Septemdkr, 191' 



Gi. KANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



693 



presuming that your bees are Italians. In 

 this way 1 was able to get rid of all Europe- 

 an foul brood several years ago after hav- 

 ing it in worst form." — Domestic Beekeep- 

 er, 266. That looks like a nice way to do 

 when there is no objection to having one 

 less colony. Treating the ease early is ex- 

 cellent advice. Some have reported success 

 by merely putting all brood above an ex- 

 cluder, leaving the queen below with empty 

 combs or foundation. 



The British Bee Journal is running a 

 beautifully written serial, " The Life Story 

 of the Honeybee," by Oliver G. Pike, F. Z. 

 S., F. R. P. S. On page 31 occurs the 

 statement concerning the worker that " her 

 time is short, three to five weeks being the 

 extent of her existence in summer, then she 

 dies worn out by work." For more than a 

 half a century six weeks has been the agreed 

 life of a worker in summer; but do we 

 know positively anything about it? When 

 so good authority as the British Bee Journal 

 cuts down the time one-third, it is desirable 

 that we should find out about it. My guess 

 would be that six weeks is a little too long, 

 and three to five a good deal too short. 



On the same page occurs this concerning 

 the death of the worker: "Over-worked, 

 weaiy, and worn away by ceaseless labors, 

 she just reaches her home, fails to enter, 

 then falls dead or dying on the threshold of 

 the city she has lived and worked for." I 

 balk at that. If true, there ought to be at 

 least a thousand bees dying at the entrance 

 of a strong <}olony daily. Did you ever see 

 a hundred? But where they do die has al- 

 ways seemed a mj-stery to me. Few dead 

 bees are seen, yet milHons die in a summer 

 from a large apiai-y. 



From the financial columns of the Chi- 

 cago Herald I learn that business men are 

 discussing the effect upon the candy busi- 

 ness of prohibition during the war. The sale 

 of candy is immense. The statement is 

 vouched for by an investment barker, "that 

 in Chicago, the greatest meat market in the 

 world, more candy than meat is consumed." 

 The dry movement in the western and south- 

 ern states, where liquor has been abolished, 

 has resulted in a large increase in candy 

 and chocolate consumption. It will be tie 

 same all over. Pure-food laws "gave the 

 candy industry the first great impetus; but 

 tlie second great incentive, no doubt, will be 

 due to the fact that candy is a natural sub- 

 stitute for alcohol." Will not all this help 

 at least a little the sale of honey? 



C. E. Fowler, you say. p. 610, "I ]iro- 

 pose that, instead of breeding from the best 

 swarm or from the best strain, we breed 

 from the best swarm of the best strain and 



leave the scrubs alone." If you do that 

 you're all right; but why muddle the be- 

 ginner with any such advice? If he has two 

 strains in his yard, how can he tell — how 

 can you tell — to which strain a given queen 

 belongs, so long as you don't know with 

 what drone she mated? And if he breeds 

 always from his best colony, isn't he pretty 

 sure to be breeding from his best strain ? I 

 don't believe I can do any better — and I'm 

 not sure you can — than to follow the simple 

 motto, "Breed from the best queen." 



Let me endorse most heartily Doolittle's 

 view, p. 523, that for the every-day beekeep- 

 er full-sized combs are the thing for nuclei, 

 and that a nucleus with a young queen is the 

 place to get holes in combs filled in with 

 worker comb. [A good i^oint right here : 

 A good many times beekeepers have combs 

 that are good, except the drone-cells in one 

 corner or two or three corners of the 

 frames. These ought to be cut out and 

 filled in with worker oomb by the bees, when 

 they will build worker combs. Doolittle's 

 plan would work all right in such cases. — 

 Ed.] 



" Here is a scientific fact. No living 

 thing, either animal or vegetable, can live on 

 sugar alone. The reason for this is that, 

 while it contains carbon, hydrogen, and oxy- 

 gen, it lacks the fourth most important in- 

 gredient of protoplasm, viz., nitrogen. An- 

 imals must derive their nitrogen ready built 

 up for them into protein. There is protein 

 in honey, doubtless in the proportion best 

 suited to the bee." — British Bee Journal, 

 72. There's something to think over for 

 you fellows who think it's smart to replace 

 honey with sugar. 



Editor Townsend says. Domestic Bee- 

 keeper, 218. " It is our invariable experi- 

 ence that the colonies having an abundance 

 of natural stores for winter and spring use 

 are the colonies that produce oxir surplus 

 honey. . . Give us the colonies that 

 have wintered and springed upon natural 

 stores when it comes to rolling in the honey 

 during the surplus flow." That man Town- 

 send has a level head. 



Arthur C. Miller, your slogan, p. 600, 

 is all right: "Don't extract the last drop 

 and then feed sugar." You might add an- 

 other reason why it's a losing game : sugar 

 is entirely lacking in elements contained in 

 honey that are necessary for the health and 

 vigor of bees. 



Queens should not be reared until nat- 

 ural swarming begins, as experience shows 

 that queens reared after this time are better 

 than those reared hefore.^Schweiz. Bztg. 

 240. 



