1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



80^ 



an empty wicker chair standing in a room 

 give better ventilation ? " I am surprised that 

 he should use an illustration so crude, "the 

 pertinency of which," to adopt his language, 

 "in my view I am unable to discover." The 

 old-style section-super consists of a number of 

 ■compartments nearly shut off. The new style 

 has the same number of compartments, but 

 with the sides (separators) perforated with 

 horizontal openings affording air-spaces or 

 passageways from one compartment to the 

 other. When we pile lumber in a dry-kiln 

 we pile it so that the hot air can pass between 

 and around the boards; tliat is, we leave air- 

 spaces between the boards. The freer the 

 communication between the boards the quick- 

 er and better the lumber dries. A section- 

 super is a sort of dry-kiln. The fanners keep 

 up a circulation during the ripening process. 

 Obstruct their air-currents and you defeat, to 

 a limited extent, the rapidity of the work. 

 This is not all theory, because we have reports 

 already, right from the field, to this effect. 

 For example, the following, from W. C. Gath- 

 right, is a case in point : 



This season about half of my apiary was supplied 

 with fences and plain section.s ; the other was run 

 with the old-style sections and separators. Supers 

 with the old-style sections were put on finst, part of 

 them being filled with empty co-nb yet I got consid- 

 erably more of the plain sections finished than of the 

 old-.style. There is no doubt about bees working faster 

 in plain sections with cleated separators. They enter 

 them and begin work almo.st as readily as they would 

 in extracting-supers. This is the second year I have 

 u.sed them, as I tried g small number last year, and 

 the result is that I shall not u.se any more old style 

 sections. My .separators are made of three .'^lats, and 

 are .SSg inches wide, having openings i',; inch between 

 the slats; and the top of the separator is % inch below 

 the top of the sections. I consider the passage over 

 the top of the separator of more value than those 

 in the center. They finish up the honey, and seal the 

 top row of cells next to the wood better than they do 

 with separators that come to the top of the sections; 

 then in tiering up it gives a larger opening and a 

 freer passage from one super to the other. 



I do not believe there is any danger of bulging over 

 the separators, for I have never seen a single one that 

 was bulged. W. C. Gathright. 



Dona Ana, N. M., Sept. 26. 



Again, Mr. Taylor, referring to the same 

 illustration, says : 



The most remarkable thing in the photograph is 

 that the sections all appear to be rather scantily filled. 

 From the claims heretofore made for plain sections 

 and fences I have been looking to find the .sections 

 filled nearly solid. 



A good deal hinges on what he means by 

 "rather scantily filled." If I am any judge 

 (and we buy thousands of pounds of comb 

 honey every season), the sections under con- 

 sideration are fairly well filled, and those in 1 

 and 2 are equal to nine-tenths of the ordinary 

 No. 1 hone)' in the open market. 



As to the last sentence above quoted, there 

 may be partial ground for his expectations. 

 After all, I can scarcely escape the conclusion 

 that, even then, our friend has, in accordance 

 with his usual failing, read more into (or out 

 of) what he has read on the subject of plain 

 sections and fences than the subject-matter 

 would really warrant. Any advocate of plain 

 sections who would go so far as to broadly 

 claim that they would be " filled nearly solid " 

 would be laving himself open to ridicule. 

 Perhaps the illustration of the Aspinwall hon- 

 ey was misleading. If so, it made its first 



appearance in the Reviciv, and its editor said 

 as complimentary things about plain .sections 

 as have been said by any one. 



It will now be in order for Mr. Taylor to 

 " protest against " the " sort of evidence used 

 in the effort to establish " the superiority of 

 plain sections If if were fair to use the illus- 

 tration that appeared in the January Review, 

 I can't see that the reproduced photograph in 

 Gleanings, on p. (iilO, was out of place when 

 neither Mr. Golden nor myself claimed that 

 the fence was responsible for the difference. 



QUEENS I^.WING IN THE SPRING. 

 Referring to the .statement by Dr. Miller, to 

 the effect that he never knew any exception 

 to the rule that, left to nature, a queen en- 

 larges her brood-nest in the spring by laying 

 eggs outside the cells already laid, Mr. Taylor 

 asks me to explain what I meant when I said 

 I thought there was an exception to even this 

 rule. In rare instances a young queen may 

 lay eggs very scatteringly ; that is, eggs in 

 cells here and there. I know of one or two 

 instances where those scattering eggs were in 

 separate combs. As I remember it, the queens 

 were late fall-reared, and, being probably fer- 

 tilized in the fall, did not lay till the following 

 spring, and then in the manner stated. After 

 a week or so these queens began to lay as they 

 should. It is quite a common thing for im- 

 ported Italian queens, immediately after being 

 released from the introducing-cage in the 

 summer, to behave thus; but it is not common 

 for any queen in the spring. Mr. Taylor 

 should not forget that I was talking about 

 "freaky things," not regtilar queens. 



JOURNALISTIC COURTESY. 

 I am sorry to see that Mr. Taylor mars some 

 of his criticisms by what I may call the lack 

 of journalistic courtesy. For instance, in 

 speaking of Doolittle this is what he says : 

 "His statement, backed by the strength of 

 his name, furnishes what the editor of Glean- 

 ings would call 'heavy testimou}'.' " I care 

 not for myself ; but the sarcastic reference to 

 Doolittle's name is uncalled for. It adds ab- 

 solutely nothing to Ta} lor's argument, and 

 should have been, in my judgment, like other 

 similar flings, stricken out by the editorial 

 pencil before it saw the printer. That I am 

 not alone in deploring such things in Mr. 

 Taylor's writings will be evidenced by the fol- 

 lowing extract from the Review by a writer 

 who, though believing that criticism is needed, 

 says : 



When I saw the fir.st installment of Mr. Taylor's 

 criticisms I experienced a feeling of antagonism, al- 

 though I had not j^et read it, on account of \\.\s previojis 

 utterances It may be that others have felt the same. 

 To an inquiry in the American Bee Jouinal, asked in 

 good faith, he replied, " Poppycock " When E. R. 

 Root misunder.stood one of his e.xperiments he alluded 

 to " the gray matter of the brain " When Mr. F. 

 Rauchfuss critici.sed another, he remarked that he 

 was " writing for beekeepers who think." I consider 

 these remarks uncalled for and ungentlemanly. 



I do not refer to these with any desire to 

 strike back; but if those criticisms could be 

 shorn of that " disagreeableness " that Dr. 

 Miller tells about, they would do vastly more 

 good. Mr. Taylor's work is too good to be 

 marred thus. 



