64 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 15 



in terms of extracted honey, was 123,000 

 pounds. Neither he nor Mercer seemed a 

 bit stuck up over their "fat takes," but 

 talked just as common and pleasant to me 

 as if I'd taken 100,000 pounds of honey and 

 3. vvag'onload of wax. [I am glad you have 

 called my attention to this omission. Men- 

 dlesoa is a modest fellow, and he ought to 

 g'et the credit for his enormous yield during 

 the past year. We shall, therefore, have 

 to give him the palm for producing the 

 largest crop of honey for 1903 of any bee- 

 keeper in the United States.— Ed.] 



Please give vs semi-monthly reports of 

 cellar-wintering at Medina. Cellaring un- 

 der a machine-shop comes within the scope 

 of very few; a large number who have but 

 a few colonies can have the advantage of a 

 roomy cellar as at the Harrington yard; 

 while a smaller number, but with more in- 

 tense interest, will want to know all about 

 the basswood-yard cellar. How much and 

 what attention do the bees need in that cel- 

 lar? What is the temperature? [I will en- 

 deavor to comply with your request; but let 

 -me say right here that Bingham's ideas on 

 the construction of cellars with ventilators 

 16 inches square I believe are all right. 

 Bingham has always been intensely practi- 

 cal, and he has made no mistake on this 

 question of bee-cellars and their ventila- 

 tion.— Ed.] 



A. I. Root says, p. 36, that, after I've 

 told my wife I love her, I might add that I 

 love her siill. I do love her still, but not 

 too still. A woman that keeps up her 

 clatter all the time is very tiresome ; but a 

 woman so glum that she never speaks is 

 worse yet. My wife is just about right. 

 [You are right, doctor. Somehow, when I 

 visit your home I always /eel at home. 

 There is something about the manner of 

 that good wife of yours, and of your sister, 

 that makes me feel as if there were no 

 place in this countrj', outside of Medina, 

 that is a home to me so much as is that res- 

 idence on the top of the hill a mile or so out 

 of Marengo. I visit it only once or twice 

 in two or three years ; but when Idol 

 laugh and grow fat, and gain a new lease 

 oi life.— Ed.] 



F. Greiner thinks of using dummies 

 junder sections in spite of the fact that bees 

 -will not work so well over dummies, p. 25. 

 Try having the dummies in or near the 

 center, friend Greiner. One year, for an- 

 other purpose, I put a dummy between 

 each two brood-frames during the harvest, 

 and the bees seemed to work the same as if 

 no dummies had been there. [Say, doctor, 

 do you realize that you are giving us a 

 really valuable kink? This point is worth 

 passing around. It is a well-known fact 

 that bees will push along the work in the 

 center of the super faster than on the two 

 outsides. Now, then, if we put the dummy 

 in the center of the brood- nest, we establish 

 a very nice balance throughout the entire 

 super. Why wouldn't this be a good thing 

 to do in the case of any colony whose 



brood-nest is not clear up to the average? 

 There are many colonies in every bee-yard 

 of this kind. If they have empty combs to 

 fill up the space they can not reasonably 

 occupy with brood, then they will fill them 

 up with honey. When they do this it is a 

 hard job to force them up into the supers. 

 Now, then, if we had, instead of these 

 combs of honey, a dummy in the center of 

 the brood- nest, and nothing but brood in 

 the combs, we would force the honey, when 

 it did come in, up into the supers. I be- 

 lieve I will paste this in my hat to use next 

 summer. — Ed.] 



"Neither of us intimated that the old 

 flat cover was perfect," quoth ye editor, p. 

 12. Oh, no! you merely said there was 

 "nothing better," and Hutch said-it was 

 "all right." You say, "I never saw any 

 cover of any construction that would not 

 warp, twist, or check, somewhat." Now, 

 Mr. Editor, please stand up in a straight 

 row and answer a few questions: 



1. Did you see those 50 hive- covers I had 

 made with a dead-air space, and covered 

 with tin? 



2. I think you saw some of them after they 

 had been in use a few years: did you see 

 any that were warped? 



3. Did you see any that were twisted? 



4. Did you see any that were checked? 

 Quite possibly you may answer to the 



last three questions that you did not notice. 

 In that case let me ask you: 



5. Do you think it reasonable to suppose 

 that they would warp, twist, or check? I 

 may be allowed to depose that, if there has 

 been any warping, twisting, or checking, I 

 have not noticed it. [I can hardly answer 

 your questions by yes or no. The most I 

 can do is to qualify a general answer. Yes, 

 I saw some double hive covers at Marengo 

 — how many, I do not know. I can not re- 

 member distinctly, but I think some of them 

 were warped, and checked too, but only 

 slightly. Yes, I should suppose that they 

 might warp some, and a great deal in some 

 localities. On my eastern trip recently t 

 think it was Arthur C. Miller who said the 

 Dr. Miller covers twisted badly; so this 

 question of covers is somewhat dependent 

 upon localitj'. — Ed.] 



You say, "a single board is now out of 

 the question for most localities because of 

 its cost." From a manufacturer's stand- 

 point, possibly; from a bee-keeper's stand- 

 point, most emphatically no. I can afford 

 — so can any bee-keeper — to paj' a dollar 

 for a good hive-cover rather than to go with- 

 out a cover at all. But I know that I can have 

 a good cover without paying a dollar or the 

 half of it. 



Besides the 50 tin-covered covers, I have 

 50 covered with zinc, and I think they are 

 better, although I have not tried them so 

 long. I have also about 400 plain-board 

 covers that have been in use many years, 

 and most of them are of single boards. I 

 give it as my deliberate conviction that, if 

 stuff for single-board covers could be bought 



