APRIL 1, 1916 



Dr. C. C. Miller 



261 



STRAY STRAWS 



M 



arengo. 



111. 



Fred W. Muth says : " If you 

 scratch the tin first, flour paste wili' 

 stick as good as any ; or if you put 

 sugar in paste you need not scratch 

 the tin. We do it." 



When considering the pros and 

 cons as to house-apiaries, don't 

 forget one very imiDortant point : The man 

 with a house-apiaiy loses the health-giving 

 advantage of an outdoor life. 



D. W. Millar has mailed me a sample of 

 campanilla honey so clear, so excellent in 

 flavor, and so daintily put up, that there 

 ought to be a law against allowing such 

 honey to enter from Cuba to interfere with 

 my trade. 



J. E. Crane is learning. He says, p. 

 145, " I found what I did not know before, 

 that bees will not build up on sugar syrup 

 as well as on honey." Good ! I confess 

 that, until lately, I had not realized — per- 

 haps don't fully realize yet — how much bet- 

 ter honey is than sugar for man or bee. 



" Don't be a kicker ! " That's another 

 lesson, Huber, you might have drawn from 

 that mouse-and-trap atfair, p. 244. Some 

 people are always ready to kick, no matter 

 what hajjpens, only making more trouble 

 for themselves and others. If that mouse, 

 instead of kicking, had lain still and quietly 

 died when caught by the one trap, it would 

 not need to have been killed the second time 

 by the other trap. After all, why was any 

 one so careless as to set two traps so close 

 together? 



Very interesting is the discussion of bees 

 drifting when set on their summer stands, 

 p. 235, by G. C. Greiner. Years ago I had 

 trouble galore from drifting. A hive at one 

 end would have the bees for three colonies, 

 and too often the queen would be killed — 

 nowadays no trouble at all. I can't be 

 sworn just why, but I'll tell you just how 

 we do. On a bright morning when bees can 

 fly they are all brought out of the cellar as 

 rapidly as possible; and before the bees 

 have time to fly, each entrance is closed to 

 one square inch or less. I think that small 

 entrance is the secret of no drifting. 



An Ohio coixespondent has abundant 

 dandelion and fruit-bloom, and then an in- 

 terval of two weeks before clover. He in- 

 tends to take from a colony the queen with 

 two or three brood, and when the queenless 

 colony has ripe cells to divide it into nuclei 

 wliicli shall i^row iutd full colonies. He asks 



whetlier to l)egin operations in the early or 

 the clover flow. The earlier he begins, the 

 longer time there is to build up. But unless 

 the colony is very strong in dandelion, bet- 

 ter wait for the stronger colony in clover. 

 Moreover, in localities like mine, where bees 

 rarely swarm before clover, the chances are 

 that early queens will be poor, so in such 

 Ijlaees I'd wait for clover. But where 

 swarming is mostly before clover, I'd begin 

 just before that swarming. 



What is tlie best cellar temperature for 

 bees? We don't know as much about it as 

 we did 25 years ago — at least we're not so 

 well agreed. At that time all agi'eed that 

 the orthodox thing was 45 degrees; now 

 we're divided in opinion. George H. Rea, 

 p. 208, says 43. I think Dr. Phillips favors 

 50. Asked why it was that 45 was so g'en- 

 erally held years ago, he thought it was 

 because cellars generally hajDpened to be 

 that temperature. Formerly I had good 

 wintering at 45; now my bees do well at 50. 

 Xo doubt bees may winter fairly well at 

 different degrees, yet no. doubt there is some 

 one degree that is best. [Our best success 

 in wintering has been with the higher tem- 

 peratures; but with them there must be in- 

 creased ventilation, or the bees will become 

 very uneasy, and fly out on the cellar bottom 

 and die — -at least that has been our own ex- 

 perience. Our temi^eratures ranged from 

 50 to 55, some of the time going as high as 

 65 ; but when we secured fresh air by means 

 of an electric fan going into the room the 

 bees did not appear to be uneasy. 



One reason why 45 has been considered 

 the orthodox temperature is because, years 

 ago, when that dictum was jDut out, com- 

 paratively little attention was paid to ven- 

 tilation. Prior to that time, sub-earth ven- 

 tilators were recommended; and then it was 

 concluded these were of no use because they 

 carried in too much dampness and cold air. 

 Then later the slogan was no ventilation 

 except what percolated through the cellar 

 walls, doors, and windows ; and the advice 

 was given to close these wp as tightly as 

 possible; and, strange enough, there was 

 some fair wintering; but when the tempera- 

 ture hovered around 42 to 45, and a closed 

 cellar, nothing was thought of two or three 

 inches of dead bees on the cellar floor, and 

 weak colonies in the spring. To-day we can 

 not regard it as good wintering when the 

 bees fly out in large numbers and die on the 

 cellar bottom an inch or so deep; and the 

 main cause of this is not bad food but bad 

 ventilation. — En.] 



