1886 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



857 



that the sun may raise tlie tenipeiaiure to a 

 high degree. 



My friends, if you want evaporation to go 

 on rapidly yon must also have a strong cur- 

 rent of air tlu'ongh the room. A few days 

 ago I undertool^: to dry some green corn 

 placed on shallow pans in the greenhouse. 

 It got very hot indeed, but it just soured 

 very promptly without getting dry a bit. 

 The same pans, placed in the open air in the 

 sun, dried the corn at once, without any 

 souring at all. In the latter case the air 

 was constantly changing above the corn. In 

 the greenhouse it was, to some extent, close 

 or contined. We did not have ventilators 

 enough to get a constant change in tlie air 

 above the corn, as it gets when it is out in 

 the wind as well as in the sun. 



The following letter, bearing on this mat- 

 ter, is just at hand : 



I shipped 5 iron - jacket 10 - gallon eiins, with ex- 

 tracted honey, weighing 115 pounds each, last Octo- 

 ber or November, to Messrs. , and today I 



received the inclosed account. Please read account, 

 letter, etc., and review circumstances. It secins to 

 me proper for you to advertise such merchants as 

 frauds, and protect the apiarist from losing- his 

 hard-earned products. Chas. Dorb'man. 



Pittsburg, Texas, Oct. 5, 1880. 



The commission men returned 2i- cts. per 

 lb. for the above honey, saying that it so 

 soured they were obliged to get rid of it for 

 what it would bring. After paying the 

 freight and all other expenses, friend I), re- 

 ceived less than one dollar for five iron-jack- 

 et ten-gallon cans full of honey. Now, it is 

 quite probable, that, had the commission 

 men understood the matter referred to 

 above, the honey could all have been re- 

 stored to a good article with a very little 

 trouble. 



QUEENS FOR HONEY, INSTEAD OK (JUEENS 

 FOR YELLOAV BANDS. 



Dr. Miller remarked that he had two colo- 

 nies of Italian bees that gathered white hon- 

 ey, resembling clover in taste, at the same 

 time that all the rest of the apiary was gath- 

 ering dark honey from buckwheat. Others 

 have probably had a similar experience. The 

 honey was probably gathered from red clo- 

 ver, as this is in bloom at the same time 

 with buckwheat. Well, Dr. ^Miller asked the 

 (luestion, if it were not likely that he could 

 get a strain of bees that would gather clover 

 honey in the fall by raising queens from 

 these two colonies. I presume that all pres- 

 ent at the convention had no doubt but this 

 trait could be encouraged and lixed in a few 

 generations; but Prof. McLain remarked that 

 we want to raise drones from these desirable 

 colonies — not qi(ceni< ; for it is a recognized 

 fact in producing new strains, that the male 

 could have by far the greater inlluence. For 

 instance, as an experiment I have been rais- 

 ing chicks from some of my small hens that 

 were extra good producers. One of these 

 hens was a Brown I^eghorn, and a pretty 

 dark-colored one at that. She was crossed 

 with a Light Brahma, and th(^ greater part 

 of her chicks closely resembled the male 

 bird, although in size and movement they 

 much resembled the little dark mother. "I 

 made a similar cross with Lang" Imus, and 



these chicks, too, resembled the male bird so 

 much that they were very fair Light IJrah- 

 mas. 



Again, my cousin, D. E. Fenn, of Tall- 

 madge. ()., is an importer of hornless cattle. 

 As a matter of course, he talks eloquently 

 in regard to the advantage of cattle without 

 horns. The fact that they have no danger- 

 ous weapon, ready to use at a moment^s no- 

 tice, removes temptation, and therefore they 

 are of mild and gentle disposition, etc. These 

 cattle were imported from across the ocean, 

 and the males are, many of them, worth a 

 great pile of money. People ask liow they 

 are to get their money back on such an ex- 

 pensive investment. Now, here is the point : 

 Cousin Fenn has experimented largely in 

 crossing common stock, with the view of 

 shortening or getting rid of their horns ; 

 and, strange to tell, wiiere the male parent 

 is of this hornless breed, no matter what the 

 female may be, the progeny have lost their 

 horns ; but where the male has horns, and 

 the female none, the progeny hold on to the 

 horns. So you see that Prof. McLain may 

 be right in scolding because we talk contin- 

 ually about getting queens for new blood, 

 and" say so little about the drones. Now, 

 then : Wlien you pay a good deal of money 

 foi- an imported queen, or a choice home- 

 bred queen, if you please, go right at it at 

 once and prevent drone-rearing in all your 

 other stocks, but encourage an abundance 

 of drones from your imported, or choice 

 queen, in every way in your power ; that is, 

 make this (lueen furnish drones enough to 

 meet all the young (jueens you raise, or that 

 may be raised without your knowledge. 

 wikp: cloth for separators. 



Friend Betsinger, who was one of the first 

 to use tin separators as we now use them, 

 has been experimenting a good many years 

 on different materials for separators. He 

 has settled down upon galvanized wire cloth 

 with meshes large enotigh to let the worker- 

 bees pass through. Of course, a greater 

 space is re(iuired between the combs of cap- 

 ped honey where even a wire-cloth separator 

 is used ; but he thinks, aside from that, the 

 bees go to work in sections just as well as if 

 no separators were used at all. He says the 

 bees build no bridge-combs against this wire 

 cloth. As nearly as I can judge by the looks 

 of the wire cloth', it is the same thing we ad- 

 vertise and sell for fish-ponds, four meshes 

 to the inch. 



THE PKOPEH. SPACING OF FRAMES, 

 A LA POND. 



THE RESULTS AS TIUEI) bV A SCHOOLMASTER. 



fHE editorial comments on Mr. J. E. Pond's 

 article in Gleanings of Oct. 1, p. 779, open 

 for discussion a (jucstion of groat interest to 

 every beekeeper who is working- for comb 

 honey. I can not agree with friend Pond's 

 statement, that " the production of brood is in our 

 own hands," throug-h the proper spacing of frames. 

 In my experiments during- the past summer, with 

 hives constructed on the Heddon plan, I noticed 

 that sealed honey and sealed brood occupied cells 

 of a uniform dei)th. These combs were built on 

 full sheets of foundation; and when honey and 



