60 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Feb. 1 



Stray Straws 



By Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 



F, DuNDAS Todd, page 22, speaks of a fol- 

 lower in ten-frame hives. Have manufac- 

 turers really made that desirable addition? 



Oliver Foster's first bees were bumble- 

 bees, p. 6. So were mine; only, instead of 

 being on a window-sill, mine were in a hay- 

 mow. 



The honey-extractor was invented in 

 1865 by an Austrian, Major Franz Edler von 

 Hruschka, who was born at Vienna in 1819, 

 and died at Venice, Italy, 1888. 



"What kind of a mile? " I am asked, p. 

 32, is meant, where the bees were four or 

 five minutes getting over % niile. It was 

 given in meters, and I translated it into U. 

 S. miles. 



A. Snyder, when he wants to talk honey 

 to a grocer, sets on the counter an observa- 

 tory hive, six by eight inches in size. That 

 secures the attention of the grocer at once. 

 — Revieiv-, 310. 



J. L. Byer said at the National conven- 

 tion that it is necessary to have a large stock 

 of extracting-combs in order to get a good 

 crop of honey, and just as necessary in order 

 to get a crop of good honey. 



A VERY OLD brood-comb weighed 36 >^ oz.; 

 a new one that had not been bred in weigh- 

 ed 11 oz. That means that there might be 

 a difference of about 16 pounds in the weight 

 of two ten-frame hives, each containing the 

 same amount of bees and stores. Some 

 colonies have probably starved because 

 heavy old combs fooled the bee-keeper into 

 thinking they had stores enough. 



C. B. Palmer, you say, page 38, that I 

 didn't know where to put loaits when no ex- 

 cluder is used. Well, I do now — put 'em 

 just the same as with an excluder. You 

 are mistaken in concluding that I used an 

 excluder. Never. There may be no law in 

 Nebraska against your way of doing, but I 

 wouldn't do some things you do. I wouldn't 

 use a bait partly filled with comb, and I 

 wouldn't have a droi^ of honey in it. I 

 wouldn't use a bait in any super after the 

 first; I'd use them all in the first. General- 

 ly I have only baits enough to put a single 

 one in the first super, and I put that in the 

 center. With my way I never knew a queen 

 to lay an egg in a bait. 



R. V. Cox, you advise, p. 52, to read Alex- 

 ander's treatment for European foul brood, 

 and " follow it to the letter." But do you 

 follow it to the letter? You say "queenless 

 26 days," and then "a first-class Italian 

 qneen." He says, 1905, p. 1125, queenless 

 20 days, and then "a ripe queen-cell or a 

 virgin just hatched." He says the old 

 gueen may be given after 27 (not 26) days, 

 but advises against it. Mr. Alexander de- 



serves great credit as a pioneer blazing a 

 way through a pathless forest; but if any 

 one finds a way only half as long, do you 

 think it is disloyalty to Mr. Alexander to 

 follow the shorter way? 



Mr. Editor, you say, p. 52, for cell-build- 

 ing, to feed queenless bees syrup daily. Will 

 feeding make any difference when a heavy 

 flow is on? [Of course, it is not necessary 

 to feed up when a heavy honey-flow is on. 

 One of our queen-breeders says he much 

 prefers not to have a heavy flow. He can 

 secure better results when the bees are fed 

 moderately or when the yield of honey from 

 natural sources is only moderate. A flood 

 of honey upsets cell-building to a great ex- 

 tent. — Ed.] 



"If the combs become so thick and the 

 cells so small as to leave too little room for 

 young bees they had better be melted up," 

 p. 52. That scares me. It will be 50 years- 

 next summer since I began keeping bees, 

 and I never yet melted a comb because old. 

 Do you suppose my cells are too small? 

 How shall I tell? Would you advise me to 

 melt up all my old combs? [You are put- 

 ting up a hard question; and yet if you will 

 take our statement literally it Mill not nec- 

 essarily imply that you will have to melt 

 up your combs. Authorities do not quite 

 agree; but the majority seem to think that 

 when the cells become too small, by reason 

 of accumulations of cocoons, the bees remove 

 the surplusage until the cells are large 

 enough to admit of the rearing of brood. 

 Assuming that to be true (and we believe it 

 is) , you would not have to melt up your 

 comb. In the quotation, page 52, we are 

 not assuming that it would be true, but 

 only making the statement that, if the size 

 of the cells is reduced by many years of 

 brood-rearing, combs with such cells should 

 be melted up. 



We may say we believe it would be a good 

 practice to melt up all old combs since brood 

 diseases have become so prevalent all over 

 the United States. p]xperience shows that 

 disease lurks for years in old combs, and 

 then when conditions are favorable it will 

 break out. Let us suppose a case where a 

 comb contained the spores of American foul 

 brood; that those spores were covered with 

 several layers of cocoons; that the bees re- 

 move several layers of cocoons in a certain 

 season, exposing the spores covered up for 

 years. What happens? An outbreak of 

 the bee disease. That this is not an idle 

 theory was proven at one of our outyards, 

 where we had American foul brood some 15 

 years before. All of a sudden foul brood be- 

 gan to break out in that yard. An exami- 

 nation showed that it appeared only in 

 those hives that had some of those original 

 combs. We then began melting up every 

 one of those combs whether disease showed 

 up or not, and, presto! foul brood stopped 

 coming back. We know that diseases that 

 infect the human family may lie in old gar- 

 ments for decades; then why not in "old 

 garments " occuj^ied by baby bees? — Ed.] 



