FEBRUARY 1, 1914 



^b 



Stray Straws 



Dr. C. C. MlLi.KR, Marengo, 111. 



L. W. Crovatt tliiiiks, p. 27, that his ex- 

 perience would eoiivince adv^ocates of un- 

 painted hives " that paint is valuable in the 

 preservation of wood." Friend Crovatt, I 

 think they agree with you that paint is good 

 for the hive, but they think it isn't good for 

 the bees. 



I SUPPOSE Italians are not alike in the 

 matter of capping. At any rat€, my Ital- 

 ians have hardly tallied with what Bro. 

 Doolittle says about their dark capping, p. 

 9. With a few exceptions there has hardly 

 been a noticeable difference in the capping 

 of my Italians and blacks or hybrids. 



Drone Juice for Uniting. — In Rhein. 

 Bztg. it is recommended to mash up drone 

 brood, thin the juice with a little water, and 

 then sprinkle bees with it to make them 

 unite peaceably. [We should be afraid that, 

 under some conditions, this would result in 

 fearful robbing. Moreover, mashed - up 

 brood of any kind is liable to cause sting- 

 ing also. We certainly would not advise 

 beginners to ti*y it if they do not want to 

 get into trouble. — Ed.] 



J. E. Crane^ if you mean that four-foot 

 board to be used for the whole apiary, p. 

 879, it seems to me your record will be 

 crowded. If you mean one for each colony 

 it must take quite a lumber-pile. You say 

 glue makes leaves of a book stick together. 

 I've glue galore, and the leaves of my books 

 are daubed with both glue and honey, yet it 

 makes no serious trouble in the space of 50 

 years or so. How it might be as a perma- 

 nent practice I can't say. 



William Tanner has my thanks for a 

 package of genuine German lebkuchen made 

 in Nuremberg. I'm sending you a share, 

 Mr. Editor. In Germany these lebkuchen 

 associate' honey with Christmas in a way 

 not known in this country. [The samples 

 came duly to hand, and they are certainly 

 very fine. It is to be regi-etted that in this 

 country we do not have this German custom 

 of eating tliis honey-cake lebkuchen during 

 Christmas. The recipe for lebkuchen will 

 be found on page 33 of our booklet of hon- 

 ey recipes. — Ed.] 



I'd like to know what Mel Pritchard 

 looks like. Is that he, p. 28? [Yes. His 

 picture appears on pages 27, 28, 29, also on 

 page 892 of our issue for Dec. 15. On page 

 888 appears a picture of our Mr. Marehant, 

 who is now in Florida with our 300 colonies. 

 Mr. Ray, another one of our apiarists, ap- 

 pears on page 891. Mr. Mel Pritchard 



!iiakes smokers when he can not work with 

 the bees. Mr. Ray goes out selling honey, 

 and Mr, Marehant is taking care of our 

 southern apiary. We always endeavor to 

 keep our beemen busy the year round. — 

 Ed.] 



In Germany " early breeders " are disap- 

 proved, colonies that start brood-rearing 

 later being considei'ed more successful. It 

 begins to look, p. 3, that you were reversing 

 that rule at Medina. [Here is a case where 

 locality would have a bearing early in the 

 spring in Northern Ohio. In the cellar espe- 

 cially, we should say if brood-rearing can 

 start by the first of January, and be main- 

 tained from then on till the bees are taken 

 out of the cellar, it will mean stronger and 

 better colonies. Of course, one has to guard 

 against starvation. Unless the bees are sup- 

 plied with candy or unsealed stores, they 

 may not do much brood-rearing. — Ed.] 



Laying Workers. — As reported in III. 

 Monatsblaetter, Silvester Hirsch unqueened 

 a normal colony, took away its unsealed 

 brood, and gave it from time to time frames 

 of sealed brood. During all this time, of 

 course, the bees could rear no queen, neither 

 did laying workers appear. Then he gave 

 a comb with brood four or fiv|e days old, but 

 nothing younger. The bees immediately 

 started queen-cells, but destroyed them be- 

 fore maturity. The worker brood proceed- 

 ed to maturity, and, shortly after the emerg- 

 ence of the young workers, eggs were found, 

 two to ten in a cell — ^of course from laying 

 workers. He thinks extra food produced 

 laying workers. Whether they can always 

 be explained in this way is a question. 



I have always believed that a worker 

 never stings a queen, for if it did why 

 should a queen live for hours when balled? 

 One day last summer, while I held a queen 

 in my hand a worker jumped upon it, and 

 in a jiffy that queen was a dead queen. But 

 I still think that a balled queen is rarely 

 stung, if ever, j^erhaps because in the ball it 

 is impossible for a worker to get into prop- 

 er position to sting. [There have been so 

 many reports that the bees have actually 

 stung a queen to death inside of a ball, and 

 we have had so many cases of it in our own 

 yards, that we should say that death by 

 suffocation was the exception and not the 

 rule. It will be remembered when this mat- 

 ter came up years ago, we stated that we 

 had repeatedly had queens stung in the 

 thorax when pulled out of a ball of bees. — 

 Ed.] 



