GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



BEEKEEPING IN THE SOUTHWEST 



Louis H. Scholl, New Braunfels, Texas 



Even Uncle Sam has learned 

 the value of honey as a food, and 

 now furnishes it to his soldier 

 boys a.s a part of their "rations." 

 At Camp Wilson alone, located 

 near Fort Sam Houston, San An- 

 tonio, Texas, tons of extracted 

 honey have been used up by the guards- 

 men encamped there. Ten cents a pound 

 was paid for it in 60-pound cans, which 

 is indeed a good price if we but consider 

 that the finest grades of extracted honey 

 sold at 5 and 6 cents a pound earlier in the 



year. 



* * * 



Dr. Miller, p. 1061, Nov. 15, proclaims 

 surprise at the " physical possibility " of 

 bees building drone-cells on one side of a 

 comb and worker on the other. I pro- 

 claim surprise at the possibility of such a 

 thing never having occurred during Dr. 

 Miller's long years of beekeeping experi- 

 ence and close observation as intimated 

 by him in answer to Allen Latham. " Lo- 

 cality " again must have something to do 

 even with this matter. In my locality I 

 have frequently seen such stunts in natu- 

 rally built combs, in combs built on founda- 

 tion, and in cases where the worker-cells 

 of part "of one side of a drawn-out comb 

 were torn down and replaced by drone- 

 cells. 



* m * 



Gleanings to be a monthly magazine 

 hereafter! Good! I have called Gleanings 

 a magazine for several years, because it has 

 been more like one than like a journal; 

 yet it was not quite complete nor large 

 enough to belong in the class of other 

 mjagazines of the country. I feel, too, that 

 the monthly issue will be welcomed. Two 

 weeks fly by very rapidly with the average 

 busy beekeeper, and it gives him hardly 

 time to read and properly digest the con- 

 tents of one issue before another appears. 

 Even if the larger monthly contains more 

 reading-matter it can be more easily 

 " handled " because it is all bound in one 

 volume, and that with comparatively less 

 advertising matter to " wade thru " than 

 in the case of the semi-monthly. 



HOW BRENNER GETS CELLS. 



Tn relating some of Mr. Hy Brenner's 

 remarkable success in queen-mating, in the 

 last issue of Gleanings, I promised to de- 



scribe the method employed by him for get- 

 ting queen-cells. 



After providing a cell-building colony, 

 strong and queenless, in the usual manner, 

 he inserts a comparatively new, empty, and 

 perfectly clean worker comb in the center 

 of the brood-nest of his breeding colony for 

 the breeding queen to fill with eggs. 



Next he provides an empty super with 

 cleats just below the super rabbets, so that 

 these will support a frame laid flat on them. 

 The open spaces on either side of the 

 frame and super sides are filled up with 

 two pieces of board laid on the same cleats 

 that hold the frame in place. This super 

 is then i^laeed on top of the strong cell- 

 building colony. Mr. Brenner now takes 

 the comb Avith egg's from his breeding colo- 

 ny and prepares it for the cell-builders. 

 With a sharp implement he destroys the 

 entire length of the first row of worker- 

 cells in the comb of eggs. Then he skips 

 one row and destroys the next, and so on 

 until each alternate row of cells has been 

 demolished. Reversing the comb from side 

 to end, he proceeds in the same manner 

 across the comb. When complete, there will 

 be a checker-board of single worker-cells, 

 each containing a worker egg. 



This comb is now laid carefully in place 

 on the cleats of the prepared super on the 

 cell-building colony. Altho several i)iches 

 away from the top-bars of the brood-frames, 

 it is directly over the broodless brood-nest 

 proper, and the nurse bees soon take posses- 

 sion of the prepared comb. 



According to Mr. Brenner's statement, as 

 many as 95 cells have been built on a 

 single one of these combs. Nothing is 

 done on the opposite side of the prepared 

 comb, and, when placed in position, the 

 whole top of the super is covered up warm 

 with old sacking or the like. The bees do 

 not have access to the upper surface of the 

 comb, therefore, and the eggs in these cells 

 simply dry up. 



The progress of cell-building can be 

 easdly watched by carefully lifting the 

 comb and holding it perfectly level, being 

 careful not to jolt the inmates of the queen- 

 cells, thus crippling them,. When these 

 cells are fully " ripe," almost ready to hatch, 

 they are cut out of the comb by cutting 

 right thru it. Mr. Brenner gives them to 

 the newly formed nuclei with cell-protec- 

 tors. If the cells are to be given to stronger 

 colonies he prefers to place them in Rauch- 

 fuss cell-protectors. 



