190 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



March, 1917 



there is not room for enough bees to keep 

 the brood warm. Is it certain that that 

 point is not reached somewhere between 1% 

 andl%? 



A Missouri beekeeper asks why bees 

 should go 1% miles to work upon a given 

 plant when there is more than they can do 

 on the same plant within half a mile. I 

 don't know why all the bees of an apiary 

 do not pounce upon one spot where 

 nectar is most plentiful; but it's a fine 

 thing they don't, and I suppose Dame 

 Nature gives them the instinct for spreading 

 themselves around, and the same instinct 

 makes them sometimes go further afield 

 than is absolutely necessary. 



J. P. Brumfield wonders what M. H. 

 Hunt does with the combs and what honey 

 is in them when he uses the Demaree plan 

 for comb honey, putting the brood over a 

 ventilated bee-escape board on top of the 

 sections, Gleanings, Sept. 1, 1916, p. 777. 

 Mr. Brumfield says he would rather keep 

 a white elephant over summer than a set 

 of brood-combs without bees, on account 

 of moth. I suppose they might be piled 

 several stories high over weak colonies. 

 But I must confess that when I tried Mr. 

 Hunt's plan the bees earned down bits of 

 black comb and darkened the cappings of 

 the sections. 



Heartily I commend the able way in 

 which the advantages of " Roadside Market- 

 ing " have been shown up, p. 13, all but one 

 thing. I regret exceedingly to see anything 

 said encouraging Sunday as day for best 

 sales. If I believed in no God and no here- 

 after, I would still insist, on purely eco- 

 nomic grounds, on the careful preservation 

 of one day in seven as a day of rest. Big 

 business is all tending that way nowadays, 

 and for beekeepers to make an exception 

 is a step backward. But believing heartily 

 in a God and a hereafter, I count it still 

 more important than for economic reasons 

 that we avoid Sunday sales because that 

 God said, " Remember the sabbath day to 

 keep it holy." 



J. P. Blunk^ referring to the last Straw 

 in Gleanings, Dec. 15, thinks 50 to 55 de- 

 grees hardly warm enough for cellar, 60 be- 

 ing perhaps better. He also thinks my bees 

 might be better off without sealed covers. 

 May be, may be. Uncle Joe, but I'm not so 

 sure. You say your bees winter better since 

 you gave up sealed covers ; but I don't think 

 the air in my cellar is so stagnant as in 

 yours, for I think your cellar without a 

 furnace is a good deal colder than mine. 

 With the air in the cellar the same temper- 

 ature as outdoors there is no change of air ; 



and the wai'mer the cellar compared with 

 outdoors the more rapid the change. With 

 the air constantly moving in my cellar, and 

 with an opening of 2x12 inches to each hive, 

 there ought to be little suffering from con- 

 fined air. 



J. E., Crane has invented a device that 

 Editor Dadant reports approvingly in 

 American Bee Journal, January, 1917, p. 

 52, and Mr. Crane describes it thus in the 

 January Domestic Beekeeper, p. 55 : "A 

 honey-board to cover the entire surface of 

 the brood-chamber, with no entrance thru 

 it but two slots on each side for the bees 

 to carry the honey up into the super. This 

 board covers all of the center of the brood- 

 chamber, where bits of dirty wax are liable 

 to be cari'ied up and mixed with the cap- 

 pings of the sections and injure their ap- 

 pearance. It should not be put on until 

 work in sections Jias been well started, after 

 which it does not seem to keep bees from 

 storing in the sections." [The readers of 

 Gleanings who have the back numbers can 

 find an illustration of this honey-board, as 

 described by Mr. Crane at length in the Dec. 

 15th issue for 1908, page 1508. Mr. Crane 

 advises putting the boards on just when 

 the bees are ready to begin capping the 

 honey. — Ed.] 



Some say their bees store so much pollen 

 that they have to throw away some of the 

 pollen-clogged combs. That may be, but 

 I'd like to be more sure of it. You know 

 it is said that a queenless colony stores little 

 or no pollen. Yet a queenless colony is the 

 very one to have pollen-clogged combs. I 

 suppose the fact is that a queenless colony 

 keeps right on storing pollen; and then 

 when pollen is no longer needed because no 

 brood to be fed, an accumulation occurs. 

 Then when the bees find there is an over- 

 stock they stop bringing it in. If queenless 

 bees stop bringing pollen because not need- 

 ed, will not other bees do the same? I won- 

 der if throwing away combs of pollen isn't 

 as bad as throwing away combs of honey. 

 [Combs of i^ollen in the spring of the year 

 may be worth several times the same num- 

 ber of combs solid with honey. While bees 

 can start brood-rearing on rye meal and 

 some other substitutes, thei'e is nothing that 

 comes anywhere near the natural pollen. 

 The want of it at the right time may seri- 

 ously check brood-rearing and cut down the 

 working force and leave the colony in poor 

 condition to catch a crop that may be 

 available. Or, to put it another way, a 

 stock of combs containing pollen may make 

 all the difference between profit and loss in 

 the yard. — Ed.] 



