JUNE 15, 1914 



447 



Dr. C. C, Miller 



ITEAY STRAW! 



J. M. BucHANAK, in your valuable list, p. 

 432, you give dandelion as a yielder of 

 nectar. Here it yields much pollen as well. 

 Your alsike is " almost equal to while (lo- 

 ver." I think it's better in the North. 



My women folk are datfy on grapefruit, 

 taking it regularly every morning. But they 

 object to taking the juice through a straw, 

 as given by A. 1. Root, p. 4-12. if that means 

 "without any bitter," for they specially 

 relish the bitter. And they don't want any 

 sugar with it either. 



J. L. BvER, the name you cannot recall, 

 p. 338, is G. W. Demaree, and right you are 

 to commend his plan for prevention of 

 swarming. You speak a little as if it is 

 only to be used " if there are no signs of 

 swarming at the time of the operation." If 

 1 am not greatly mistaken it works all right 

 after cells are started, only you must cut 

 them out, and the plan may even be used 

 after swarm.ing occurs. 



Y^ou're right, Louis H. Scholl, p. 367, in 

 commending " hives in pairs." If I am cor- 

 rect, that i^lan originated " in this locality," 

 and you cannot urge too strongly that put- 

 ting hives in pairs is practically spacing 

 them further apart ; in other words, by put- 

 ting them in pairs you can exactly double 

 the number of colonies on the same ground 

 without at all increasing the danger of go- 

 ing to the wrong hive. [This scheme is all 

 right. — Ed.] 



Wesley Foster, you say, p. 327, that 

 with a rapid uninterrupted flow a one-inch 

 top-starter and % bottom-starter works 

 well. Won't that middle space contain much 

 drone comb? and do you think that makes 

 a nice finish? Besides, if you don't use 

 excluders the queen will come up to lay in 

 that drone comb; and if you do use exclud- 

 ers the bees will delay sealing, waiting for 

 the queen to lay in it. I'm much interested 

 in your contemplated experiments. 



May 29 finds colonies strong in number. 

 Dandelion is just closing a busy career, and 

 white clover is beginning to bloom. It was 

 never more plentiful, but will it " honey," 

 as the Germans say? The ground is so full 

 of water that clover can hardly di-y up for 

 some time, if it yields nectar at all. Will 

 the knowledge that ten supers apiece are 

 ready for them spur the bees to effort, or 

 will it utterly discourage them? [This is a 

 year of promise all over the country for 

 clover districts, so far as we have been able 

 to learn. The fact that the bee-supply man- 

 ufacturers are all busy is significant. — Ed.] 



D. E. Lhommedieu's plan for draining 

 cappings seems good. Save the cappings 

 in a vessel with solid bottom without giving 

 them a chance to drain — all the better if 

 considerable honey is with them — then take 

 a stamper perhaps 2V2 inches in diameter, 

 which is cut off square at the lower end ; 

 stamii the cappings into fine pieces, and the 

 honey will then drain readily from them 

 when given an o;:.portunity. The draining 

 may be hastened by putting the cappings 

 through a honey-extractor. 



Y^ou say you don't catch on to my ques- 

 tion, Mr. Editor, yet think the answer easy, 

 p. 365. Glad if it puzzles you, if I can only 

 get your attention to the sort of puzzles 

 you're all the time handing out to your 

 readers. If you had ventured an answer at 

 all, like enough you would have said that if 

 Smith gets 50 pounds of honey per colony, 

 and Jones gets 60 pounds, then Jones has 

 20 per cent greater success than Smith, 

 which may be quite right and may be very 

 wrong, because of the loose statem.ent in the 

 question. If the two men produce the same 

 kind of honey, 20 per cent is the right an- 

 swer. But if Smith produces extracted and 

 Jones comb, then 20 per cent is too small an 

 answer; and if Smith produces comb and 

 Jones extracted, then Smith is the more 

 successful, according to general experience. 

 I hope you've had so much guessing that 

 you'll stop making your readers guess in 

 every number of Gleanings when you let 

 some contributor mention so many pounds 

 of honey without si^ecifying comb or ex- 

 tracted. And please, please, when mention- 

 ing foul brood, don't leave any uncertainty 

 whether it's American or European. [When 

 a correspondent does not tell whether he is 

 referring to European or American foul 

 brood or comb or extracted honey, we can 

 not very well add the qualifying adjectives 

 without danger of making him say what is 

 possibly not true. It would be considerable 

 trouble to write to every one, especially 

 those who write only once a year or once in 

 five years, to find out the specific thing re- 

 ferred to. About all we can do is to request 

 our regular correspondents to say whether 

 they mean comb or extracted honey or 

 American or European foul brood, and we 

 are making this request at this time. When, 

 however, a correspondent describes his ex- 

 tracting outfit, or mentions it incidentally, 

 it is hardly necessary for him to cumber up 

 the article by adding the word " extracted " 

 every time he refers to his crop. — Ed.] 



