SEPTEMBER 15, 1914 



Dr. C.C Miller I §TMAY STRAWS I Mareng»,lll. 



Sugar has gone up more than CO per cent 

 ill a month, and is still rising. I wish it 

 would take honey up with it. [See editorial 

 comments elsewhere. — Ed.] 



Quotations on comb honey, Aug. 15, are 

 12 to 17 cents a pound. That's evidently 

 under the old law. To fit the new law, and 

 bring the same price per section, the price 

 must be 1 to l^^ cents higher per pound, ac- 

 cording to price and weight. 



" The eight-frame hive must be 



tvorlce I in sections on the divisiblo-broud- 

 chamber plan," p. 531. Sometimes, before 

 supers are given, never after, at least " in 

 this locality." [Something will depend on 

 tvhether you are running for comD or ex- 

 tracted honey. You run for comb and we 

 agree with your amended statement. — Ed.] 



C. P. Dadant says, American Bee Jour- 

 nal p. 279, " I have seen so many good 

 queens prove good the third year that I 

 prefer not to replace a first-class two-year- 

 old queen by one whose ability is unknown 

 to me. The bees usually requeen in good 

 time, if the matter is left to them." Same 

 here. Those who think it pays to requeen 

 every year might gain by getting a new 

 strain of bees. Yet there are always some 

 queens which do not come up to the mark, 

 and they should be promptly replaced. 



Mr. Editor, allow me to emphasize what 

 you say, p. 362. The report of failures may 

 be just a ; valuablv; as the report of success- 

 es. We're all somewhat inclined to run in 

 the same grooves. If I get it into my head 

 that some fool thing will be a success, a 

 number of others are likely to have tho 

 same notion. If no one reports failure, 

 others will keep on trying the same thing. 

 The man who reports failure saves a lot o\ 

 others from the same failure. Then as to 

 reporting before a thing is fully tried. A 

 man may have a valuable idea which takes 

 a considerable time to try out. He may die 

 before completing his trial, or it may b? 

 that others may hasten the decision ; and at 

 any rate, if he's the right kind he'll want to 

 share what he expects to be a good thing 

 just as soon as possible. So go ahead, re- 

 port your half-baked schemes and your fail- 

 ures; and if others laugh at j'ou, 3'ou laugh 

 too. 



"A VERTICALLY wired comb will be Avavy," 

 p. 605. Is that " locality " again ? My first 

 wiring, and nearly all of my wiring was 

 vertical, and of the hundreds of combs I do 

 not recall that any were wavy. [Something- 

 depends on the weight of the foundation you 



have, and how old it is. A light-weight 

 foundation will have a tendency to show 

 these waves more than the heavier grades. 

 In the same way, a foundation that has been 

 made, and laid away on the shelves for a 

 year or so after it is made, will be less 

 inclined to show this peculiarity after the 

 combs are di.awn. We should guess that you 

 use a foundation that you have ordered six 

 months to a year ahead of time in order to 

 take advantage of the discount, and to be 

 sure that you have it on hand when you 

 need it. If this is true, it is age rather than 

 locality that accounts for the ditference. 

 Years ago, when we used vertical wiring 

 exclusively, a large part of our combs were 

 a little wavy — some more than others. 

 Whenever we put in foundation we use an 

 article fresh from the mill, partly because 

 we have no other, and partly because the 

 bees draw it out a little more readily. — Ed.] 

 July 6, 11 :10 a. m,, I gave a comb to my 

 best queen, taking from her all other combs, 

 and took the combs away again just two 

 hours later. The comb was given to a full 

 colony made queenless. Ten queen-cells were 

 started on the comb, and were sealed July 

 14. July 20 I cut out the cells and put them 

 in a nursery. At 5 a. m., July 21, I went to 

 see if any of the virgins were yet out of 

 their cells. Six were already out ! But I 

 don't think they had been out long. If we 

 assume that the eggs from those cells were 

 laid the minute the comb was given to the 

 queen, and that the virgins emerged from 

 their cells the instant I opened the hive July 

 21, it would make the time from the laying 

 of the egg to the hatching of the queen 14 

 days, 17 hours, 50 minutes, or 6 hours and 

 10 minutes less than 15 days. But that's an 

 unreasonable assumption. The likelihood is 

 that the queen did not lay within an hour 

 (in other cases it has been two or tlrree 

 hours) after the comb was given to her, 

 making the time just so much less. The 

 difficult i3art is to get the queen to lay in a 

 given comb within a short space of time. 

 Sunday came in the way or I would have 

 determ.ined the time of development of the 

 workers. [The i^eriod of incubation of young 

 queens varies, according to our experience; 

 and that variation we attribute to weather 

 conditions and the particular environment 

 furnished by the colony. If you were to try 

 the experiment again, when it is a little 

 cooler, and with a different colony, you 

 might get a longer time of incubation. The 

 period may be increased if' the colony is not 

 strong. — Ed.] 



