122 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Februaky, 1917 



\ery carefully made. No sign of droues 

 could be found. The queen was discovered, 

 after long search, reduced in size and evi- 

 dently not laying. She looked old, and it 

 was suggested that it might be because of 

 old age that she had produced so many 

 drones during the season just past. The 

 .pollen had been entirely consumed, which 

 fact would account for the queen's not lay- 

 ing, and for the discontinuance of brood- 

 rearing. Some rj-e flour that had been placed 

 in a shallow box near the bees had not been 

 touched. The bees, however, were storing- 

 syrup (one part sugar, two parts water), 

 fed to them in a Boarclman entrance feed- 

 er. In order to make the bees store the 

 flour, Mr. Pritchard secured a salt-shaker, 

 filled it with flour, and thoroly sprinkled 

 it over the bees and frames, directing the 

 greenhouse man to examine the hive within 

 a day or two to see if they had cleaned up 

 and stored the flour in lieu of pollen. 



Now that the drones had completely dis- 

 appeared and the queen had quit laying, 

 it became necessary to get the queen to lay 

 again, if possible, and so the flour was 



resorted to as a stimulant. Within a 

 few days the bees had cleaned up the flour 

 and the queen had begun laying. On Jan. 

 17 there was a patch of worker-brood as 

 large as a silver dollar. 



At present the building is filled with 

 lettuce. This does not require so high a 

 temperature as the cucumbers, which go in 

 later — 50 to 60 degrees in the day-time and 

 45 at night. When the sun shines, however, 

 the temperature often reaches 70 or 75. 

 The lettuce will occupy the space until abaut 

 the first of Mar'ih when the cucumbers, 

 now being grown xrom the seed in other 

 buildings, will take its place. The cucum- 

 ber vines, trained on wires, reach a height 

 of seven or eight feet; and this, together 

 with the fact that every bit of the space 

 below is needed, caused us to locate the 

 bees on the platform some twelve feet high, 

 above the braces and pipes. 



What shall we say of the results to date? 

 The old drones did not fly, return to the 

 hive and live, as we had hoped. But, as 

 they say in the story magazines, " Continu- 

 ed in our next." 



„ ^J^^^^^ — x — T— ~T% i i ^ . / // ^ ^ 





Interior of the great greenhouse building, showing length view, workmen preparing tlie ciirtli heds for 

 lettuce, and lettuce plants set in the beds to the right, Jan. 6. 



