24 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1 



[This method of protecting the tops of the 

 sections is not new except in the use of met- 

 al instead of wood. In the case of the sec- 

 tion-holder, nothing thicker than zinc could 

 be used. The objection to this and any oth- 

 er like arrangement is the fact that sections 

 will shrink and swell under varying condi- 

 tions, getting the opening to the sections out 

 of register with the openings in the zinc 

 board; and unless the zinc lies perfectly 

 flat, and in perfectly tight contact with the 

 top of the sections, there will be strong red 

 streaks of propolis along the edges and be- 

 tween the metal of the sections. In my 

 opinion a far better arrangement is a single- 

 tier wide frame having a top-bar and bot- 

 tom-l3ar corresponding with openings in the 

 sections. The shrinkage in the case of one 

 top-bar covering a single row of sections 

 would be very slight; but a very small swell- 

 ing in the size of the sections with your ar- 

 rangement would result in the outside rows 

 being out of alignment with the openings.— 



-Ed.] 



«■«« 



PRODUCING COMB AND EXTRACTED HON- 

 EY IN TH E SAM E SUPER. 



Laying Workers ; Grading Honey. 



BY A SOUTH GEORGIAN. 



My plan of producing comb and extracted 

 honey in the same super is the same in prin- 

 ciple as the Townsend. It was original with 

 me, as I hit upon it by accident. I had 

 transferred a box hive, and had enough comb 

 to fill 15 Danzenbaker frames, so I put ten 

 combs in the lower story and five in the top 

 one; and to fill out the empty space I put in 

 sections. The bees filled these sections 

 quicker than' I had ever seen sections filled 

 before, and this set me to thinking. I de- 

 cided the ready-built combs at the side of 

 the sections had given the bees the ' ' upstairs 

 fever." I now put an extracting- comb 

 (Danzenbaker shallow) at each side of the 

 super, and filled in the space between sec- 

 tions. If the stock is a weak one it will al- 

 so pay to put a comb in the middle of the 

 super, putting it nearer to the colder rather 

 than nearer to the warmer side of the hive. 

 I am satisfied the bees work with twice the 

 vim with this plan than without it. It has, 

 however, the objection Mr. Green made to 

 it, i. e., the sections are harder to clean of 

 propolis by this plan. I use the one-sided 

 fences suggested by the editor, to prevent 

 the combs from being attached to the fences. 

 The objection Mr. Green makes is, I think, 

 overbalanced by the better-filled sections. 



I used successfully the same plan of in- 

 crease as the Alexander before I saw it in 

 print. It, too, was ox-iginal with me. 



Although I have no black brood nor foul 

 brood, as I know of neither in Georgia, I 

 read Mr. Alexander's article with interest. 

 I hope his plan will work; but, as he says, 

 make the bees queenless for tv/enty days. 

 I want to ask a question for the benefit of 

 others who might not think of it. In the A 

 B C book, Mr. Editor, you tell us not to al- 



low a colony to be queenless more than ten 

 days if we don't want to have laying work- 

 ers. Would not laying workers defeat the 

 object of having the bees queenless? I won- 

 der if Mr. Alexander had any laying work- 

 ers in any of the great number of queenless 

 colonies he had under the treatment. Lay- 

 ing-worker colonies are bad things to man- 

 age. I had one the past season. I would 

 have tried the plan of grafting the cells they 

 kept starting, with larvae from my breeding 

 queen, but I am not steady-handed enough 

 to handle such delicate propositions and be 

 successful; so as an experiment I took some 

 strips of comb with fertilized eggs in the 

 cells, and stuck them on the outside of a 

 division- board feeder I had in the hive, and, 

 presto! they reared them a queen that has 

 restored the colony to normal strength, from 

 those strips, when previously they would not 

 start cells on combs of young brood and 

 eggs placed in the hive. Some may say I 

 am mistaken about this, but I am not. 



The past season two of my colonies rear- 

 ed queens from eggs that produced 90 per 

 cent of five- banded bees, and the bees of 

 those queens are all uniformly marked with 

 three orange-yellow bands, yet I have rea- 

 son to believe that these queens were mat- 

 ed to black drones. Is it possible that queens 

 reared from five-banded stock, if mated to 

 black drones, will produce all three-banded 

 bees? The reason I think the queens mated 

 to black drones is because their bees are 

 much " sassier " than the bees of their moth- 

 er, and run like blacks when the hive is 

 opened. 



Does the Danz. 4X5xl| section hold a 

 full pound with you? It would have to be 

 filled by pure Cyprians or Holy Lands, and 

 grade * ' extra fancy ' ' to weigh 16 oz. here. _ 

 Equal amounts of fancy, A No. 1, and No. 1 ^ 

 will not average over 12 ounces to the sec- 

 tion here. Perhaps you may think I have 

 made a mistake in the grading. No, I have 

 studied carefully the rules you give in 

 Gleanings for grading, and know I have 

 not made a mistake. It seems to me a 

 "pound" section ought to weigh 16 oz. 

 when filled; but if it will not increase the 

 price paid to producer any to have it so, I 

 do not care to have it do it. 



Glennville, Ga. 



MERITS OF THE HOFFMAN FRAME. 



Some Points in Mr. McGregor's Article Con- 

 sidered. 



BY C. E. WOODWARD. 



On page 1127 appears an article written 

 by Mr. Alpine McGregor, entitled "The 

 Hoffman Frame." After a careful reading 

 of said article I was very much surprised to 

 learn that it has taken him all of these long 

 years to learn that it is far inferior to the 

 old hanging frame. If the frame is as bad 

 as he says it is, why should he not have 

 found it out sooner? If said frame is good 

 for the farmer it must be equally good for 



