• DELVOTE-Dj 



•To -Bee. 



•andHoNEY 

 •AND HOMZ, 



'ubiishedy THEJ\'|1^00Y CO. 



Vol. XXVI. 



AUG. I, 1898. 



No. 15 



This year nearly all my hives (eight- 

 frame) have brood in the outside combs, prob- 

 ably because so little honey was coming in. 



A QUEEN is said to be a perfect female, and 

 a worker an undeveloped female. Is that fair 

 to the worker, for parts fully developed in her 

 are left undeveloped in the queen ? Each is 

 perfect in its place. 



Possibly beginners might overdo top ven- 

 tilation ; but I feel safe in saying that, when- 

 ever a colony is strong enough to occupy with 

 brood a second story, it's well to have an en- 

 trance to each story. 



Did you ever think how rapidly a young 

 bee grows? Dr. Donhoflf found that a queen 

 larva increased in weight 1500 times in 5 days. 

 According to that, a baby weighing 10 lbs. at 

 birth would weigh ~]A. tons when 5 days old. 



That was carelessness inexcusable in 

 me not to give the author of that quotation on 

 page 537 about the queen laying in center of 

 brood-nest where the eggs should be. Turn 

 to Gleanings, page 513, 2d column, 3d para- 

 graph, and you'll find it was said by G. M. 

 Doolittle. 



Although the bees get no nectar from 

 white clover this year to speak of, there seems 

 to be rather more than the usual amount of 

 white-clover pollen stored. Is this the gen- 

 eral rule in seasons when white clover yields 

 no honey ? [No one has reported white-clover 

 pollen, although some is being brought in 

 here. — Ed.] 



When moving bees. Editor Hill says 

 always have with you some cotton batting to 

 promptly plug any leak that springs. That's 

 good ; and the same batting will be good to 

 calk old hives before starting. I used putty 

 last spring, but will never do it again — too 

 much trouble afterward. [This is a kink 

 worth knowing. Paste it in your hat. — Ed.] 



A PROFUSION of white-clover bloom is al- 

 most tantalizing when, as this year, the bees 

 seem to get no nectar from it. [Yes, there 



are fields and fields of white clover; and why 

 under the sun they won't yield is the biggest 

 conundrum among bee-keepers this season. — 

 Ed] 



Among other suggestions for the pro- 

 tection of useful birds given in L'ApiciiIteur, 

 is that of the propagation, in primary schools, 

 of instruction as to the general utility of birds. 

 If all teachers in public schools take pains to 

 thoroughly impress the boys that birds should 

 be protected, and not destroyed, protective 

 laws will hardly be needed. 



When Mr. Cowan was here I tnentioned, 

 as one of my own inventions, fastening queen- 

 cells on combs with wire nails. He asked me 

 if I hadn't seen that in his book. I told him 

 I had read his book, and it wasn't there. He 

 turned to the page and showed it, and pulled 

 out of his vest a pin such as he used for the 

 purpose. But I insist that any Johnny Bull 

 might think of a pin; but a nail! there's orig- 

 inality, there's genius for you ! 



That paragraph from C. P. Gillette, page 

 551, is interesting as helping to an under- 

 standing ; but the next investigation might 

 show very different results. Loads of honey, 

 also of pollen, vary greatly. [In the pam- 

 phlet from which we made the quotation it is 

 shown that Mr. Gillette made a large number 

 of measurements, and from these he struck 

 general averages ; and as these averages agree 

 with other averages given in former times, I 

 think they must be very nearly correct. — Ed.] 



June 22 I put the queens of six colonies in 

 lower stories, leaving nearly all the brood in 

 the upper stories, an excluder between. Eight 

 days later I found in two cases three queen- 

 cell cups containing eggs in the upper story. 

 Had the bees kept those eggs eight days with- 

 out hatching ? had the bees carried the eggs 

 up from the lower story ? had the queen gone 

 up through the excluder, laying only those 

 three eggs, and then crawled back? did 

 workers lay the eggs ? or how do you explain 

 the case? [I give it up. — Ed.] 



You want to know, Mr. Editor, page 550, 

 how R. Wilkin knew it was royal jelly in 

 worker cells. Because the larvae were 1>4 

 days old; and hasn't Dr. A. de Planta told us 

 that, for the first three days, the food of work- 

 er larvae is chemically the same as that fed to 



