•152 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Y 



OU ASK, 

 Mr. Editor, 

 page 359, 

 whether there is 

 not danger of 

 starting robbing 

 by shoving a 

 comb of honey 

 into the big en- 



STRAY STRAWS 



C. C. MiUer 



=2 



Dr 



L=r 



%j 



1 should be 



trance under the brood-nest, 

 sorry to advise anything that would get a 

 beginner into trouble; but really 1 cant 

 think of any way of feeding less danger- 

 ous, even for a beginner. It takes only a 

 fraction of the time it would to open the 

 hive and hang the comb among the other 

 combs, and that rapidity gives robbers less 

 chance. Likely you think the naked comb 

 on the floor will be unprotected. But im- 

 mediately the entrance is closed all but a 

 square inch or less, and by the time you 

 have the entrance closed that comb of honey 

 will be covered by bees the same as the 

 other combs at the entrance. And it will 

 surprise you how soon the honey from that 

 comb will be carried up into the combs above 

 if there is room for it there. 



T^lRS. Allen, you want to know some- 

 what definitely, p. 376, at what stage of the 

 season the first equalizing of brood occurs. 

 A bit hard to answer. After the colonies 

 have been on their stands long enough to 

 have brood started in each, say about a 

 week, a hasty examination is made the hrst 

 flying day to see if any colony is queenless 

 and to note which colonies are weakest, and 

 incidentally to see if any need feeding. 

 Then the weakest colonies are newspaperecl 

 over the queenless ones. Perhaps the best 

 answer I can give as to the time when the 

 first equalizing is done is to say whenever 

 colonies are strong enough. That will be 

 when the strongest have five or six brood 

 each, and may be before fruit-bloom, or it 

 may be near the close of fruit-bloom. You 

 can't very well go wrong about the time it 

 you never reduce a colony helow four hrood. 

 There's no fixed rule as to amount ot 

 stores in spring, unless it be to crowd m all 

 there's room for early, and not to allow any 

 empty combs later. 



Allen Latham, after years of experience 

 with different substitutes for pollen, has 

 oome to the conclusion that cottonseed meal 

 is the best he has tried. He has come to 

 another conclusion that is rather startling 

 —that is, that feeding such substitutes is a 

 matter of no gain but distinct loss. If you 

 read the two pages he has written about it, 

 in the Domestic Beekeeper, page 172,_ you 

 will see he makes out a strong case, giving 

 actual experience. Briefly, there are two 



June, 1917 



reasons for the 

 harm : the weak- 

 ening of the 

 nurse - bees by 

 tlie digestion of 

 faod unsuited to 

 t h eir digestive 

 organs, and the 

 forced activity 

 of the bees when they should stay at home. 

 G. C. Greiner has been perhaps the 

 strongest opponent of the use of full sheets 

 of foundation in sections. He believed the 

 quantity of honey might be thereby increas- 

 ed, but at the expense of quality. After 

 many years of experience and much obser- 

 vation he is now thoroly convinced of his 

 mistake, and recants in the most whole- 

 souled manner {American Bee Journal, 

 April, 129). He now thinks it a mistaken 

 notion that sections with a natural base are 

 superior, is converted " into a thoroly con- 

 vinced full-sheet and bottom-starter advo- 

 cate," and says of what he calls his former 

 notion, " It has cost me tons of honey dur- 

 ing the past decades." 



" Allen Latham asserts that, in combat 

 between a laying queen and a virgin, the 

 virgin is always the winner because of her 

 greater agility. Dr. Gates says this is not 

 always so, and that he knows of instances 

 where the fertile queen won. How is this?" 

 — American Bee Journal, Jan., 1917, p. 13. 

 It is not said that Dr. Gates saw the combat; 

 and unless he or some one else did, there's 

 no proof. If a strange virgin were intro- 

 duced, the workers would take a hand, and 

 the virgin come off second best. In a fair 

 stand-up fight I should always expect to see 

 the virgin the victor because of vigor; and 

 j-et in one case in a thousand I can imagine 

 a white-livered virgin overcome by a red- 

 blooded laying queen. 



Prof. John H. Lovell has made a not- 

 able contribution in American Bee Journal 

 for April, p. 115, to bee literature. He 

 proposes the division of North America into 

 12 nectar or honey-plant regions, based on 

 topography, climate, native vegetation, and 

 the geographical distribution of honey- 

 plants. State lines are utterly ignored; 

 and it is interesting and instructive to 

 study the map giving the 12 regions with 

 accompanying details as to honey-plants to 

 be found in each. 



S. D. House says bees go further for 

 strong-smelling blossoms, because these can 

 naturally be scented further away, Ameri- 

 can Bee Jownal, April, p. 121. Of course. 

 By the same token they will also go further 

 to blossoms on the windward side. 



