NOVEMBER 1. 1916 



1013 



Dr. C. C. Miller 



STRAY STRAWS m->^o.i" 



The British Bee Journal, p. 256, 

 suggests a.s a proper wholesale 

 price for honey of first quality, 24 

 cents per section, and 16 to 17 

 cents a pound for extracted. 

 Doesn't that compensate for the 

 smaller yield they get in England? 



J. L. Byer considers ridiculous the large 

 entrance advocated by many, p. 909. Now 

 that's ridiculous of you, J. L., to talk that 

 way without telling what harm comes from 

 it. I don't know whether you would class 

 my entrance of 24 square inches as too 

 large; but, honest Injun, wouldn't you rath- 

 er have that than the 1^/2 square inches you 

 tell about? 



M. S. Phillips says if you want to find 

 out whether a nucleus has a virgin, don't 

 give it unsealed brood, for then it will kill 

 the virgin and start cells. Take a frame of 

 sealed brood, pin on the middle a sealed 

 .queen-eell, and put it in the middle of the 

 brood-nest. If any kind of queen is pres- 

 ent, you will find the cell destroyed in a 

 few hours. This looks like a valuable hint. 

 [Yes; but if one doesn't have a sealed 

 queen-cell what is he to do? — Ed.] 



James A. Stone says he has no trouble 

 in cleaning out the groove when combs have 

 been cut out of a frame with groove and 

 wedge in top-bar. Take an old-time three- 

 pronged table-fork; cut one of the outside 

 prongs off about i/4-inch; turn both outside 

 prongs up like sled-runners, then you can 

 plow the comb or whatever is in the gi'oove 

 clean out ; remove the wedge and place it in 

 the groove to push the tongue back, and let 

 it remain a fcAV minutes, when you can 

 insert the foundation as easily as at first. 



" In supering, it is rare that a season is 

 so favorable that lifting supers and placing 

 empties beneath is advisable," says Wesley 

 Foster, Sejot. 1, p. 781. Locality, again? 

 If there were no other objection, here, to 

 giving supers above only, a sufficient objec- 

 tion is that such supers may have sealed 

 sections in center with raw foundation sur- 

 rounding, while, placed, below, all but the 

 corner sections will be sealed alike. In a 

 big flow here, if we don't find it advisable to 

 add an empty hoth above and below, we 

 think there's something wrong with the 

 colony. 



A DUMMY in order to get the first frame 

 out of a hive more easily I earnestly advo- 

 cated for years. A few months ago I went 

 to figuring on it, and it wasn't long before T 

 was convinced I had been wrong. With a 

 dummy the outside layer of bees was less 



than any of the inside layers, and surely the 

 outside comb needed the greater protection. 

 The outside comb sometimes had less brood 

 than the others; with more bees to keep it 

 warm, that might be bettered. I decided to 

 test the matter fully, and, against the 

 earnest protest of my assistant, left dum- 

 mies out of a third of my hives during the 

 season of 1916. For some reason the bees 

 couldn't see the force of my figures and 

 arguments. There was no increase in brood 

 in outside combs. Unless extra time was 

 taken to shove all the frames to the opposite 

 side, taking out the first frame had to be 

 done slowly to avoid killing bees — jjossibly 

 a queen — and the bees were stirred up by it 

 so it was hard to find the queen. When the 

 frames were returned it took extra time to 

 equalize the space at each side. Brace- 

 combs made some trouble. Leave dummies 

 out if you want to, but never again for me. 



A. I. Root, you show good taste in liking 

 milk out of the refrigerator with oatmeal 

 and honey. I think I take a little more 

 comfort by having in the evening hot milk 

 wit): extracted clover honey, sometimes hav- 

 ing in it bread made from whole-wheat flour 

 that I ground myself. [My good friend, 

 the above makes me glad several times. 

 First, I am glad to know that you, like 

 myself, are prolonging your life, probably 

 because of simple living — milk and honey. 

 In regard to the hot milk, whenever my di- 

 gestion gets a little out of shape, say by 

 being tempted to eat between meals or 

 something like that, I too use hot milk. 

 Sometimes I say to Mrs. Root, " Please let 

 me have scalded milk, and have it hot, in- 

 stead of cold milk, until I give further 

 notice." The hot milk with toast soon gets 

 me right again. And then, again, I am glad 

 once more to find that you are cutting out 

 a great lot of middlemen by making your 

 whole-wheat flour yourself, and getting bet- 

 ter flour than you can probably buy, even if 

 you pay a big price for it in paper pack- 

 ages. By the way, doctor, I am going to 

 feel awful lonesome if you die before I do ; 

 so please do not die just yet. A few days 

 ago I had occasion to look over your book 

 where it tells about how cheaply you lived 

 on wheat away back in your schooldays. 

 May God be praised that you are still with 

 us, not only to live on wheat (and grind it 

 yourself), but because you are able to give 

 wise counsel to a great lot of " kids '' who 

 sadly need it. 



P. S. — Say, doctor, do you still sing that 

 grand old hymn, "The Rock that is higher 

 than 1"?— A. I. R.] 



