772 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



October, 1917 



A 



C 



STRAY STRAWS 



Dr. C. C. Miller 



BEE that 



a p p e a f s 



worker with 

 clearly the ab- 

 domen of a 

 drone has been 

 sent me by The 

 Stover Apiaries, 

 the third one of 



the kind found there this year. I ve read 

 of such freaks, but this is the first one I 

 ever saw. [Numerous specimens of these 

 hermaphrodite bees have been sent us from 

 time to time. Sometimes we find a work- 

 er's body with drone head, and at other 

 times a drone body with a worker head. 

 Sometimes the eyes of the drones are bright 

 purple, a light pink, or red ; but these would 

 not be true'" hermaphrodite bees but merely 

 sports. — Ed.] 



Ye Editor, p. 709, advises, in uniting 

 colonies at some distance apart in the same 

 yard, to leave on the vacated stand a comb 

 and empty hive to catch the returning field- 

 bees, and to return these once or twice. 

 AVhy does he say nothing about the easier 

 and better way,^ the newspaper plan ? Is 

 it because that plan is my baby, and he has 

 a spite against me, or doesn't the plan work 

 at Medina? When the bees are imprisoned 

 over the newspaper, and at first unite one 

 by one, there is not only the advantage that 

 there is no fighting (sometimes there is 

 fighting when they are directly united), but 

 the imprisonment has the effect of inducing 

 them to remain in their new place. [The 

 advice we gave on page 709 referred par- 

 ticularly to the beginner. There is some 

 danger of uniting on the newspaper plan, 

 for the reason that the novice might in- 

 advertently select a hot day to do the work. 

 The result would be melted-down combs and 

 sutTocated bees. While this is not likely to 

 happen at the time the bees should be unit- 

 ed, it is always a possibility. Your plan is 

 all right so far as we know. We have been 

 testing it out this fall particularly, and so 

 far it is giving excellent results. There is 

 a slight returning, but not nearly to the ex- 

 tent that there is with other methods. — Ed.] 



This was, I think, about the worst year 

 I ever knew. The main harvest has been 

 12 pounds per colony. To be sure, in the 

 ])ast there were years in which I got abso- 

 lutely nothing, and had to feed for winter; 

 but if I had one of those years over again, 

 with my present bees and knowledge, T 

 think I could beat 12 pounds. I'm Jwping 

 for a fall flow. [A few years ago you 

 broke the ree( id in l)ig yields per colony 

 in the production of comb honey. You 



1 



%J 



the 



have had a repu- 

 tation of doing 

 well with your 

 bees other years. 

 Your light yield 

 this year with 

 extracted may 

 be a sort of 

 satisfaction t o 

 tlier fellows who have had almost a 



failure, and who might be inclined to charge 

 their failures to inexperience. But when 

 one of the old Gamaliels, and a man who 

 has broken the record in comb-honey pro- 

 duction, falls down, some perhaps will be 

 glad of it, as it will pi'ove that even a good 

 man cannot make bricks without straw, or, 

 more exactly, produce a crop of honey with- 

 out nectar in the fields. On the principle 

 that misery loves company, there will be a 

 lot more who will love your company. — Ed.] 

 S. E. Miller^ p. 714, tells of his tribula- 

 tions with honey candied in the tank, in or- 

 der " to draw out the modus operandi of 

 some fellow who knows a better way." 

 May be he would think my way a better 

 one, and that is not to allow the honey to 

 candy in the tank. I'm only a beginner at 

 extracted honey — been at it only two or 

 three years — and I f sel sure I'm not well up 

 on it ; but one thing I've never had any 

 trouble with, and never expect to, and that 

 is melting candied honey that is intended 

 for sale. On top of the honey-tank is a 

 strainer a la E. D. Townsend, and the honey 

 goes directly from the extractor to tlie tank 

 without the nuisance of using the strainer 

 that comes with the extractor. Then when 

 the honey has settled in the tank, it is 

 drawn directly into five-pound pails, where 

 it can stay liquid as long as it likes or 

 candy at once, just as it pleases. It's 

 all one to me. The label on the pail says: 

 " The honey will candy during cold weather. 

 To liquefy candied honey put the pail in 

 hot water. Do not let the water boil." 

 Having put on that label, my responsibility 

 ends. The consumer can melt it or eat it 

 candied. And I've never heard a word of 

 fault. 



" The bees of the hive in question never 

 rob from their own hive by entering above." 

 p. 698. That's new to me, yet T never knew 

 anything to the contrary. Still, I can't 

 help wondering, if no other colony was 

 within reach, and an escape was put urder 

 the supers in a time of dearth, how long 

 the honey would remain undisturbed in 

 those supers. [Miss Fowls reports that 

 tliey liave put unfinished sections above an 

 inner cover containing a small hole, and 

 that the bees carry it down. That is easy 



