r32 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1. 



tivity, the more the surplus hone}-; and, really, 

 does it not all rest with the bee-keeper by 

 placing supers on hives just the moment hon- 

 ey begins to come in in earnest, and then giv- 

 ing a second and even a third super at the 

 right time, also giving, as nearly as possible, 

 the proper ten;perature by deep or shallow 

 entrance as occasion demands ? This season 

 has been so cool for this locality I can not say 

 I like shade-trees for bees, for I am convinced 

 my bees would have done better this year (es- 

 pecially by building up faster in spring) had 

 they been more in the sun; but in a warm 

 summer I should prefer them in the shade. 

 Millard, Wis. W. T. Sherman. 



[Last season, in most localities, was too 

 poor to prove very much either way; but in 

 talking with Miss Emma Wilson, Dr. Miller's 

 sister-in-law, she stated that the bees clustered 

 out more with narrow entrances than with 

 wide ones; that they contracted at one time 

 the entrances to part of their colonies, and 

 the result was that the bees began to cluster 

 out in front of those colonies. 



It is true that bees will hang on the frames 

 where a deep entrance is used, to some ex- 

 tent; but whenever they are in front of the 

 hive they obstruct the entrance, and interfere 

 with the proper ripening of the honey. At 

 various times at Dr. Miller's, Vernon Burt's, 

 and at our own yards I have watched these 

 wide entrances, and, as a general rule, I have 

 found that bees coming in from the field take 

 a nice easy gentle curve, go through the en- 

 trance on the wing, and alight on the bees 

 hanging below. A honey-laden bee dislikes 

 to land on a hard board; and it will invariably, 

 if given the opportunity, alight on a cushion 

 of bees. So far as this is concerned it would 

 not argue for wide or narrow entrances, any 

 more than that, in the case of the former, the 

 field-bee saz'cs time by getting to the bottom 

 of the cluster itself, with one quick easy up- 

 ward swoop without being obliged to crawl 

 through a small entrance obstructed by bees, 

 and then crawl several inches on the bottom- 

 board. — Ed.] 



BEE-SPACE IN COMB - HONEY CASES fV ^^D 

 NOT X INCH, EVEN WITH ITAI.IANS. 



I have just concluded reading A. E. Coon- 

 rod's article on page 622 and your comments 

 on same, in which he says that he " found the 

 bee-space used by large colonies in the height 

 of the honey season to be scant {\^ inch, and 

 by the smaller colonies to be a little over j^, 

 or about ,^., inch; but on the average they are 

 j\." His bees are pure blacks. 



Now you can just put it down as substan- 

 tially correct that the above measurements 

 apply to pure Italians as well as to blacks. I 

 made very careful and accurate measurements 

 12 years ago. I had then a very fine crop of 

 white-clover honey, produced, of course, in 

 bee-way sections, between wooden separators, 

 by pure Italia a bees. My reasons for measur- 

 ing was that I carried myself with the idea of 

 constructing an improved section case. My 

 method was to take a small stick of pine wood 

 about Yi inch square, and whittle one side of 



it down, little by little, until I could just pass 

 it down between the separator and cappings. 

 I whittled several sticks, and measured spaces 

 in quite a number of cases, and the result of 

 the measure was always {\ of an inch for well- 

 crowded cases, and a little more where the 

 bees had more room. 



If your measurements gave a space of % 

 inch, I surmise that the bees had either too 

 much room or the honey-flow was not heavy 

 enough to let the bees use all available space. 

 At any rate, I do not believe it was because 

 you used Italians. 



Of course, there will always be sections the 

 bee-space of which will be nearer % than j\ 

 inch. The last case which the bees finish off 

 as the honey-flow becomes slower and slower, 

 and finally ceases, will contain such; but the 

 only true measurement can be taken from sec- 

 tions which have been filled under the most 

 favorable conditions, have been crowded full, 

 and you will find, I think, that, no matter 

 where produced, or whether produced by Ital- 

 ians, hybrids, or blacks, the average bee-space 

 is ,-',; of an inch. T. H. Kloer. 



Terre Haute, Ind., Aug. 19. 



[I am a little surprised at j'our figures. We 

 have had, I think, scores of reports showing 

 that the production of comb honey in plain 

 sections has in almost every case been attend- 

 ed with most gratifying results. We assumed 

 last season, when we gauged the thickness of 

 the cleats on the fences, that the average bee- 

 space was {\ inch. We therefore made our 

 cleats f., thick, or two-thirds as thick as the 

 bee-space. This would leave -jV inch depres- 

 sion in the face of the comb, from a line or 

 straight edge across the edges of the section. 

 Now, then, if -^\ inch were the correct bee- 

 space, with both Italians and blacks, the sur- 

 face of the comb would come very nearly flush 

 with the edges of the sections. Reducing 

 j\ and (-.i to a decimal the figures would stand 

 .187 and .166 respectively. This would bring 

 the face of the comb to within .029 of the 

 straight edge. Now, then, if the bee-space 

 in some cases were less than l\; the comb 

 would come even with the edge of the sec- 

 tion, and thus be entirely uncratable. We 

 know of one or two cases where the fence did 

 not seem to accomplish the result desired ; 

 but we have, since then, ascertained that the 

 trouble was because the fence in question was 

 not properly constructed. 



I have been over dozens of different lots of 

 honey produced in as many different localities; 

 and with scarcely an exception the bee-space 

 seems to favor ^\ inch. Your own measure- 

 ment, in 3'our own locality, would hardly be 

 a correct basis for average localities through- 

 out the United States. 



But this is a very important matter, and we 

 earnestly desire reports from bee-keepers 

 everywhere; for upon its correct solution will 

 rest the matter of the thickness of the cross- 

 cleats on fences. If ,■',., is the correct bee- 

 space, then the cleats on the fence would have 

 to be thinner, of course, than i\,. vSee? As 

 manufacturers of bee-keepers' supplies we 

 should regard it a as favor if our readers 



