April, 1922 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



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U E frieud, 

 Allen La- 

 tham gives 

 on page 154, 

 March Glean- 

 ings, many good 

 reasons why the 

 bee-space should 

 be below rather 

 than on top of 



supers. Now, he may be right, but will it 

 pay to change where we have hundreds or 

 thousands of hives or supers with the bee- 

 space on top? When I began beekeeping 

 there was a great deal said about different- 

 sized frames, each claiming to be better 

 than the others, and I changed the size of 

 my frames and brood-chamber as many as 

 five or six times. Each size, I found, had 

 its advantages as well as its disadvantages; 

 and I finally went back to the Langstroth 

 frame, not because it was better than others 

 but because it was a standard frame in gen- 

 eral use. We are using hundreds of supers 

 without bee-space either at top or bottom 

 of super and get along very well. It doesn 't, 

 as a rule, pay to keep changing over our 

 outfit even if something is a little better. 

 * » * 



That editorial, on page 141, on aluminum 

 combs, is well worth the careful attention 

 of anyone in the North who contemplates 

 using these new-fangled combs. Our ex- 

 perience tallies with that of others, that 

 these combs do not prove satisfactory in 

 our cooler climate, however it may be in 

 the South. Side by side I prefer the well- 

 wired frame of foundation to a complete 

 comb of aluminum. 



SIFTINGS 



J. E. Crane 



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237 



are apt to think 

 our location un- 

 fortunate; but 

 when we read of 

 the difficulties of 

 b e e k e epers in 

 other sections, 

 as for instance 

 C. E. Bartholo- 

 mew, who lost 

 100 colonies in a single night (see page 166) 

 from those pesky ants, we may thank our 

 stars we are as well off as Ave are. Mr. 

 Poppleton told me the best way to fight 

 them was to follow them to their nests and 

 destroy them there. These nests I found 

 mostly in the decaying roots of the saw 

 palmetto. 



» * * 



The size and appearance of those western 

 honey-houses almost take my breath away. 

 But the West is a big country, and busi- 

 ness of all kinds is done on a large scale. 

 There is, however, one thing peculiar about 

 honey-houses, that no matter how large you 

 build you never regret it. 

 * * » 



Honey mixed with water half and half, 

 as described by H. M. Myers, page 167, as 

 an anti-freeze mixture for automobiles, is an 

 idea worth remembering. He tells us the 

 boiling temperature is approximately 228 de- 

 grees. We are more interested in the tem- 

 perature required to freeze it. Will it stand 

 20° or 25° below zero? An advantage of 

 such a solution would be that it evaporates 

 much more slowly than clear water. I set 

 some of this mixture out last night and it 

 stood 14° below freezing this morning. 



The "New Beekeeping" described on 

 page 143 is sufficiently distinct from the 

 old hit-or-miss metliods to be called new, 

 and it has been tested by a sufficient num- 

 ber of beekeepers to prove its value, so it 

 can be safely recommended to all who have 

 not tried it out. Yes, sir, it is all right. 



* * * 



"When and How to Set Out," D. L. 

 Woodward 's article beginning on page 149, 

 should be of great value to beginners. The 

 advice to set bees out at night is doubtless 

 all right, but of late years I have come to 

 think a cool or cold day, too cool for bees 

 to fly, is just as well. We usually have 

 enough such days during the season in 

 which to set out all our bees. 



* » » 



E. L. Snodgrass informs us, page 155, 

 that 10 acres of j-ellow sweet clover will 

 keep 100 colonies from starving. This may 

 be true in Kansas, but it would hardly prove 

 true in the East. Tlie sweet clovers do not 

 appear to yield nearly as much nectar in the 

 East as in the West. 



Eeading Gleanings helps one to be optimis- 

 tic. When we meet with some reverse we 



E. J. Williams, page 154, says, "Verily 

 there is nothing new under the sun, espe- 

 cially in apiculture." However true this 

 proverb may have been 3,000 years ago, it 

 is not so today. We have no reason to be- 

 lieve that the Queen of Sheba wired King 

 Solomon of her intended visit, or that Alex- 

 ander used an ounce of gunpowder in his 

 somewhat famous conquest of the world. 

 The Eomans did not use airplanes in their 

 military tactics nor steamboats in their war- 

 fare against Carthage. The printing press 

 was unknown at the beginning of the Cliris- 

 tian era; and Simon Peter never used a 

 motorboat in setting his fish nets in the sea 

 of Galilee. Vergil, who wrote so interest- 

 ingly of bees, never dreamed of a frame 

 hive, nor did Huber ever hear of a honey- 

 extractor or comb foundation. Even our 

 beloved father Langstroth or Quiiiby or 

 even Dr. Miller would have opened wide his 

 eyes to hear Mell Pritchard tell of queens 

 taking a joy flight of an afternoon in our 

 Indian summer, after their arduous l.-ibor of 

 egg-laying was over. Yes! verily, tiiere is 

 much that is new in beekeeping as in every- 

 thing else. If we were to tell of all th;it is 

 new, even in beekeeping, it would take much 

 more space than I have at my disposal. 



