650 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Grace Allen 



THE DIXIE BEE 



Nashville, Tenu. 



Well, Dr. Miller, I surely 

 thought it was the little bee's an- 

 tenna) that held that tiny egg that 

 blew away so quickly. The mis- 

 take, as you suggest, must have 

 been due to inaccurate observation, 

 for it was not mere careless re- 

 porting. Thanks for the correction, tho it 

 doe?: force me to un-see w^iat I seem to see 

 \ ei'v clearly in ray mind's eye. 



One thing that I have seen accurately, tho, 

 and as you see it, is the beauty of the 

 dandelion. 1 am glad you love it too. A 

 tield of them is so beautiful that history's 

 famous Field of the Cloth of Gold on which 

 the two great kings met seems a dead un- 

 thrilling thing by contrast. 

 » * * 



As to the queen's preference for new 

 comb, we have often remarked it, having 

 frequently found the queen laying in comb 

 only partly drawn, even when not forced to 

 it by lack of room. 



« « » 



Mr. SehoU says, page 471, "It is possible 

 to take oty more than a thousand pounds of 

 honey in half an hour." My marginal com- 

 ment, in the light of our own recent ex- 

 periences, reads m.erely " Whew ! " May I 



rejieat it here? Whe ewl 



* ■* * 



There are certainly plenty of fine sugges- 

 tions in that special advertising number — 

 national honey week, honey stamps, and all 

 the splendid scliemes for co-operative adver- 

 tising action. The next thing is the eo-op- 

 eration and the action. 



May with her lavish clover bloom raised 

 high liopes in the hearts of Tennessee bee- 

 kee^Ders ; but June with her uncompromising 

 rains laid them low. The crop seems to be 

 merely an average one, probably slightly 

 under a hundred pounds i^er colony, ,iudg- 

 ing from reports received. Considerable of 

 the new crop is already on the market, and 

 the quality is unusually tine. The constant 

 rains have interrupted many attempts at 

 extracting, causing manj' beekeepers merely 

 to mark time. The worst of this rain, tho, is 

 the really serious damage being done further 

 south, 



* * » 



While Mr. Allen was carrying those 

 heavy supers from the wheelbarrow up the 

 steps into the house (for of course we do 

 our extracting in the kitchen) I could do 



nothing but stand by and give moral sup- 

 port and open the screen door; but when- 

 ever he got hold of one of the new supers, 

 purchiised this season, I could and did join 

 lum in a strenuous objection to the lack of 

 hand-hole cleats. It seems to me that, even 

 if I were strong enough to lift seventy or 

 eighty pounds, I'd rather not have to do it 

 with just the tips of my fingers. 



* * * 



We were puzzled at finding a laying 

 queen in one extracting-super, with brood 

 in all stages from eggs to sealed worker 

 brood. It is true we had raised considerable 

 brood one time and another, but were always 

 very particular not to put up the queen. 

 This one we found wasn't clipped, anyway, 

 so she almost cei'tainly wasn't put up from 

 below. As we sometimes failed to look later 

 for queen-cells above, the bees might easily 

 have reared a queen ; but being over the 

 excluder, she could not have been fertilized. 

 Yet there were the egg's, and we are still 

 puzzled. 



Then we did a silly thing. Not knowing 

 from which colony this particular super had 

 come, and being rushed and busy as per- 

 haps only backlotters are apt to be about 

 their extracting, we just set it out in the 

 yard on a new stand, with its honey, brood, 

 queen, the bees that had. stayed on the 

 combs, an entrance-contractor, and our best 

 wishes. What the robbers did ! We didn't 

 mind their doing what robbers are supposed 

 to do, for we had given them the chance; 

 but they tore those combs almost completely 

 to pieces, and we never saw the little queen 



again. 



* * * 



We have good-looking covers in your 

 sense too, Prof. Baldwin, when they are 

 well-painted and don't look sort of speekly. 

 They do take a deal of painting, tho, don't 

 they? Painting every five to ten years 

 won't do for metal covers, as Mr. Miles, 

 page 475, says it will for hives — ^uot, that 

 is, to keep them looking well. The only 

 other thing about these covers that dis- 

 tresses me, for I am very partial to them, 

 is their well-developed talent for getting 

 insufferably hot. I realize there is an air- 

 space below; but even at that, it seems as 

 tho when they are so hot that I can scarcely 

 bear my hand on them, as they are in a 

 hot sun, when unshaded, it must be decided- 

 ly and uncomfortably warm inside. We 

 have resorted to shade-boards a few extra- 

 warm days this season — ^when it didn't hap- 

 pen to be raining. 



