744 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



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



L. B. Smith reports, Amei'ican Bee Jour- 

 nal, 303, that a live drone hatched out of a 

 queen-cell. First case I ever heard of where 

 the drone did not die in the cell. 



Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wash- 

 ington, California — six, count 'em. Six 

 States in which a woman's vote is as good 

 as a man's. Oh! the women are getting 

 there. 



Bee-stings were used by a prominent 

 member of the faculty of the Vienna Hospi- 

 tal upon his own person for the relief of 

 rheumatism, with excellent results. — ///. 

 Monatsblaetter, 107. 



Karl Tbefil, Deutsche Imker, 311, says 

 water is better than smoke for cross bees. 

 He uses a sprayer that can be worked with 

 one hand, the water sweetened or perfum- 

 ed. Isn't that harking back to Langstroth? 



Syrup for winter should have one part 

 tartaric acid for every 1000 parts sugar {% 

 oz. acid for 16 lbs. sugar) ; then cook at least 

 an hour on a slow fire That will invert the 

 cane sugar, and save the bees that w^ork. — 

 III. Monatsblaetter, 101. 



Roy Tait "uses a carbolized cloth for re- 

 moving his honey from the hives, and says 

 he can drive the bees out of the supers on a 

 warm day when bees are flying, as rapidly 

 as he can carry the supers to the automobile 

 and pile them on." — American Bee Jour- 

 nal, 300. It would seem there ought to be 

 at least one advantage in the carbolic. 

 When smoke is used, it may drive the bees 

 up into one part of the su]ier while it drives 

 them down in another, and occasionally a 

 queen is thus left in the super. This would 

 not occvir with the carbolized cloth. 



Opponents of foul-brood laws take pleas- 

 ure in pointing to the fact that foul brood 

 still continues under foul-brood laws. Dr. 

 G. Rohrer wisely answers, American Bee 

 Journal, 306, "Why is it that we still have 

 smallpox, in the presence of vaccination 

 and quarantine work? All will answer with- 

 out hesitation, that, in the absence of a 

 quarantine law rigidly enforced, we should 

 have much more of this dread disease, as 

 well as many more deaths." [We may just 

 as well say that our laws against murder 

 and other crimes should be repealed because 

 such crimes go on just the same. The same 

 silly argument is used about liquor sold in 

 dry territory. — Ed.] 



Just 1543 pounds carried into the hive in 

 a season. That's according to a statement 

 in L' Apiculteur quoted in Leipz. Bztg., 173. 

 That's not the work of a special colony, but 

 of any good colony in a good year. Not 

 1543 lbs. of honey, but of nectar, pollen, 

 and water. Here are the figures: 



For the development of a bee, from the 

 egg to the perfect insect, it requires 122 

 milligrams of honey. During its life it con- 

 sumes 225 mg., making ;'>45 mg. in all (a lit- 



tle discrepancy in those figures) . The daily 

 laying of 4000 eggs for 100 days will produce 

 400,000 bees. If each bee requires for its 

 rearing and support 345 mg., 400,000 require 

 138 kg. But that 138 kg. of honey is brought 

 into the hive in the form of nectar, 3 parts 

 of nectar for each part of honey. So that 

 138 kg. of honey requires 414 kg. of nectar, 

 which equals 9i3 lbs. of nectar. The bees 

 also carry in about 110 lbs. of water and 110 

 lbs. of pollen. To produce 3.3 lbs. wax re- 

 quires 80 lbs. of nectar; 110 lbs. of surplus 

 honey requires 330 lbs. of nectar. Total 

 weight carried into the hive, 1543 lbs. 



I shouldn't want to swear to the correct- 

 ness of those figures, but at any rate the to- 

 tal amount carried in by the bees must be 

 away beyond any thing I had ever thought 

 of. If each colony carries in 1543 lbs., then 

 in an apiary of 100 colonies there must be 

 carried into their 100 entrances by the labori- 

 ous little creatures a weight of no less than 

 77 tons! [We can not refrain from putting 

 a big question-mark before some of these 

 figures. For example, 4000 eggs for 100 days 

 producing 400,000 bees. Whewation! We 

 doubt if there was ever any queen that 

 would lay at such a rate as that. While we 

 admit that a queen may lay 4000 eggs in a 

 single day, she will not keep up that pace 

 very long. In most localities the height of 

 egg-laying would not extend beyond the 

 period of one month at a time; and even 

 then, if we are not mistaken, the queen 

 might lay three or four thousand eggs in 

 one dav, and then loaf on her job the next 

 day. We have raised many thousands of 

 choice queens, but never had any that would 

 come anywhere near laying 4000 eggs per 

 day, even for one week; 1500 per day for 7 

 days is the best. 



We have carefully weighed some of the 

 largest swarms that came out of two and three 

 story colonies. The largest one weighed 2% 

 lbs. That would make 40,000 bees, or, we 

 will say, 50,000, counting those left in the 

 parent hive. Let as assume that the average 

 bee, during the height of the season, will 

 live only four weeks. Let us assume, also, 

 that they are renewed every four weeks for 

 three months. This would give us only 

 150,000 bees, or 250,000 short of the figures 

 given in the estimate above. Again, that 

 estimate of 110 lbs. of honey is too high. 

 Then think of the estimate of 110 lbs. of pol- 

 len for one colony! A comb loaded down 

 with pollen will weigh perhaps 3 or 4 lbs. 

 when empty. If the bees brought in enough 

 pollen to fill ten combs, the amount then 

 could scarcely reach more than 30 or 40 lbs. 

 But suppose we multiply it by two. We 

 are then from 60 to 70 lbs. shy of the esti- 

 mate. If all the other figures are exaggerat- 

 ed in the same proportion, the total aggre- 

 gate of 1534 lbs. per hive must be very great- 

 ly exaggerated also. — EId.] 



