96 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



February, 1920 



HEAPS OF GRAIN I J^^ ^^ CT TD^IFFERENT FIELDS 



Dr. Miller In Gleanings for Janu- 



Comes Back. ary, page 18, C. E. 



Fowler gives some fig- 

 ures supposed to show how it works out 

 when a plan of rearing queens that I advo- 

 cate is used. Then he says, "Now let us 

 breed my way, ' ' and he gives some more 

 figures intended to show that by his way 

 33 per cent more honey may be obtained. 



Probably most of the older readers know 

 the plan .1 advocated. It may be given in 

 four words: Breed from the best. That's 

 all. There's nothing original about it, and 

 I have no copyright on it. Simply breed 

 from the best, always from the best. 



But in giving figures for carrying out my 

 way, Mr. Fowler rears a queen each from 

 colonies yielding respectively 100, 50, 0, 150, 

 200 pounds of honey. And then Mr. Fowler 

 says, "I hope the Doctor sees the truth of 

 the above figures and will confess again. ' ' 



I must confess, friend Fowler, that I do 

 not see all things as you seem to see them. 

 You figure that the amount stored by any 

 given colony depends altogether upon the 

 character of the drone with which the queen 

 of the colony has mated and not at all upon 

 the character of the queen herself. In ac- 

 cordance with that view you say that in 

 your way of breeding you ' ' prevent all 

 drones flying except from hive No. 105," 

 and so you will "have all queens whose 

 colonies give 200 pounds." 



I am willing to grant that the drone is 

 equally potent with the queen, indeed to 

 grant the prepotency of the drone, but when 

 you claim aU the potency for the drone I 

 must demur. For in that case the worker 

 progeny of a drone will be equally good 

 whether he mates with the best or the poor- 

 est queen in the yard. 



The thing, however, that puzzles me most 

 is how you can understand that in carrying 

 out my way one can breed from queens of 

 different grades of goodness and still call 

 it breeding from the best. Indeed, I can- 

 not help wondering whether you really mean 

 that, and I should appreciate it if you would 

 say whether when one breeds from a 200- 

 pound queen and at the same time from a 

 zero queen you would call that breeding 

 from the best. C. C. Miller. 



[Doctor, we are indeed glad to see the 

 old spirit aflame in you, even if you can 't 

 write a whole load of "Straws.-" — Editor.] 



QC 



Where Bees Build Since reading the ar- 

 Drone Comb. tide in Gleanings last 



spring, page 210, on 

 "Elimination of Drone Comb," I have trans- 

 ferred 25 hives from box hives to hives with 

 Hoffman frames, and I made note of the 

 amount of drone comb in each hive and its 

 location. While in three of the liives the 

 combs were as straight and as even as any 



I have in my 65 hives, and it was a pleasure 

 to cut them out and tie them in the frames, 

 the outside combs on the east side of the 

 hives facing north were filled two-thirds full 

 of drone comb near the center of the hive; 

 and at the rear there were patches of drone 

 comb the size of my hand. In some of the 

 hives one-fourth of the combs were drone 

 comb. 



By noting the conditions of the combs 

 I could reasonably judge the age of each 

 comb, as none of them, the owner told me, 

 was more than four years old. My observa- 

 tion was, if the bees built all the comb in 

 one season there was a greater amount of 

 drone comb than if they built it on the in- 

 stallment plan. 



Mr. Miller 's side-entrance theory may 

 work all right in modern hives, but the bees 

 do not know it. In only two hives was there 

 a whole drone comb in the middle. I judg- 

 ed there was an old queen in that colony, 

 and the outside comb for them the first 

 year was in the middle of the hive body or 

 gum. The next year they then finished it 

 out as drone comb, and placed worker comb 

 beyond it to the eastward. I did not find a 

 single piece of drone comb on the west side 

 of a single hive. J. E. Sutton. 



Jackson, Ala. 



Frames Wired to As I now have success 



Prevent Sagging. in getting perfect 



combs built on wired 

 foundation, it might be well to tell in Glean- 

 ings how I do it. Maybe some other bee- 

 keeper can improve on it. I have, at last, 

 by experimenting, succeeded in preventing 

 any stretching or sagging, even if light 

 brood foundation is used. 



I wire the frames horizontally with three 

 wires and the foundation with four wires 

 vertically, all put in with electricity. I 



Pig. No. 1. — Light brood sheet vertically wired. 



have perfected a machine to put the vertical 

 wires in the foundation before it is put in 

 the frames, and it is right speedy and does 

 good work. All the wires are imbedded at 

 once just by turning on the current. 



The photographs show the result. No. 1 

 is the light brood sheet after the vertical 

 wires are put in. No. 2 is the frame after 



