GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



ir. C. C. Mi 



STMAY STMAW! 



" Honey-comb " seems still to be used 

 in England where we use "combbonej'," 

 just as it is in the Bible. In British Bee 

 Journal, p. 276, it is said, " Italians will 

 not eat honey-comb." 



A. I. Root, you think a gasoline motor 

 has the advantage over a horse for cultivat- 

 ing that it needs no feed while not working, 

 p. 831. It also has the important advantage 

 that it doesn't step on plants. 



Dee-lighted, Mr. Editor, that you are 

 getting interested in bee-botany, and hope 

 it will develop into a great love for flowers 

 in general. Yoa'll live longer, have more 

 to live for, and be better to live with. 



By way of postscript to the word of the 

 editor, p. 793, urging a stout box to send 

 samples of foul brood, I may add that if 

 you write to Dr. Phillips he will send a tin 

 box in which you may send the sample, and 

 also a frank to pay postage. 



Speaking of European foul brood, p. 

 662, J. L. Byer says : " Universal requeen- 

 ing with good Italian stock seems to be 

 about the only remedy for it." Many will 

 understand that to mean that such requeen- 

 ing is all that is needed to get rid of the 

 disease. I don't believe that friend Byer 

 really means that. But in most cases it will 

 be a very important help. 



Otto Dengg, Deutsche Imker, 165, com- 

 mends the plan of raising the brood to the 

 second story and filling the lower story with 

 frames of foundation, and credits the plan 

 to Preuss, of Potsdam, who was then fol- 

 lowed by Staehelhausen and Alexander in 

 America. But was not the plan given by 

 G. W. Demaree, Christiansburg, Ky., be- 

 fore Staehelhausen and Alexander appeared 

 on the stage? 



Louis Scholl figures $5.00 rent for lo- 

 cating an apiary of 50 colonies, p. 795, and 

 twice as much for an apiary of 100. That 

 would be fair if the rent of the land were 

 the only thing considered. But generally 

 the actual land rent is a minor considera- 

 tion, and the farmer would about as soon 

 have 100 colonies on his place as 50. It is, 

 however, getting more and more that the 

 farmer considers it a favor, and wants no 

 rent. 



" Feeding when robbing is bad," p. 745, 

 recalls a safe and easy way in which I've 

 fed tons. Put Miller feeders on_ the hives. 

 Leave them open all over the apiary if you 

 like. Bees don't rob dry feeders. Pour dry 

 sugar into them, still leaving them open. 



Bees don't rob dry sugar. Go Ground and 

 pour water, cold or hot, into each feeder. 

 You'll have plenty of time to cover up be- 

 fore the sugar and water becomes robable 

 syrup. 



" I HAVE never believed a farm complete 

 without a few colonies of bees carefully 

 kept in modern hives," says Louis H. Scholl, 

 p. 707. I sympathize with that view, and 

 yet it's more poetical than practical. That 

 would mean each farmer a thorough bee- 

 keeper, with no specialists, for there would 

 be no room for specialists. Wouldn't it 

 cost less to have enough specialists to gather 

 all the honey than to have every farmer 

 trained to keep bees " carefully " ? 



To get bees out of supers of sections, the 

 easy way is to smoke down most of the bees 

 before taldng off, then pile up the supers 

 10 to 15 high and put a Miller escape on 

 top. But sometimes they are stubborn about 

 coming out, and then the surer way is to 

 replace the escape with a hive-body con- 

 taining a frame of brood, or even honey, 

 covering over. Then empty out the bees 

 two or three times ; or if you have a colony 

 that needs strengthening there's nothing 

 nicer than to give it these bees. 



We are told that you can spot lay- 

 ing workers by eggs laid irregularly and 

 more than one egg in a cell. You can't — 

 always. I've known laying workers, when 

 they had plenty of good worker-cells, and 

 no others, to do work that you couldn't tell 

 from that of any good queen. But if they 

 have drone-cells they'll double up in them, 

 and they like queen-cells still better. [There 

 are exceptions to all mles in beedom. In 

 addition to what you describe, a good laying 

 queen will sometimes lay two or three eggs 

 in a cell in baby nuclei. The reason is ap- 

 parent — she does not have room. — Ed.] 



J. E. Crane says, p. 622, that with him 

 sujierseding takes place at all seasons, and 

 quotes me as saying " superseding practi- 

 cally always takes place after swarming is 

 all over." That sounds rather wide apart, 

 but I suspect we're not so very far apart. 

 Superseding also takes place with me at all 

 seasons, but so little at other times that it's 

 practically all after-swarming. Note, too, 

 that I don't say " after all swarming is 

 over," but it's after swarming is all over 

 with each colony. Swarming may be all 

 over with one colony in June, and with 

 another in August or September. Then 

 there are colonies that will supersede their 

 queen with no thought of swarming, and 



