1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CUI^TURE. 



931 



from the hive, when it is dropped to the snow. 

 Again, 100 dead bees on the snow make more 

 show than 10,000 would make on bare ground. 

 For these reasons we are often alai-nied when 

 there is no real occasion for it. Chaff hives 

 are a great protection for bees in winter, not 

 only from extreme cold, but in not allowing 

 the rays of the sun to entice the bees out 

 under unfavorable circumstances ; and where 

 any person expects to winter liis bees outdoors 

 my advice would be to use chaff hives for that 

 purpose, in all northern latitudes. But even 

 with chaff hives I think it pays well to use the 

 wide board over the entrance. 



DOCTORS DISAGREEING. 



Question. — What is the trouble that writers 

 on bees and bee-keeping are so opposite in 

 their opinions and practices? I have looked 

 in vain for something I could follow with a 

 certainty of success, and as freely as I would 

 a teacher of any of the common branches of 

 human knowledge. Don't any of you who 

 write for the bee-papers know what you are 

 writing about? 



Ansiver. — Well, I don't want to speak for 

 the other fellow; but I know a little about the 

 elementary principles of bee-keeping, just 

 enough to know that it does not exactly com- 

 pare with the rules in arithmetic. Twice two 

 makes four, every time, no matter by whom 

 multiplied, nor at what season of the year the 

 comj)utation is made, nor in what locality ; 

 hence we have the rule of multiplication as 

 being always the same ; the same of addition, 

 subtraction, etc. But if we come to apply any 

 rule .similar to the above to the bees we find it 

 won't work, for the reason that every season 

 brings its changes ; every locality is different 

 from another, and every bee-keeper does not 

 " work in another's harness." For instance, 

 one season, just at the close of our basswood- 

 honey harvest, I found I could introduce a 

 queen by letting her run in at the entrance, 

 and smoking the bees two or three minutes 

 after I had let her run in ; and as I did not 

 lose a single queen out of some thirty or forty 

 I set it down as a rule that queens could be 

 thus introduced safely every time. But when 

 I came to use the same rule the next year I 

 found it did not work as formerly, as three 

 out of every four queens put in that way 

 would be lost. At the time I was having such 

 success a bee-keeper living in a different part 

 of the United States wrote asking how to in- 

 troduce queens, and in reply I gave him my 

 safe (?) rule. Of course, he did not have the 

 same conditions I did when I was svtccessful, 

 and, not working just as I did anyway, he lost 

 every queen he tried. The resiilt was he felt 

 very much toward Doolittle as the questioner 

 does toward all the writers on bee-keeping. 

 Now, why was it that my correspondent failed 

 with the plan, and that I did later on ? Sim- 

 ply because conditions were not alike in all 

 the cases. Thus we see that no rule in bee- 

 keeping can be formed that will do to follow 

 throvighout the countr}^ as can the rules in 

 arithmetic ; and the only thing we can do is 

 to try the plans of others cautiously till we 

 know they are suited to our wants, using 



charity all the time, otherwise we shall be 

 something like thai "American Duel" the 

 late James Payn was so fond of telling about, 

 wherein two duelists, with one second, met 

 within doors and drew lots to decide which of 

 them should shoot himself. A was the un- 

 lucky man, and, without a word, he retired 

 into the next apartment to carry out the pur- 

 pose of self-destruction. B and the second, 

 both very much moved by the tragedy of the 

 situation, remained in listening attitudes. At 

 last the pistol was heard, and they were shud- 

 dering with emotion and remorse, when sud- 

 denly in rushed the supposed dead man, tri- 

 umphantly exclaiming, "Missed, by thunder!" 

 There is a great difference in men. Some 

 experiment carefully, proving every thing 

 critically, step by step, as they go, arriving at 

 an almost definite conclusion with the first 

 experiment, while others experiment in such 

 a careless manner that their experiments at 

 the end of several years are of little value. 

 Notwithstanding all of these drawbacks, any 

 careful reader of what is written on apiculture 

 will find much of value after he has sifted the 

 chaff from the wheat. It is often necessary 

 to apply what was written a long time ago in 

 the "good book," where it says, "Prove all 

 things; hold fast to that which is good," when 

 reading much of the literature of the day on 

 many other subjects besides bee - keeping. 

 However much there may be of imperfection 

 in our bee- literature, I should be very loath to 

 dispense with it for $100 a year, for it is to 

 this same literature that I owe nearly all the 

 knowledge I possess relative to apiculture. 



jDlFfM"^^ 





PLAIN SECTIONS WITHOUT SEPARATORS OR 

 FENCES. 



3lr. E. R. Root: — I notice in Gleanings 

 of Nov. loth a Straw in which Dr. Miller men- 

 tions plain sections being held in place with- 

 out separators. Now, as I have been some- 

 what mixed up in the bee journals with a 

 way of using plain sections without the use 

 of a cleated separator, but having free commu- 

 nication all around the section, you have per- 

 haps noticed my name in its connection. If 

 so, I wish to inform you that I have succeed- 

 in perfecting a super with sections so arrang- 

 ed. It is my intention to exhibit the same 

 before the convention of O. B. K. A. at Guelph 

 next month ; and if it meets with approval 

 from the wiseacres (which I have every confi- 

 dence it will) you will no doubt hear more 

 from it soon. I notice also in last Glean- 

 ings you speak about wet, wet, wet. We too 

 are having wet, wet, wet, and wet again — rain 

 eight days out of ten for the last four or five 

 weeks. I trust this may stimulate the clovers, 

 which received such a parching during July 

 and August last. D. W. Heise. 



Bethesda, Ontario, Can., Nov. 22. 



