816 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



give it a queen-cell. Or, let tae bees build 

 cells and raise a queen if the weather is 

 \vai"m. 



I am speaking from the standpoint of a 

 Southern apiarist, and for tl e South. I 

 have had almost unlimited experience, hav- 

 ing bees scattered along in different sec- 

 tions for over 200 miles, jDioducing and 

 putting on the market each year over 15 

 different kinds ov flavors of hcney. So I 

 have been in almost all kinds of locations. 



I have 15 apiaries in sections where we 

 need additional room to the regular eight- 

 frame hive-body for a brooJ-nest. I also 

 have 20 apiaries where th'^ eight-frame 

 body by itself is large enough for a brood- 

 chamber, and 20 more whe.e the eight- 

 frame body is too large for ii brood-cham- 

 ber at any time of the year. The result is. 

 I am having to use only the t hallow super 

 for the regular V.rood-chambot,. because I 

 can produce a third more honey by doing 

 so. The full-depth size is too much of a 

 storing place to get much honey in the 

 comb-honey supers. There is one bad fea- 

 ture about these single shallow supers as 

 brood-nests; and that is, the bees store all 

 honey in the supers above; and when they 

 are removed there is sometimes a shortage 

 of winter stores. However, this shortage 

 is supplied with shallow frames of honey 

 from some colonies that we have to store 

 in them to be used for that purj^ose. 



It may startle some of my readers to 

 know that such conditions exist here — -that 

 a single shallow extracting-su, er body is 

 sufficiently large for a brood- chamber in 

 the average location in the great Southeast. 



I have visited a great number of apianes 



ill (he extreme ))ortioii3 of uur country, the 

 bees having been brought th. re from the 

 North by Northern people in large hives. 

 Lifting out the outside combs in these large 

 brood-chambers, I find the coicb contains 

 no honey, and (hat they never have been 

 occupied by the queen. In mcst cases the 

 moths have ruined them. There is usually 

 a small brood-nest right in the middle, the 

 bees, perhaps, storing just above it, while 

 all around is unoccupied comb being ruin- 

 ed by moths. It is needless to state that 

 the industry has gone down under such 

 conditions, when, if the proper size of 

 brood-chambers had been used, it would 

 liave been different. 



Cordele, Ga. 



[Our correspondent, in this article, vir- 

 tually takes the position that the size of 

 the brood-nest depends upon the locality. 

 Supposing, for tlie sake of argument, that 

 the 15 apiaries mentioned could suddenly 

 occupy either of the other two localities, 

 would the eight-frame l^^-story brood- 

 chamber, with tl e same colonies, soon 

 be too large? With the same management 

 and the same prolific queens, it is indeed 

 " startling " that there should be such a dif- 

 ference in the size of the brood-nests as to 

 require almost three times as large a brood- 

 chamber in the first locality mentioned by 

 our correspondent as in the last locality. 

 If Mr. Dadant, with his extra deep hives, 

 and Mr. Holtermann, with his tv, elve-f rame 

 hives, were to move their bees into this 

 last locality, would they be obli|.ed to adopt 

 a single eight-frame half-depth super for 

 a brood-cliamber in order to succeed?- — 

 Ed.] 



A TON AND A HALF OF SUGAM AT WAR PMECES 



BY ILA K. MICHENEK 



The editorial on page 659, Sept. 1, " Is 

 sugar too expensive to feed?" etc., I have 

 read with great interest. I have lived near 

 a large marsh all my days till this year. 

 I'm in my sixty-ninth year, and I have 

 never found the honey gathered from gold- 

 enrod and the asters good for wintering 

 bees, for the reason, I suppose, they never 

 get it well ripened in this locality. 



Neither is boiled honey good for winter- 

 ing bees, for it ]f; changed so much that 

 bees will get dysentery from it before 

 spring as well as they will from the late- 

 gathered honey. 



My bees where I have them now, near 

 Fenwick. gathered about half a crop of clo- 

 ver honey; and although buckwheat was 

 abundant it rained so much while it was in 

 bloom they gathered very little honey from 

 it. 



We have had about twelve days now of 

 the finest weather, and goldenrod and asters 

 and other fall flowers have vielded well; 

 -but I have bought a ton and a half of best 

 granulated sugar at war pr'ces to feed 

 my bees. 



Humberstone, Out., Sept. 23 



