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GIvEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15. 



comes to me is this: Is it more difficult to 

 stretch bees' tongues than to turn the bands 

 of the bees' abdomens, that are normally 

 black, to yellow? The queen-breeders of the 

 country have been successful in doing this, 

 we know, and in perpetuating a race of bees 

 that will duplicate themselves one generation 

 after another. Now, then, is that feat any 

 more difficult than to develop a race that shall 

 have longer tongues than the average bees? 

 J. M. Rankin, of the Michigan Agricultural 

 Station, reported at the Chicago convention 

 that he had stock that had distinctly longer 

 tongues, and he expressed the conviction that 

 the feat was not so difficult as it seemed. — Ed. ] 



G. M. DOOLITTLE says in American Bee 

 Journal some things that are well said. The 

 man who sends to a queen-breeder in May or 

 June an order for a select tested queen expect- 

 ing it by return mail should understand the 

 facts. "Not much headwaj' can be made 

 rearing queens north of latitude 42 degrees 

 before about June 1." Count 12 days in the 

 cell form 10 days to laying, 21 days before the 

 first j-oung bees emerge, and 5 days to select, 

 and the first select tested queen is not ready 

 to send out till July 18. Orders left over from 

 previous year, and received in winter and 

 spring, may make it impossible to reach such 

 an order before August. An untested queen 

 can be reached some three weeks sooner. [We 

 very often get orders for select tested queens 

 in May or June ; but we have always had a 

 feeling that, when orders were received at 

 that time of the year for immediate delivery, 

 it was assumed on the part of the purchaser 

 that the queen must necessarily be of the pre- 

 vious summer's rearing ; for he oiK^ht to know, 

 if he is a bee-keeper at all, that it \\ould be 

 impossible to furnish tested and select tested 

 queens from the North, of the current year, in 

 May and June. — Ed.] 



That footnote, p. 686, giving the prefer- 

 ence to shallow brood-chambers for comb 

 honey, raises a question. Perhaps three years 

 ago, I was twice asked the question, " Why is 

 it that sections over Danzy hives are badly 

 troubled with pollen, while there is no trouble 

 with other hives?" I replied that the Danzy 

 hive had nothing to do with it — that it was an 

 accidental matter entirely. After that I had 

 two Danzy hives in use, and there was more 

 pollen in each Danzy super than in 100 oth- 

 ers, and since then it has been a question 

 whether the shallow brood chamber did not 

 favor pollen in sections. [That footnote on 

 page 6s6 to which you refer does not give an 

 editorial indorsement of shallow brood cham- 

 bers. I did say that for some localities the 

 scheme was all right, and that Mr. Danzen- 

 baker had on file letters showing that more 

 honey can be secured from shallow brood- 

 chambers than from deeper ones like the 

 Lang.stroth. We have also had a great num- 

 ber of letters to the same effect. For some 

 localiiies, and for some people, I believe the 

 shallow chamber has decided advantages, but 

 I do not feel yet like recommending it for 

 every one. With regard to pollen in sections 

 from the use of such brood-chambers, I can 



only conclude that it is largely a matter of 

 locality. You may, where you live, have a 

 large number of pollen-bearing flowers, while 

 your regular main honey crop is being gath- 

 ered. Mr. Lathrop, Mr. Danzenbaker, and 

 those others who appear to be silent on this 

 matter of pollen ( probably for the reason they 

 do not have it), I should assume do not have 

 an excess of pollen at the time their main 

 crop is being gathered. I should be glad to 

 hear from Mr. Danzenbaker, and from Mr. 

 Lathrop too — in fact, from any one who has 

 had experience touching on these points. — 

 Ed.] 



G. M. DooLiTTivE says in Progressive that 

 he tried the plan of giving bees free access to 

 a large number of unfinished sections to clean 

 up last fall, and the bees tore the combs so 

 much that one fourth of them were spoiled 

 for baits. He calls it "the Dr. Miller plan," 

 but it's the B. Taylor plan. The Miller plan 

 is just the opposite: allow an entrance to the 

 sections only large enough for one bee at a 

 time to enter, which is very much the better 

 plan when there are only a few sections. 

 When one has a large number of sections to 

 be cleaned, the Taylor plan is away ahead, 

 and I don't understand how it should work so 

 disastrously with Bro. Doolittle. [A good 

 deal hinges on what Mr. Doolittle means 

 when he speaks of having given access " to a 

 large number of unfinished sections." I once 

 exposed ten or twenty poor uneven combs 

 containing honey to the bees just after the 

 honey season, at one of our out-yards, when 

 there were 80 colonies all producing comb 

 honey. I think I never saw a madder lot of 

 bees in all my life. The combs in question 

 were literally covered with a lot of bees 

 scrambling and tumbling over each other in 

 mad haste to get a sip at the honey. Thou- 

 sands of bees were also in the air that couldn't 

 even get a smell, much less a taste, stinging 

 right and left. It was impossible to do any 

 work in the apiary, and it seemed as if our 

 clothes were literally filled with stings. We 

 hastily closed up our work for the day, and 

 went off with our hands in our pockets, with 

 a resolve that we would never try it again. 

 When any one talked with me about letting 

 bees help themselves to unfinished sections in 

 a wholesale way, I thought he was next thing 

 to a fool ; but I have recently learned that the 

 bees must have unfinished sections in such 

 numbers so that there will be no scrambling 

 and tumbling over each other to get a taste of 

 sweet. If 500 to 1000 of them were exposed 

 in the apiary in a shady place, I venture to 

 say that Doolittle would have very little trou- 

 ble, and I would suggest that he try it at 

 some future time, and report. If, in the case 

 I have just mentioned above, I had given 50 

 or 100 combs, I do not think we shoidd have 

 had the rampage we did. But this is a kind 

 of business that beginners should let entirely 

 alone, and the question may^ be raised whether 

 it might not be a somewhat dangerous exper- 

 iment even for some expers. la any case the 

 first trial of it should be at an out-yard remote 

 from a public highway. — Ed.] 



