1886 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUllE. 



51 



obliged to you for your vivid accoiint of 

 your profitable visit. At the Detroit con- 

 vention a pleasant - looking man came up 

 and said he wanted to shake hands with his 

 benefactor, or something of that sort. I 

 asked him what he meant by that, and he 

 said he was A. E. Manum, and asked me if 

 I remembered the time I advised everybody 

 to send for a sample of his white-poplar sec- 

 tions. I told him I ought to remember it, 

 because it was a pretty hard struggle with 

 conscience before I decided to admit that 

 somebody else was making better goods 

 than I was, and to advise the friends to send 

 there for them. He said my notice so over- 

 whelmed him with orders tliat it gave him 

 his first start in business, and enabled him 

 to build up such an apiary as friend Martin 

 tells us about.— Over twenty tons of comb 

 honey as the px-oduct of a single season ! 

 Just think of it !— In regard to tlie reversing 

 device used by friend JVL, I will explain that 

 it is quite similar to our own, only that it is 

 made of a strip of heavy hoop iron ; and the 

 last end, where it comes up over the top-bar, 

 is turned straight downward, and snaps into 

 a saw-cut maae at the proper place across 

 the top-bar to the friime. This device was 

 submitted to us some time last summer, 

 ■but we can not remember now who sent it. 



ma I ^ 



DISTURBING BEES IN CELLARS. 



FACTS AND SUGGESTIONS FROM C. C. MILLER. 



X CAN not believe it is a good thing for bees to 

 /aP be disturbed in winter, and j-et I am obliged to 

 ^l confess it is by no means so harmful as I for- 

 ■*- merly thought. One winter I had a hive so 

 placed that it got a pretty good kicli about 

 once a day. I could not see that it was any the 

 worse for it. 



LENGTH OF LIFE AFTER STINGING. 



In trying to ascertain how long a bee will live aft- 

 er losing its sting, the experiments, so far as I rec- 

 ollect, have been faulty in one particular. The 

 bee, after losing its sting, is caged or confined, and 

 this alone would shorten its life. To make the ex- 

 periment at all satisfactory, an uninjured bee 

 should be confined along with the stingless one, 

 and the difference in length of life noted. Care 

 should be taken that the bees should not be injured 

 in handling. I have many times seen so much of 

 the viscera of the bee come away with the sting 

 that I can hardly believe the bee could live very 

 long; but I have a good many times been surprised 

 to see bees that showed evident marks of having 

 lost their sting, lively and bright in appearance, in 

 colonies that I had no reason to believe had been 

 in any way disturbed for a day or two, and no sting- 

 ing going on at the time of my handling them. Of 

 course, ihey may have stung some person or other 

 bees, without my knowledge, but I am afraid we 

 don't know much positively about this matter. 



BAREHEADED BEES. 



I have just been looking in A B C to find what Mr. 

 Root says, but can't find it. I feel pretty sure, 

 however, that somewhere he has said it is all right 

 and properto have young bee& in cells nearly ready 

 to hatch, with no capping over them. For several 

 years I have had the impression that such things 

 were not all right, and rather settled upon it that. 



when 1 found bareheaded bees to any extent in a 

 hive, I wanted a new queen in that hive. I still 

 lean in the same direction; but until the past sum- 

 mer 1 had no idea what was the immediate cause of 

 the trouble. I think it is the wax-worm. Did you 

 never notice that the bareheaded bees were more 

 or less in rows, somewhat as you leave uncapped 

 cells when digging out their galleries in search of 

 worms? Another thing: Did you ever see any 

 bareheaded or uncapped grubs older than the or- 

 dinai'y age for remaining uncapped, say about a 

 week from the egg, and yet so young that the head 

 of the young bee was not plainly formed? I don't 

 think I ever did. Now, the young bee is ordinarily 

 sealed up about 11 days; and if the bees leave them 

 unsealed, we should be able to find them at all 

 stages of development; but I never saw one un- 

 sealed presenting the appearance of a larva within 

 two or three days after the time of sealing. Since 

 writing the above I find this in A B C: "You can 

 rest assured that the bees almost always know 

 when it is safe to let the children's heads go uncov- 

 ered." Now, I don't quite think they ever leave them 

 uncovered, till the wax-worm uncovers them, or 

 runs a gallery over the bees in the cells for the bees 

 to dig away, thus leaving the cells uncovei'cd. If 

 the bees think it safe to leave some of them un- 

 covered, why not in larger patches? and yet, did 

 you ever see a patch so large that you could laj' a 

 silver dollar upon it, and have all the cells under it 

 uncovered? Perhaps by observing next summer 

 we can settle the matter. 



COLOR OF POLLEN. 



It is a thing of some interest, and at times may 

 beof importance, to knowthe sources of pollen; and 

 it would be a help in this direction if we knew the 

 color of the different pollens. Suppose the juve- 

 niles, and elders too, for that matter, send in, next 

 summer, lists of the ditt'erent colors of the pollens 

 they have observed by seeing the bees at work on 

 the plants. From this, Ernest might make a pretty 

 full table; and then if it were put in the A B C it 

 could be referred to at any time. I will start by 

 giving: Plantain, white; poppy, black (1 think like- 

 ly, however, the color of poppy pollen may vary 

 with the color of the flower); burdock. I thiuK it is 

 white, but I'm not sure; then I was going to give 

 white clover, brown; but I don't feel very sure 

 without having it before me, showing pretty plain- 

 ly that my powei's of observation have not been as 

 carefully educated as they should have been. For 

 the young, this may be an important step in their 

 education. 



LENGTH AND CALIBER OF SUB- VENTILATING PIPE. 



Perhaps we are not far out of the way in settling 

 upon three or four feet as the best depth, all things 

 considered, to lay tiles for sub-ventilation. Now, 

 what is the best length, and what sized tile is best? 

 The larger the pipe, the more air it will admit, but, 

 at the same time, the colder it will be. The longer 

 the pipe the warmer the air; but a pipe a mile 

 long would probably not make the air much warmer 

 than one 200 feet long. If one tube is made of four- 

 inch tile, and another of six-inch, the six-inch one 

 will admit more than twice as much air as the four- 

 inch, but it would have to be longer to admit air as 

 warm as the four-inch. If the cost of the tile be 

 the main item of expense, then it may be best to 

 liave six or eight inch tile, and run it deep enough 

 and far enough to secure the desired warmth. If 

 labor is principally considered, it might be better to 



