GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Grace Allen 



THE DIXIE BEE 



Nashville, Tenn. 



But please, Mr. Editor, after 

 my last paragraph, page 969, Dec. 

 1, you say' that twenty pounds of 

 sealed stores is advisable for north- 

 ern wintering, and twenty-five or 

 thirty for southern, and that is 

 not what I was trying to elicit, 

 but, rather, this: How many pounds of 

 syrup (two measures of sugar to one of 

 water) are required to make a certain num- 

 ber of pounds of sealed stores? If you 

 found a hive lacking ten pounds of stores, 

 would ten pounds of syrup do the work? 

 In other words, will a pound of syrup make 

 a pound of honey for wintering? (Why 

 didn't I put it that way in the first place ) 

 Our judgment, based on nothing in par- 

 ticular, said no. To 



hives lacking ten 

 pounds, we fed about 

 fifteen pounds of 

 this two-to-one syr- 

 up, on a vague "bet- 

 ter-be-safe-than-sor - 

 i-y" proposition; but 

 suppose one wanted 

 to be accurate, how 

 many pounds should 

 he feed? [See an- 

 swer to a Straw of 

 Dr. Miller's in this 

 issue. If in the fall 

 a colony were lack- 

 ing sufficient stores 

 to carry them thru 

 we would not hesi- 

 tate to make up the 

 deficiency by feed- 

 ing. While a pound i,,„„„„„„ „„„„ ,„„ 



of sealed sugar syr- 

 up might not equal a pound of honey, it 

 may be a better feed if the honey is of a 

 poor quality. It is probable that a pound 

 of good table honey like clover, basswood. 

 and the like, will go further than a pound 

 of sealed sugar stores, because the former 

 contains some food elements that the latter 

 does not. — Ed.] 



Greetings 



Happy New Year to you, friends, 



Gleaners one and all, 

 Amateurs and veterans, beefolk great 



and small — 

 East and west and south and north, 



forest, field, and fen, 

 Happy New Year to you all, women- 

 folk and men! 

 Happy New Year to the kiddies with 



their starry eyes! 

 Greetings to the editors, friendly folk 



and wise! 

 Everybody, everywhere, here and over- 

 seas, 

 Happy New Year to you all — and also 



to your bees! 



the proventriculus is stomach-mouth; and 

 it makes a wonderful story — how the nectar 

 passes through the worker bee's oesophagus, 

 down into her tiny honey-stomach, from 

 there to be either emptied out into cells or 

 held as reserve for her oAvn nutrition. If 

 the latter, how deftly it slips down into the 

 real stomach just any time it is needed, 

 perhaps even when the bee is in full flight. 

 And then the polite, delicate way that the 

 real stomach presses its sensitive little 

 mouth up, right through the honey-stomach, 

 to eject some of this partially digested food, 

 or chyle, to feed the larvee, leaving the nec- 

 tar and pollen in the honey-stomach daintily 

 undisturbed. Why! it is as interesting as 

 a new novel, and far more thrilling and 

 beautiful. And do 



"""""" ' I you know where a 



bee's heart is? Do 

 study about these 

 things. Every mi- 

 nute detail is start- 

 lingly perfect and 

 thoroly worth while 

 to know about. Even 

 if you don't think it 

 practical enough to 

 be necessary, do it 

 for the delight of it 

 and the zest of it and 



the ehar-^\ 

 * * • 



On. page 624, Aug. 

 1, Mr. Gates men- 

 tions the occasional 

 change in the flora 

 I of a given locality 



^ ^^^ i and the appearance 



of the new honey 

 sources. Dr. J. S. Ward, Tennessee state 

 inspector, says tliat somewhere up the Cum- 

 berland River the beekeepers report the 

 appearance in the last year or two of a new 

 generous-yielding honej^-plant whose name 

 they do not know. It is a late-summer and 

 early-fall bloomer, and Dr. Ward plans to 

 go up thei'e wlien it opens this yeai', to help 

 establish its identity. 



FOR BEGINNERS. 



Have you ever happened to hear of any- 

 thing called the ventriculus? or anything 

 else called the proventriculus — which you 

 would very naturally, and quite correctly, 

 infer was in front of the ventriculus? Well, 

 there are such things, and most fascinating 

 they are to study about. The more common 

 name of the ventriculus is stomach, and of 



Surely Major Shallard's tragic accident 

 arouses the sympathy of beekeepers this 

 whole country over; and how plucky his 

 letters sound — not a whine in them ! J. D. 

 Bailey's experience in the disastrous Loui- 

 siana storm was bad too. Our best Avishes 

 to both these gentlemen, and the hope of a 

 more fortunate vear to come. 



