188S 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



681 



bottom-bars strike on the top-bars below. If you 

 remove and replace your surplus by cases, these 

 suspended frames are making you the same tearful 

 trouble. We find necessary trouble enoug-h with 

 suspended frames besides the unnecessary one in 

 question. Place the break-joint sink honey-board 

 over the brood-chamber, and all of this is at an end. 

 Such a houeyboard should last a lifetime when 

 properly made, and in no way does it tend to de- 

 crease the amount of surplus store. I believe the 

 brothers 1 have mentioned either did not under- 

 stand the question or have not had experience in 

 that direction. Now, friends, if you wish history to 

 repeat itself, why simply oppose what I have said 

 above, and afterward, quietly and without giving 

 much credit, fall into line with it, adoi^t it, and some 

 of you claim it for your own? I wish I were as sure 

 of a good honey crop next year, or a third of a crop 

 this year, as 1 am that the future intelligent honey- 

 producer will laugh at a man who raised comb or 

 extracted honey without a honey-board. 

 Dowagiac, Mich., Aug. 4, 1888. James Heddon. 



Friend H., yon touch on something that 

 perhaps is not clear, or at least has not been 

 clearly brought out, to a good many of us. 

 It is this : Suppose we wish, for certain rea- 

 sons, to contract or dimiTiish the size of the 

 brood-chamber just before the honey-flow 

 commences. If we take out the combs and 

 move up the division-board, or put in a 

 dummy, we, as a general thing, in so doing 

 throw some of the sections above, over the 

 dummy or over the division-board. Will the 

 bees go into these sections and fill them with 

 honey as readily as sections that are right 

 over the brood-combs ; or, if you choose, 

 sections that are placed immediately over 

 combs containing honey and pollen in the 

 brood - chamber y In the latter case, the 

 bees could pass over the combs containing 

 honey and pollen, and up above them into 

 sections. The dummy or division-board, 

 however, does not, a rule, allow the bees to 

 cluster on them and go over on both sides. 

 Now, I greatly prefer to have all the sec- 

 tions above combs of honey, or, better still, 

 combs of brood. Then how can we contract 

 unless we contract our case of sections also? 

 Why. simply enough : Contract by moving 

 the bottom of the hive upivard, instead of 

 moving either side of the hive in toward 

 the center, and this is exactly what you have 

 done with your shallow brood-combs. You 

 move the bottom of the hive up, however, 

 half way to tlie top at every jump. Friend 

 Langstroth, when he gave us the shallow L. 

 frames, moved the bottom of the hive up a 

 good deal more than his predecessors did. 

 Many people ridiculed him for so doing ; 

 and there are some of the brethren who 

 write for Gleanings who say even yet that 

 they won't have any of those shallow things 

 in their yards. The " shallow things,'' how- 

 ever, have made their way, and may be 

 something as shallow as the new Heddon 

 hive is going to obtain favor. I hope it will, 

 for I like the idea of doing all our contract- 

 ing by hoisting up the bottom-board and 

 letting the sides of the hives stay where 

 they are ; at least I would not move them 

 any closer to each other after having got as 

 close as eight frames. In regard to the 

 honey-board, while I am not yet convinced 



that we can get as much honey with it as 

 without it, I am afraid we shall have to keep 

 it, especially if we do not succeed in discov- 

 ering any other way to prevent the bees 

 from hitching the frames in the upper story, 

 to the top of the frames in the lower story ; 

 and I believe that most of us are agreed in 

 giving you, friend Heddon, a great deal of 

 credit for stirring us up on the honey-board 

 matter, and for showing us what it is good 

 for, as well as on this matter of moving up 

 the bottom of the hive when we want to 

 contract. 



M I ^ 



GALLS, OR EXCBESCENCES. 



PROF. COOK TELLS US ABOUT THEM ON BASS- 

 WOOD AND OTHER LEAVES. 



R. E. D. HOWELL, of New Hampton, Orange 

 Co., N. v., sends me a basswood leaf thick- 

 ly covered with wart-like galls. He asks 

 me to describe to the readers of Glean- 

 ings these excrescences, and explain their 

 cause. As this is a matter of general interest, I am 

 pleased to accede to his request; the more so, as 

 our maples, both hard and soft, are similarly affect- 

 ed. 



These galls, which are brown in basswood, and 

 wart-shaped, are a beautiful crimson in maple, and 

 are teat-like, or cylindrical, or, better, sub-conical, 

 in form. These galls are simply excessive growths 

 of the leaf, thus forming a tumor on the upper 

 side, which may also reach beyond the lower 

 surface. This gall is hollow inside, and harbors 

 and sustains numerous long four-footed mites. A 

 minute opening on the undet surface of the leaf 

 enables the adult mites to forsake the old home 

 and become squattei'S— homesteaders we may say- 

 on some other portion of the leaf. Thus a leaf or 

 tree which shows only dozens of these galls in May 

 will show thousands in August. The mites are long 

 worm-like animals, white in color, with sharp 

 mouth-organs, and four feet near the mouth. They 

 are very minute, requiring a microscope for their 

 study. Indeed, we can hardly see them at all with- 

 out a good lens. The oviduct ends under the body, 

 and they lay very large eggs in proportion to the 

 size of the body. Often the mites are so transpar- 

 ent that the great eggs can be seen in their bodies. 



I do not think these mites do very serious harm. 

 A silver-leaf maple near our old bee-house is crim- 

 son each summer with these phytoptous mites, yet 

 it is healthy and vigorous, and makes a good 

 growth each season. 



Though these mites are so different in form, and 

 have only four legs, they are plainly related to the 

 other mites, which are rounded in form and have 

 eight legs— such as the wood-tick, cattle-tick, sugar 

 and cheese mites, chicken and bee mites, red spi- 

 der, itch-mite, etc. Occasionally some sharp-eyed 

 housewife sends me Hour or sugar alive with mites. 

 Such lively provisions please not the average cook. 

 She likes to have her flour rise, but does not like to 

 see it walk off. 



Other animals form galls. Thus cynips, or hy- 

 menopterous four-winged gall-tlies make galls on 

 the oak, some of which furnish nectar. Ceoidom- 

 ian, or two-winged gall-flies, form galls on the wil- 

 lows and other plants, while plant-lice form galls 

 on species of poplar, on the elm, and other plants 

 and trees. Often the lice secrete (Jelicious nectar, 



