1911 



GLEANINGS EST BEE CULTURE 



227 



Heads of Grain 



from Different Fields 



Mary had a swarm of bees; 



And they, to save their lives, 

 Went everywhere that Mary went. 



For Mary had the hives. 



Ventilating a Bee-cellar; Sub earth and Ceiling 

 Ventilation. 



Will you please tell me a good plan for ventilat- 

 ing this cellar to .secure good wintering? The cel- 

 lar is under a dwelling, and is dry; stone walls; the 

 temperature stays at about 40; but when it has 

 been 12 below zero I have noticed it at 38. I expect 

 to put a board partition at the dotted line, with a 

 door leading to the other part, which is used for 

 vegetables. I Intend to use the smaller room, 12 by 

 15, for bees. If sub-earth tile ventilator is used, will 

 it be necessary to have ventilation at the top also? 

 Should it winter 200 colonies? 



High Falls, N. Y., Feb. 20. F. Stoerer. 



>W 



W, W, windows; S, stairs; T, inner door and out- 

 er trap-door. 



[You do not state how many bees you propose to 

 put in your cellar. With only a few colonies no 

 special ventilation would be needed; but you might 

 have to put in artificial heat — not a kerosene-stove, 

 but a small coal-stove connected to a chimney to 

 bring the temperature above 40 Fahrenheit. If you 

 propose putting from 75 to 100 colonies in this cel- 

 lar, the natural animal heat of the bees would raise 

 the temperature without artificial means; but so 

 many bees would make special ventilation necessa- 

 ry. We would advise a sub-earth ventilator of not 

 less than a six-inch glazed sewer-pipe cemented at 

 the joints, and not less than 100 ft. long. We would 

 then have an opening near the ceiling into a live 

 chimney, to create a forced draft. By a " live " 

 chimney we mean one to which a stove or furnace 

 Is connected. Opening the door into the other cel- 

 lar and leaving it open would help ventilate, espe- 

 cially If it were ventilated. — Ed.] 



Raising Queens above Perforated Zinc; Plurality 

 of Queens for One Colony. 



I have been reading Doolittle's book on queen- 

 rearing, also Alexander's writings, and was feeling 

 mighty good over them, especially on two things. 

 One of them is where DooUttle claims one can re- 

 queen or supersede all old or worthless queens by 

 raising a queen above the excluder, and allowing 

 her to go below with the old queen. Then, to my 

 surprise and sorrow, I saw your answer In Glean- 

 ings, Feb. 15, and from that answer I perceive you 

 do not indorse it. 



The other one is where Alexander claims the plu- 

 rality of queens in one hive, going so far as to have 

 fourteen in one hive, all working together in har- 

 mony. Your answer to this is, to try not more 

 than one queen to a hive. Now, why do such men 

 as DooUttle and Alexander give to the public such 

 statements as this if their plans will not work? It 

 is misleading, and I do not understand how you 

 can recommend such books or writings. I am of 

 the same opinion you are, for I do not believe that 



either one of the two will work, as it seems to me it 

 Is against nature; and by your answering these two 

 questions it has saved me considerable trouble, 

 and, I think, some valuable queens. Why! if I 

 could winter two queens in one hive, and keep 

 them in the same hive up till ten or fifteen days be- 

 fore the honey-flow, I could increase my honey- 

 crop fifty per cent, for this is exactly our trouble in 

 this section. The honey comes on us before the 

 bees can build up, and the two queen system would 

 enable us to rear plenty of brood in time. 



If you can suggest any plan whereby this two- 

 queen system might be made to work, I should ap- 

 preciate it. I should like to see what Frank Alex- 

 ander has to say about it. 



Sumatra, Fla. A. B. Marchant. 



IBoth Mr. DooUttle and Mr. Alexander accom- 

 plished what they claimed; but neither of them 

 kneA' at the time that their peculiar localities as 

 well as the particular season of the year made their 

 peculiar methods possible. In later years Mr. Doo- 

 Uttle added an appendix to his book, explaining 

 that raising cells above perforated zinc was more 

 feasible during a honey-flow, or when some nectar 

 was coming in, than after it. Mr. Alexander did 

 not live to continue his experiments. After his 

 death, reports showed that others who attempted 

 to follow his directions were not able to maintain 

 a plurality of queens after the honey-flow. Mr. A., 

 after his white-honey flow, and shortly following it, 

 had another strong flow from buckwheat and gold- 

 enrod. This almost continuous flow for two or three 

 times as long as the flow in most localities made a 

 method of procedure possible with Alexander that 

 was not feasible with the average bee-keeper with 

 a short flow. If we get out another edition of the 

 Alexander book we will put in a footnote explain- 

 ing the conditions for a plurality of queens. How- 

 ever, notice what Mr. Joice has to say, page 221. 



Right here a current periodical has a special 

 province — namely, to correct and revise methods 

 advocated in text-books that reflect the best prac- 

 tices at the time they were published. For that 

 reason we sometimes correct in these columns cer- 

 tain practices that. In our judgment, will not work 

 out In all cases as well as their authors believed 

 they would.— Ed.] 



A Rational Plan to Cure European Foul Brood in 

 the Spring, and Yet Secure a Crop of Honey. 



The last of May I found two-thirds to three- fourths 

 of my bees in five yards (250 colonies in all) badly 

 infected, and this is how I proceeded: I took some 

 healthy brood from the few not diseased, giving 

 from one to two frames to each diseased colony aft- 

 er removing all the brood from it and replacing 

 with this healthy brood. I also gave one to two 

 empty combs. The rest of the space in the hives I 

 filled up with empty frames and put on the supers. 

 In nearly every case this was a cure — only a few 

 developing disease later. In addition to all this I 

 secured a fair crop of honey. 



The diseased brood I .stacked up on some very 

 weak diseased colonies, three and four tiers high. 

 Later on this was removed, and all foul cleaned 

 out. Some of these colonies died out entirely by 

 winter, and some of them recovered. 



I am waiting anxiously for the coming of spring 

 to see If the disease reappears. If I find It again 

 this spring I shall proceed as above. The ideals, to 

 get the diseased brood all away from the bees and 

 give them a new start. This might help some oth- 

 er fellow this spring. 



New Milford, Pa., Feb. 22. F. W. Dean. 



[This plan embodies the principles of the McEvoy 

 and the Alexander treatments. We see no reason 

 why it should not work. We would not advise it 

 for American foul brood. — Ed.] 



One More who Insists that Beet Sugar is as Good 

 as Cane. 



Noting Mr. Wesley Foster's comments in Glean- 

 ings for March 1st regarding the relative merits of 

 beet and cane sugar, I wish to take Issue with him 

 on the subject. Unless both my text-book and my 

 Instructor in chemistry were in error, cane and 

 beet sugar are identical in composition, except for 

 from one to two per cent Impurities — that Is, they 

 are each 98 per cent saccharine; and how Mr. Fos- 

 ter can get different tastes out of them Is more than 

 I can understand. Furthermore, there is no earth- 

 ly reason why one should granulate sooner than 



