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N BEE CULTURE 



A Journal Devoted to Bees, Honey, and Home Interests 

 Illustrated : Semi-monthly : One Dollar per Year 

 Published by The A. I. Root Company, Medina, Ohio 



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Vol. XXXIV. 



MAY J 5, J 906. 



No JO 



Naughty G. M. Doolittle, to keep me in 

 suspense two whole weeks without knowing 

 what he is going to do with those frames of 

 brood from which he has brushed the bees, 

 page 597. 



Some good points are made by E. D. 

 Townsend, page 580; but isn't it putting it 

 rather strong to say that, when a hive is not 

 full of bees, ' ' that portion which is without 

 bees is one of the dampest places one can 

 imagine?" 



J. G. B^UMGAERTNER asks, p. 581, wheth- 

 er spores of Bacillus alvei would not die in 

 honey without brood to grow in. No, spores 

 may live years in honey just as grains of 

 wheat will live years without the proper soil 

 in which to grow. [You are correct, doctor, 

 and I am glad you drew attention to it, as I 

 overlooked the point. —Ed.] 



Foundation splints are spoken of as 

 sawed, page 564. The first you made were 

 sawed, but I was under the impression that 

 all since then were sliced. [No. We talk- 

 ed about slicing the splints, but never made 

 a success of it; the knife was too much in- 

 clined to follow the grain of the wood, mak- 

 ing an irregular spUnt.— Ed.] 



W. R. Gilbert, p. 575, advises, when a 

 swarm issues from a colony that is storing, 

 to put the swarm on old stand, and the 

 stump, or mother colony, on a new place. 

 An improvement would be to place the stump 

 close beside the swarm, and move to a new 

 place a week later. That would make an 



increase of 14,000 bees in the swarm, suppos- 

 ing the queen had previously been laying 

 2000 eggs a day. 



Ye editor asks, p. 579, "Did you not tell 

 me once that your unpainted hives would 

 last as long as jou lived?" I hardly think 

 I said so, for I didn't think so; but even if I 

 had said so, would there be any less truth in 

 saying, "One of the reasons I don't paint 

 hives is because of the possibility that at 

 any time I may want to change to something 

 better"? 



Basswood seedlings by the thousand 

 have again come up this spring under my 

 basswood-trees, as every spring, only to dis- 

 appear the following spring. I do wonder 

 why. No, they are not grazed down, they 

 just disappear. [I think you will find that 

 those seedlings are usually choked by the 

 grass; but if you cut them out with a case- 

 knife and reset them in soft rich mellow 

 earth shaded by themselves you will find that 

 they will grow all right. We do that here, 

 and are fairly successful. — Ed.] 



Comparing plain and beeway sections. 

 Mr. Editor, page 579, you say I overlook the 

 important consideration that the naughty 

 corners ' ' lessen the actual beeway by al- 

 most IJ inches." No, I give that its full 

 weight, and now emphasize it by saying that 

 the passageway is § closed. But I don't 

 quite see that that has any thing to do with 

 the case in question. As I said, " Keep in 

 mind that Mr. Crane accounts for a differ- 

 ence in results by the fact that the bees can 

 more readily get at all the edges of the 

 comb in plain sections." No matter how 

 much harm those naughty corners may do in 

 any other direction, the fact remains that 

 they hinder the bees from getting at only VV 

 of the edges of the comb, and that was the 

 only point under consideration. [But this 

 i\ is at a point where it will do considerable 

 harm. It is not so much the difference in 

 the relative amount as where that relative 



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