166 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 1. 



their good, in order to keep up the necessary 

 animal heat. — Ed.] 



D. W. Heisk gives it in Canadian Bee Jour- 

 nal as an incontrovertible fact that " the first 

 and primary cause of bees constructing drone 

 comb is for the reception of honey." I'm in- 

 clined to controvert that incontrovertible fact, 

 at least so far as to say it isn't always true. In 

 a super of sections filled with worker founda- 

 tion, I've known the bees to start drone comb 

 where the foundation was lacking in one of 

 the sections, and that drone comb was left 

 with shallow cells and not a drop of honey in 

 it while the rest of the section and all the sec- 

 tions atound it were filled with hone}-. Now 

 if "the first and primary" object of that 

 drone comb was honey, why didn't the bees 

 put honey in it ? 



I WAS GETTING ready to report that, by 

 having so many colonies (289) in one cellar I 

 didn't need any fire, when a cold spell came, 

 and for IS days it varied from zero to 25° be- 

 low. The thermometer in cellar went down 

 to 41 °, 39°, and finally 36°. I couldn't stand 

 it any longer — made a hot fire, running up to 

 60° the heat on hives nearest the stove. Would 

 you believe it ? within two days the weather 

 was so warm I had to keep the cellar door 

 open all night. [This sudden change for the 

 warmer was the only thing that saved the 

 bees wintered on their summer stands. Re- 

 ports, as you will see, show this sudden 

 change to warm weather will prevent the bees 

 from being as much injured as we at first ex- 

 pected. — Ed.] 



Sixty hives an hour can be opened when 

 using the entrance-closer mentioned on p. 124. 

 With the one I use they can be opened in less 

 than one fourth that time. [And you might 

 have added that your entrance- closer costs 

 only about a tenth as much. Our friend Mr. 

 Kreutzinger is a very nice man and a good 

 bee-keeper; but I can not say that I like his 

 entrance closer. It is too much of a good 

 thing. For the benefit of some of our readers 

 who do not know what Dr. Miller's entrance- 

 closer is, I would state that it is simply a strip 

 about jH* x %, and in length equal to the width 

 of the hive entrance. On this is nailed a strip 

 of wire cloth, folded to give it stiffness. Two 

 taps of a hammer will secure these in position; 

 and if they ever get lost, strayed, stolen, or 

 stepped on, the loss is insignificant. — Ed.] 



" Hives with Hoffman or self -spacing frames 

 don't require to be handled like eggs, " you 

 say, p. 122, so you think they can be taken on 

 a wheelbarrow, Mr. Editor. None of my 

 hives or frames require handling like eggs. 

 They stand hauling on a wagon or a wheel- 

 barrow without any precaution. It's not the 

 frames, it's the bees. When taken in the cel- 

 lar I want them to be taken in without being 

 waked up. Taking out is not so important ; 

 but even then I'd rather see no bee leave the 

 hive until some time on the stand. [H. R. 

 Boardman wheels all his colonies into his win- 

 ter repositories on a hand- cart ; but the wheels 

 are of large diameter, and his yard is level. 

 But even a wheelbarrow on a smooth path 

 ought to be able to deliver the colony to the 



cellar-opening, with scarcely a perceptible jar; 

 but a wheelbarrow for you — well, that would 

 not do, sure. Your apiary is on a hillside, and 

 the ground from the hives to the cellar is 

 somewhat uneven. I'll let you have your own 

 way. — Ed ] 



Two OR Three have said that, in many 

 cases, with the new arrangements the outside 

 sections in a super were finished first. I'm 

 anxious to believe that's true, but it seems so 

 directly opposed to all rules of comb-building 

 that I may be excused for asking whether 

 there wasn't something wrong with the mid- 

 dle sections. It's easy to explain why central 

 sections should be finished first ; can any ex- 

 planation be given why central sections should 

 be finished first ? [It is a fact that we have 

 had a good many reports showing that the 

 Pettit idea secures sections on the outside, as 

 well filled as those on the inside; and this 

 same idea was incorporated in all the plain- 

 section supers except one put out by us last 

 season. I do not. remember that any one 

 claimed that the outside surfaces would be 

 better filled than the center. But assuming 

 that you are right, the reason may be because 

 the fence on the outside permits of a larger 

 wall of live bees between the super side and 

 face of honey than between two opposite faces 

 of honey in the center of the super. The Pet- 

 tit idea is based on the fact that good filling is 

 due to plenty of animal heat ; and if we put 

 more animal heat on the outside faces of the 

 sections, then the natural result would be that 

 they would be filled sooner and perhaps bet- 

 ter. If I have not properly set forth the Pet- 

 tit theory I hope he will correct me. — Ed.] 



Look at a section and see how the finish 

 is worked out even with the narrow part of 

 the section top, but dubbed off when it comes 

 to the wide part, says R. C. Aikiu, p. 127. 

 I've just examined a lot. The dubbing does 

 not begin till after part of the wide part is 

 past, making it appear that it isn't the wide 

 part that makes the dubbing, but rather be- 

 cause it's near the corner. Moreover, at the 

 middle of the side it's built out just as full as 

 at the middle of the top, and the side is dub- 

 bed just the same when it gets near the cor- 

 ner, and surely there's no wide and narrow 

 part to the side. The main question is, is 

 there no dubbing in the corner of a plain sec- 

 tion ? [R. C. Aikin is partly right, and you 

 are partly right. Under like conditions the 

 plain section will be filled no better than the 

 old-style section. I put this in italics because I 

 have often been quoted as taking the opposite 

 view. If plain sections are filled better at the 

 corners, it is because the bees have passageways 

 over the tops of the separators from one section 

 to the other, the separator being dn. pped down 

 X inch from the top of the section. A one- 

 piece section open clear across the top, and 

 part way down the sides, is a far better bee- 

 way section than the ordinary one sold on 

 the market. Mr. C. A. Hatch, a very conserv- 

 ative bee-keeper, who had seen how well Mr. 

 Danzenbaker's open-corner sections were filled, 

 at Omaha, gave it as his candid opinion that 

 these open corners were very important, and 

 did much to secure better filling. — Ed.] 



