624 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1-5. 



I see him pick up a palm-leaf fan, and with it 

 send some of that heated air against his face, 

 when, presto! he tells us he is feeling a cool- 

 ing from it. Then did he ever have his sixty- 

 miles-an-hour train stop dead still on such a 

 day, and hear all the passengers go to " whew- 

 ing " on account of the heat, while there was 

 no special complaint when the train was in 

 motion? Ah! I see the arena is getting too 

 hot for you, doctor, as you begin to see that, 

 with that large (iO-inch entrance, \.hQ:fa?u!ei-s 

 have no power to send the heated air circulat- 

 ing all about the combs and hives, while they 

 (/(? have such power with the )^-inch entrance. 

 And why the bees come out of the hive on hot 

 days is so that they will not be so much in 

 the way of the circulation of the air caused by 

 the fanners, and not because it is cooler out- 

 side, for in reality it is cooler inside. 



Then did you ever think, doctor, that your 

 women-folks could do work to just as good 

 advantage on the porch hot afternoons as 

 they could in the house ? Go look at those 

 bees on the outside of the hive there during a 

 good flow of basswood honey, at from 2 to 4 

 p. M. See any bees with jagged wings there ? 

 No, indeed, you do not — only those that are 

 evaporating nectar and secreting wax. And 

 they can do this work just as well on the out- 

 side of the hive as your women-folks can their 

 sewing on the front porch. Now go and look, 

 after the day's work is over, and see what a 

 different appearance there is in those bees 

 hanging out. An increased number, to be 

 sure; but instead of the bright appearance of 

 the cluster of mid-afternoon we have the dull 

 wornout look of veterans which have returned 

 from the field at nightfall. Now up with you, 

 at the earliest streak of dawn. See, the clus- 

 ter has not materially clianged since last eve- 

 ning ; but as you look, behold the "army" 

 begins its march; the front of the hive clears; 

 and by the time the sun is well up in the 

 heavens the front of the hive is cleared en- 

 tirely, and a busy " to and fro " is the order 

 from that entrance during all the day, no 

 matter whether the "women-folks" go out 

 on the outside of the hive to do their work or 

 not. All I wish to know is that there is sec- 

 tion room enough for the bees to labor in to 

 the best advantage ; and, knowing that, I am 

 not the one to blow smoke in the eyes of the 

 women-folks, as our senior editor used to 

 advise, because they chanced to go out on the 

 front porch ( to get out of the way ) to do their 

 work. Then, again, I wonder if the doctor 

 ever heard of combs of honey in sections 

 melting down when there were no bees in 

 them, on bee-escape boards, through which 

 little or no ventilation was admitted. This is 

 so common in very hot weather that "good 

 ventilation" is now put forth as one of the 

 things that make some escapes better than 

 others. 



One thing I forgot ; and that is, that, with 

 my test of the Pettit entrances, the bees not 

 only hung down below the frames so as to fill 

 the whole space below them, but, as a rule, in 

 extreme heat there were larger clusters on the 

 outside of the hives than there were with the 

 common entrance, this showing also that 



the fanners could not do as good work with 

 the large entrance. Then, last of all, the 

 sections immediately above the front of the 

 hive were the last to be finished, and in many 

 cases are not yet finished, while with the reg- 

 ular entrances this is not noticeable at all. 

 Dr. Miller's "I should have continued it to 

 this day if it had not been that the sections 

 near this opening were too much delayed in 

 Vjeing finished " explains why this is so; hence 

 I will not dwell longer on this entrance mat- 

 ter, for I have a word or two more I wish to 

 say while I have the doctor in the arena ( which 

 arena is soon to become a thing of the past), 

 and that before our editor gets out of hearing 

 distance, for he has already climbed away 

 from Dr. Miller's side in his haste to get over 

 on the other side. 



Undoubtedly all noticed the eighth Straw 

 found on page 5o7 of July Loth Gleanings, 

 which reads as follows : " Instead of the queen 

 laying her eggs on the outside of the cluster, 

 she lays them in the center of the brood-nest, 

 where they should be. That ' where they 

 should be ' raises the question whether 

 Nature's plan of enlarging the brood-nest in 

 spring is all wrong." And it was just laugh- 

 able to see the editor go down on all fours in 

 his haste to tumble to Dr. Miller's side of the 

 matter, without even so much as stopping to 

 reason on it at all. Say, doctor, what is 

 Nature's plan of brood-rearing? Where are 

 the Jii'st tggs deposited — in the center of the 

 cluster, or on the outside of it? "Ah!" I 

 hear you saying, "in the center, always." 

 Then that's Nature's way, is it not? And the 

 queen would lay all of her eggs there every 

 time were it not that, as the brood increases, 

 she is obliged to lay her eggs in the next 

 nearest cells to those in which she laid the 

 first, and so on and on, keeping just as near 

 the center at all times as possible, consistent 

 with those already in the cells. To prove 

 your point, doctor, you must show that the 

 queen would naturally lay the very first eggs 

 of the season on the outside of the cluster or 

 brood-nest. Can you so prove? Then, doc- 

 tor, have not you and others told us, time and 

 time again, that eggs and larvte chill easily, 

 and require more warmth than the sealed 

 brood ? And if this is so, where could there 

 be found a better place for this young brood 

 than in the center of the brood-nest? And if, 

 on the ever extending plan necessary, the 

 queen is finally obliged to lay her eggs on the 

 outside of the brood-nest, will not he be a 

 benefactor who shall so cause it to come to 

 pass that the queen can lay in the center while 

 the sealed brood is on the outside ? 



I have been taken to task during the past 

 for following so implicitly in "Nature's foot- 

 steps," the argument being produced that 

 man, by his great skill and invention, could 

 greatly improve on Nature's "wrongs" (?), 

 and after such chidings by the doctor and 

 others it seems a little singular for him to go 

 to quoting ' ' Nature ' ' to try to prove that — 

 well, ahem ! the editor doesn't seem to know 

 whether he wrote the sentence quoted or not. 

 But, no matter whether he or some one else 

 wrote it; it will take more proof than the doc- 



