JULY 15. 191 R 



585 



Dr. C. C. Miller 



STRAY STRAWS 



M£ 



111. 



Mention is made, p. 416, of full 

 combs, made the year before, and 

 the bees put nothing in them that 

 year. Isn't there some mistake 

 about that? Do bees ever build 

 comb in advance of immediate 

 need ? 



Instruction is given, p. 490, to sliake all 

 bees in front of the new hive, and afterward 

 to use the queen-cells on the shaken combs. 

 Beginners should be informed that brushing 

 is meant instead of shaking. Shaking might 

 ruin the cells. 



Allen Latham, jj. 480, accounts for the 

 greater immunity of Italians to European 

 foul brood by saying that blacks suck out 

 the juices of the dead larvae, and Italians 

 don't. That's entirely new to me. I won- 

 der if others have observed the same thing. 

 [Tliis was also new to us. We shall be 

 pleased to get reports. — Ed.] 



In the Gravenhorst skep, movable frames 

 can be put, p. 481. The novice may under- 

 stand that to mean that it is a skep rather 

 than a hive, and that frames are not always 

 used in it, alt ho they can be. Gravenhorst 

 was one of Germany's greatest beekeej^ers, 

 and his hive, altho having Avails of straw, 

 is just as much a hive as the Langstroth, 

 and no more used without frames than the 

 Langstroth. [The Gravenhorst hive is in 

 reality the Long Idea hive, with this differ- 

 ence, that it must be turned upside down to 

 manipulate, and that the outer shell is made 

 of straw in place of wood. — Ed.] 



How often it is that a thing that looks all 

 right to us turns out to be all wrong when 

 submitted to the bees ! There's that idea of 

 feeding very slowly when getting queen-cells 

 built, p. 466. I should have said, "If 

 honey is not yielding, the more you feed 

 the better." Then I'd have lost my cells and 

 wondered why! [There are two reasons 

 why slow feeding is better than rapid. If 

 the food comes too fast, it excites the bees, 

 causing them to rush outdoors, expending 

 energy and wing-gear that is utterly use- 

 less. The second reason is, fast feeding- 

 very soon results in a stoppage of the 

 incoming supply. The bees may have ever 

 so much honey or syru^j in the hive; but 

 unless there is somethiup- coming in all the 

 time, cell-building is quite likely to be 

 stopped and cells destroyed. 



Cell-building will go on when the sup])ly 

 comes in rapidly, but in a short time (lie 

 brood-nest will become congested, and the 



queen will have no room for egg-laying. 

 There is every reason for slow feeding 

 rather than rapid, either for queen-rearing 

 or raising bees. — Ed.] 



P. C. CiiADwiCK says, p. 473, " I have 

 learned better than to try to compel bees to 

 put up nice comb honey when the flow is 

 not sufficient." I'm beginning to think that 

 a poor colony is much the same as a poor 

 flow. At any rate, this year I'm picking 

 out the colonies that make poorest work in 

 sections, taking off their sections, and giv- 

 ing them extracting-combs. [You are right ; 

 and if so, does this not argue that it is an 

 advantage to produce both comb and ex- 

 tracted honey in the same yard, and very 

 often on the same colony? Besides, there 

 is the factor of the season, the factor of 

 the colony, and the factor of the individual 

 or owner? The latter, if he is a beginner, 

 will succeed better with extracted than 

 with comb honey. We therefore advocate 

 the production of both extracted and comb 

 honey in the same yard. But this year we 

 advise the large producer to run mainly for 

 extracted, as there will be enough comb 

 honey produced to take care of all market 

 demands this year, and then some. — Ed.] 



Pardon a mild plea for correct English. 

 If " diarrhea " be the correct word, it ought 

 not to give way to an incorrect word that is 

 smoother, altho to me " diarrhea " sounds 

 much smoother than " dysentery." The 

 claim that the latter has become so engraft- 

 ed into our literature as to make change 

 seem impossible, p. 469, is only a seeming. 

 I've known those into whose language 

 " hadn't ought " was quite thoroly engraft- 

 ed, yet in time they learned to say " ought 

 not." [" Hadn't ought," of course, cannot 

 be tolerated in any dignified English. Such 

 a phrase is not engrafted in the pages of 

 our regular magazines and j^apers, altho it 

 is a part of our every-day spoken language. 

 Dysentery is a i^art of our bee literature. 



We have had some experience in trying to 

 change our nomenclature, and we find it an 

 uphill business. It has taken us years to 

 change " nauieless bee disease " to " bee 

 paralysis." We attempted to change " fer- 

 tile worker " to " laying worker," as the 

 former term was thought to be less accurate, 

 but we never really succeeded. If you were 

 making books and magazines, you would not 

 attempt to make a change from "dysentery" 

 to " diarrhea." Does not the former term 

 indicate the meaning of the word closely 

 enough? Then why attempt what is diffi- 

 cult at best?— Ed.] 



