safe on one side 

 the total number of colonies — 4,109,626 — and the very 

 modest valuation, which figures $2.50 per colony. When it 

 comes to the value of the product it's more of a guessing- 

 match ; but the tendency to exaggerate in guessing may be 

 much more than balanced by individual census-takers, as- 

 suming that there are no bees in territory where such is not 

 the fact. This last source of error we can know little or 

 nothing about. The two are not for the same year, never- 

 theless it may be worth while to put the United States 

 figures and the Gleanings' estimate side and side ; 



VALUE OF PRODUCT. 



United States g6.e64,90-l 



(ileanings' minimum 8,000,000 



POUNDS OP nONEY. 



United States total 61,196,160 



Gleanings' (comb only) 50,000,000 



Gleanings' total 175,000,000 



As for the number of pounds, I'll guess that the truth 

 lies between the two somewhere. Page 211. 



H.\NDI,ING COMBS OF HONEY. 



It seems to me that if Mr. Doolittle was an extracting 

 fellow, and if he tossed heavy combs with the tips of his 

 middle fingers for hours, the finger muscles would cry out, 

 "We are sore, sir." Try the method, of course — then if you 

 don't entirely like it try this : Grasp the comb a,t the cor- 

 ners with a grip like a vise. Imagine yourself about to 

 pitch a base-ball with the center of the earth for home-plate. 

 Pitch it. In other words, don't let the comb go down by its 

 own weight and be jerked back, but jerk it both ways, being 

 especially snappy on the down motion. But it won't do to 

 try this on tender combs' which are not built down to the 

 bottom-bar. Page 185. 



TOO MUCH RAIN AND GOOD HONEY-FLOWS. 



Chili, down at latitude 40, appears to be a wet place. I 

 figure 2,860 millimeters to be 9 feet 4 inches — more rain 

 than we want sprinkled over us while we are trying to feed 



up the bees — especially as we get the idea that there is no 

 dry season there. Evenly distributed, it would give quite a 

 heavy rain for every day of the year— one-third of an inch. 

 Wonder if this too much rain bears .some sort of relation to 

 the very excellent honey-flows found just north of the rain- 

 belt. Page 1H7. 



FASTENING NO-DKIP STRIPS IN CASES. 



Apparently S. I). Buell has a winning idea for getting 

 the strips on the bottom of honey-cases. Slotted board 

 three inches wide to hold them just where wanted, and nail 

 them on the bottom-board before the rest of the case is put 

 together. But T. K. Bingham thinks that first-rate paste 

 will do instead of nails, and save possible leaks through 

 nail-holes. Hardly know if the Buell method could come in 

 when paper trays are to be added. Pages 189 and 219. 



TEMPERATURE IN A WINTER BEE-REPOSITORV. 



Wouldn't that corrected error on page 190 be a little 

 more ideal if it were corrected some more? (Jet it up 

 another 10 degrees, and say 45 ; 35 looks like hovering too 

 close to the freezing-point. Pages 156 and 190. 



Questions and Answers. 



CONDUCTED BY 



Z>R. O. O. JHU^I^ER, Afareng-o, 111, 



(The Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal ofiBce, or to Dr. Miller 



direct, -when he will answer them here. Please do not ask the 



Doctor to send answers bv mail. — Editor. 1 



Bulldins a Bee-House-Finding Queens. 



I am very glad you called my attention to the question I 

 should have asked above all others. But it is never to late 

 to mend one's ways and profit by mistakes made. I will 

 therefore collect a few of the many questions I would like to 

 ask, and bother you once more. I will give you a pen 

 description of the bee-house I have been thinking of making. 



It is to be 10x12 feet, with an 8-foot studding 2x6 inches, 

 and boarded up on both sides with matched lumber, and 

 tarred paper between the boards : studding on both sides. 

 That will keep the sawdust from leaking out in case there 

 would be loose knots in the lumber. 



I will put tarred paper on the outside, and then side the 

 house up with good siding, and place one foot of saw-dust 

 on the ceiling. To keep the house warm when it gets too 

 cold, I will build a storm-shed in the same manner, and in 

 the shed put a tank of water that has pipes running through 

 the wall to the room with the bees in, so arranged that there 

 will be a complete circulation of water. I will heat the 

 water with a large lamp placed under the tank : this tank 

 will have small tubes running from end to end, the same as 

 a boiler with a tight-fitting hood on top, and a small pipe 

 passing out of the roof. In this way there will be no fumes 

 in the bee-house, and by turning the lamp high it will heat 

 the water faster, and by letting it burn low it will keep the 

 water just warm. 



I have been thinking of using the house to keep bees in 

 all summer, and in winter store a few more colonies that I 

 might have in my yard. Now : 



1. Would you advise me to build such a bee-house and 

 operate it in that way ? 



2. When I took my 6 colonies out last week I found 5 of 

 them had a good deal of brood, and one had none at all, nor 

 any eggs, either ; and the second daj' this one hive had no 

 bees, either. Where did the bees go? 



3. What made the 5 colonies rear so much brood while in 

 the cellar ? The temperature was all the way from 38 to 47 

 degrees all winter, and the bees very quiet ? 



4. I found 1 or 2 cells of brood sealed here and there in 

 all parts of the frames. What does this indicate ? 



5. Will it injure the bees any to rear brood in the cellar? 

 and will the chilly weather we have now (25 degrees above) 

 harm the brood any if warmly packed on top ? 



6. I would like to do away with hunting up the queen, 

 and have thought of placing the colonj' I wish to divide on 

 top of a new hive with full sheets of foundation in the 

 frames, and when I find eggs in the lower hive take the 

 upper one off and set it bj' the side of the new one, and in 



