August, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



I had picked up the queen with my right 

 hand and transferred her to the left. 1 

 glanced away a second to pick up the 

 scissors, and when I looked baick the little 

 queen had collapsed, utterly wilted, right 

 tliere where I held her by the feet between 

 the end of my thumb and the tip of my 

 tiist finger. In amazement, I laid her on 

 the broad end of the hive-tool, where she 

 lay completely crumpled up, shriveled, and 

 motionless. 1 was overwhelmed with regret 

 and astonishment. I could not understand 

 how I had killed her, yet there she lay. I 

 waited and watched several minutes, finally 

 remarking to the world in general, " Well, 

 there's no use sitting liere watching o\ev 

 a dead queen." Becau&e of a little whimsi- 

 cal foolishness that swept over me as I 

 was about to toss the body away, I slid it 

 of¥ instead on the top-bar of one of the 

 frames, and bade the bees mourn for their 

 dead. And, behold, the dead came to life. 

 As quickly and mysteriously as she had 

 crumpled and wilted, she now stirred and 

 straightened out, the abdomen came back 

 to normal size, and with her bees around 

 her "she soon crawled down between the 

 frames. I was afraid she was permanently 

 injured, but she continued to do a brisk 

 business, apparently none the worse for the 

 experience. I still don't understand it. I 

 suppose 1 must have hurt her in some way, 

 tho I would do all but swear on the witness- 

 stand that I touched nothing but wings 

 and feet. It was several days before I 

 ventured to clip her, but that time she came 

 thru all right. [Your queen had what is 

 called queen "cramps"- — a condition (hat 

 is probably due to fright. — Ed.] 

 * * * 



MORE PREPAREDNESS. 



Reverting again to Mr. Crane's wise 

 dictum that " the best time to study win- 

 tering is in the spring," I want to refer 

 briefly to that cooling subject, in spite of 

 this being neither spring nor winter. When 

 people are not quite sure what their policy 

 will be, or should be, they are but too prone 

 to loiter along in that undecided state, do- 

 ing nothing, till it is too late to do any- 

 thing anyway. If we are going to pack 

 our hives this fall, we ought to do it in 

 October or early November, and I want to 

 take up this subject, the Editor willing, 

 somewhat thoroly in the next two numbers 

 of Gleanings. So to set the ball rolling, 

 let me put it this way. 



The Department at Washington, as I see 

 it, seems to have two particularly impor- 

 tant lines to work along, thru the extension 

 workers in' the South: First, the educa- 

 tion and enlightenment of the utterly un- 



educated and unenlightened, of which, be- 

 cause of our remote and mountainous dis- 

 tricts, we have more than our share; and 

 then the general improvement of methods 

 among those always most eager to improve, 

 that is, the reading, progressive beekeepers. 

 And among this latter class the federal 

 workers seem to feel that the biggest step 

 toward greater success will come with the 

 adoption of winter packing. And by our 

 most intelligent consideration of their sug- 

 gestions, and the experimental adoption of 

 them wlienever possible, we want to help 

 them to help us to improve ourselves. 



But here is how it looks to some of us. 

 Our winter losses are reported as some- 

 thing quite scandalous. But by far the 

 most of this loss is in the yards of that 

 large untrained contingent that uses box 

 hives and old gums and cracker-box equip- 

 ment, and of course does everything in con- 

 nection with the bees in a slipshod fashion. 

 Among the other class, the winter losses 

 are not heavy — at least they have not been 

 during the last few yeax-s. Last winter was 

 a " corker " — low temperatures, high winds, 

 sudden changes, wide variations, and at 

 those times winter cases sounded very con- 

 vincing. Yet among the beekeepers around 

 Nashville, the beekeepers who belong to the 

 Association and come to conventions and 

 read Gleanings, there was almost no loss 

 at all. Yard after yard of from twenty to 

 fifty unpacked colonies lost not a single 

 colony, or perhaps one from queenlessness 

 or one or two from shortness of stores, 

 these entirely understandable accidents that 

 will occur occasionally in the best of api- 

 aries. The larger beekeepers had very 

 slight losses — five out of 180 in one case, as 

 an example. Then the bees built up quick- 

 ly and strong thru the late cold spring, and 

 it really does seem to us. looking at it quite 

 impartially and with the most earnest de- 

 sire to do the best thing (who can possibly 

 care so much as we?), as tho well-built hives, 

 strong colonies, \-igorous young qudens, 

 plenty of stores, and contracted entrances 

 are about all we need. Some put on pack- 

 ed supers, seme wrap hives in paper, but 

 that is about as far as the most successful 

 have gone, up to this time. 



On the other hand, Mr. BartholomcAV, 

 basing his statements on the thoro, sci- 

 entific work in Washington, assures me we 

 would be amazed at the worth-while-ness of 

 the extra labor and expense. 



I have a most interesting letter from Mr. 

 L. E. Webb, of Morganton, North Carolina, 

 along these very lines. He is naturally 

 very deeply interested in this wintering 

 problem — so much so that he plans to ex- 



