688 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15 



use a 20-lb. stone to hold either the shade- 

 board or the cover in place. I see quilts 

 and cloths used by bee-keepers many times, 

 and often wonder why others will persist 

 in their use, involving- the necessity of 

 handling heavy stones. If the climate is 

 cool, why not have a double cover, or some 

 sort of cover that is warmer than the or- 

 dinary single-board thickness? The former 

 with air-space between the two thicknesses, 

 the whole protected by Neponset roofing, 

 makes a very warm cover. This will stay 

 in place, without a stone — yes, indeed, it 

 must be pried loose with a screwdriver or 

 a hive-tool. — Ed.] 



The editor, p. 635, seems a little wor- 

 ried at the continuance of cool weather. 

 Don't worry; it's been a cool June, to be 

 sure; but weather records at Chicago show 

 that June, last year, was 3 degrees cooler, 

 and last year was the best honey season I 

 ever knew. [I hope you are right; but con- 

 tinued cool or cold weather, and continuous 

 rains — almost continuously wet weather 

 when it does warm up — is not very reas- 

 suring. It is not too late for us to get a 

 fair honey crop in this locality, for bass- 

 wood looks well, and is already beginning 

 to yield; but the bees, poor things! can not 

 work on the blossoms more than two hours 

 at a time, when down comes a dashing rain 

 — rain, rain, rain; dark skies, rumble and 

 thunder, then more rain. We are hoping 

 and hoping. Clover is already in bloom 

 because of these same rains. When it does 

 stop, we think we shall get both clover and 

 basswooJ honey. — Ed.] 



" No DRONES among the sections, and 

 timely taking ofiF, are the chief factors in 

 securing whiteness of comb honey," says 

 S. T. Pettit, p. 645. In this locality, friend 

 Pettit, distance from black' combs is a 

 greater factor. Years ago I was in the 

 habit of putting a brood comb between wide 

 frames of sections, to bait the bees into the 

 sections, and I had to be prompt in remov- 

 ing the brood before sealing began, other- 

 wise black cappings would be used on the 

 sections when only a few cells were sealed. 

 You see timely taking off wouldn't work 

 there, and I don't think drones had any 

 thing to do with it. Even if you had excep- 

 tional cases in which bees did not carry 

 black wax to the sections, although the dis- 

 tance was short, that doesn't disprove the 

 fact that they do it in other cases, and I 

 don't feel safe without a considerable dis- 

 tance between old combs and sections. As 

 the case you cite was your first effort at 

 eomb hone^ , I'm wondering whether your 

 combs at that time may not have been too 

 new to be very black. 



A KINK that I don't remember to have 

 seen in print may be worth mentioning: 

 When a queen is a week or so old, it is oft- 

 en impossible to find her. But a pretty 

 safe guess as to her presence or absence 

 may be made from the appearance of the 

 combs. If there is a central spot with the 

 cells all cleaned out and polished, ready 



for a queen to lay in, you may be pretty 

 sure a queen is present. If no queen is in 

 the hive, honey will be scattered in the 

 cells here and there in this central spot. 

 [This is a good point. I am in the habit of 

 diagnosing our colonies to determine queen- 

 lessness largely by the behavior of the bees 

 on opening a hive. If there is a loud roar 

 as of distress I surmise the colony may be 

 queenless, but am not sure of it. The ab- 

 sence of eggs and young larvae confirms my 

 suspicions. If I find a queen-cell, then I 

 am sure that the colonj' is queenless. But 

 here is a colony that has a virgin, or possi- 

 bly has one. There is no loud roar, and 

 she may be out on her flight. Right here 

 your kink will come in good play. I shall 

 ask our boys to test it and report. By the 

 way, I should like to get suggestions from 

 our readers on surface indications as to the 

 queenlessness of colonies beyond those al- 

 ready indicated. Any thing that will save 

 some of the back-breaking labor of looking 

 over the hives should be welcomed. — Ed.] 



Consumption of honey in a year by a 

 colony of bees has scarcely been thought of 

 till lately, and it is to be hoped that some 

 of these days we may know more about it. 

 Conditions have much to do with it, as I 

 learn from a letter from Adrian Getaz. As 

 he says, in Europe, mobilists (users of 

 movable frames) work for extracted honey 

 exclusively, and in Herr Kramer's figures 

 no honey was necessarily used for the build- 

 ing of comb; and when Mr. Getaz estimated 

 200 pounds, he counted on bees building comb 

 for sections. Again, G. M. Doolittle, page 

 651, counts 30 pounds sufficient for the 9 

 months from August to April inclusive, 

 while Mr. Getaz counts 40 pounds for win- 

 ter alone, as he says it takes that much in 

 the open and varying winter of Tennessee, 

 outdoors. 



I've just been weighing the wax in 8 sec- 

 tions, and find it 4 ounces — this with no 

 cappings, which would materially increase 

 the weight. But if we just take it without 

 the cappings, it would make l'/2 pounds of 

 wax for the comb in two24 pound supers. At 

 10 pounds of honey for each pound of wax, 

 that would require 15 pounds of honey con- 

 sumed for the comb. But should there not 

 be a still greater difference? If 50 per cent 

 more extracted than comb can be secured, 

 then while the bees are storing that 48 

 pounds of comb honey they would store 24 

 more of extracted. If the same amount is 

 gathered in each case, do not the bees con- 

 sume that extra 24 pounds? If I am not 

 mistaken, the first estimate I ever saw was 

 that of G. M. Doolittle, 60 pounds, and that 

 stood for a long time. Now we have our 

 choice of 70, 100, and 200, and it would be 

 well if we could have some very reliable 

 data. I venture to say it would not be at 

 the lowest figure. [The actual annual con- 

 sumption of stores, if it could be accurately 

 measured, which I think it can not be, 

 would vary, I think, as much as the esti- 

 mates given by our correspondents. So 

 much depends on the locality, size and 



