174 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 1. 



VARIOUS MATTERS. 



Oueens La\ ing on Side of Coml) Furthest from 

 Brood. 



BY G. M. DOOIJTTl.Ii. 



I chanced to pick up the August loth GLEAN- 

 INGS, ISity, a day or two ago, and in glancing 

 over Stray Straws my e\ e fell on this: "Did 

 you ever notice that, in enlarging the brood- 

 nest, the queen often lays first on the side of a 

 fresh comb furthest from the brood-nest ? I 

 wonder why. " And the editor adds, "I nev- 

 er noticed it." 



Why my eye chanced to fall on this was 

 that, in reading the matter before, I had mark- 

 ed the place with a leadpencil, in such a way 

 that it tcl 1 me I was to say a few wor Is in the 

 matter, for Gleanings. So, here goes al- 

 though nearly six months have elapsed since 

 I should have written what I had to say. 



I was very much surprised that Bro. E. R. 

 Root had never noticed this matter, for it was 

 one of the things I noticed away back in the 

 early seventies, when nearly every one was ad- 

 vocating the spreading of brood to stimulate 

 colonies ; and as I was also advocating the 

 same thing in print, I expected that this thing 

 would be hurled back at me to prove that the 

 theory of having all eggs laid in the center of 

 the brood-nest, wht-ie it is the warmest, was 

 wrong, because, according to nature, the eggs 

 were nearly always laid on the outside cf the 

 brood which the bees had. Well I have not 

 the time nor the disposition to go over all the 

 ground in this matter now, but will say that, 

 at all times when the bees are enlarging their 

 brood-nest rapidh', and when pollen is also 

 coming in rapidly, the first eggs laid in any 

 comb near the brood, but so far not contain- 

 ing brood, are laid in the cells of said comb 

 on the side furthest from the bro :)d. the queen 

 going clear around the comb to this furthest 

 side to lay the first eggs, instead of laj'ing 

 them in this new comb right opposite the 

 brood in the comb already icjupird. If I 

 have noticed this once, I have a thcasind 

 times, and for a long time wondered why it 

 was so, as did Dr. Miller in his Straw; and the 

 only satisfactory solving of the matter, to my 

 mind, is that the pollen has all to do with it; 

 for when little pollen is coming in I have gen- 

 erally found the first eggs next the comb hav- 

 ing brood already in it. When pollen comes 

 in plentifully the bees pack it in the cells im- 

 mediately surrounding the brood, and hence 

 it comes about that, when the hard maple is 

 in bloom, in this locality, we have combs next 

 the brood-nest solid, or very nearly so, on the 

 side of the comb next the brood, on either 

 side of the brood-nest, so that the queen can 

 find no vacant cells to lay in; hence she is 

 obliged to go clear around the comb to a point 

 opposite the center of the brood in the comb 

 adjoining, to lay, when the brood is on the in- 

 crease. Immediately on her doing this, pollen 

 is rushed into the cells of the next comb op- 

 posite the eggs she is laying; this, in turn, 

 compels her to go to the opposite side of this 

 comb to lay her eggs also, and thus it keeps 

 on till the outside of the hive is reached. 



Soon after she has filled the cells furthest from 

 the brood with eggs, hundreds of lirvae are 

 hatching in the comb opposite the cells which 

 are filled with pollen, this causing the bees to 

 remo\e this pollen for use m the manufacture 

 of larval food, when the queen now fills these 

 cells with eggs, though she often scatters eggs 

 all through this pollen mass, if there are any 

 \acant cells, before the general remoxal of pol- 

 len. From this cause we always find, during 

 proficient brood-rearing in May and the first 

 half of June, the first eggs and the first sealed 

 brood on the outside of the combs, or on the 

 sides furthest from the center of the brood- 

 ntst. 



assorting sections. 

 Naughty Dr. Miller wants to get Doolittle 

 and Hasty to fighting. See fourth Straw in 

 February 1st number of Gleanings. Well, 

 my sleeves are all rolled up, and I am ready, 

 so I will just pitch in without any further pre- 

 liminaries. My honey is all stored in sections 

 which are held in wide frames, four sections 

 to each wide frame. As these wide frames are 

 undamped, the eye soon decides to which 

 grade the honey belongs, and so I quickly set 

 those suitable for fancy in the XXX place ; 

 those for No. 1 in the XX place, and the rest 

 in the X place, always having a wide frame of 

 four sections standing at each of these three 

 places as a sample for the eye to ' ' work ' ' from. 

 My .shipping-cases hold twenty sections; and 

 so, as soon as I have five wide frames in any 

 one ( f th- se three places, I take the sections 

 from the frames, place them on a little tray, 

 set the tray on the scraping- block, and the 

 shipping-case close by; then, as I scrape, I set 

 them in the shipping-case as .scm as all pro- 

 polis is nicel)- cleaned off. There, doctor, I 

 know you will n Jt want Hasty and Doc^litlle 

 to ficiht again, as you will see that Doolittle's 

 plan is only the Morton-Niver plan, with a lit- 

 tle variation; and I had never thought the 

 matter of enough consequence to mention it 

 before; and until E. R. R. wrote up Morton 

 I did not know that any one else worked as I 

 was doing, nor that there was any importance 

 attached to the thing, anyway. And this re- 

 minds me that, think as much as we will, 

 there are many little kinks about bee-keeping 

 that are of great help to us, that we use for 

 years, without even being thankful enough 

 for them to tell of the matter to others. I 

 much prefer the X's for rules in grading to 

 any thing else, for these can be put in the 

 handholds of the case, out of sight from an}- 

 one except the one who is in the secret. 



facing comb honev. 

 I read Aaron Snyder's article and the edi- 

 tor's comments, under the above heading, with 

 great interest, and wish to say a few words in 

 the matter. As the sections are taken out of 

 the wide frames, I am on the lookout for the 

 "face" side of each section; and out of the 

 20 that are placed on the tray I set eight, each 

 having an extra "pretty face," by themselves 

 on one side of the tray, while the twelve not 

 having quite so pretty faces are set on the oth- 

 er side of the tray. The eight are scraped 

 first, and their " rosy cheeks " turned out, so 



