716 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1 



we did not make the groove for the wedge 

 as wide as now and have been doing for 

 some time past. This may explain the ap- 

 parent conflict of experiences. — Ed.] 



For some reason putting weak colonies 

 over strong ones in spring has not been a 

 howling success with me. I tried it again 

 this year in only one case— a very weak col- 

 ony over a strong one, no smoke used. 

 Within 24 hours the whole business in the 

 upper story was slaughtered, queen and all. 

 Was it the hybrid blood ? [Right you are. 

 You stick to those naughty hybrids or mon- 

 grels. Mr. Alexander keeps nothing but the 

 very best gentle leather-colored Italians, 

 and here is where the difference lies. Our 

 Mr. Warden reports that the plan gives ex- 

 cellent satisfaction. He considers it one of 

 the best tricks of the trade that was ever 

 given in a bee journal. 



Pollen is not generally assessed at its 

 true value, even by bee-keepers. Many a 

 pound of good pollen is allowed to be wasted 

 or spoiled when the bee-keeper would not 

 for a minute allow the same weight of hon- 

 ey to go to waste. But I protest against 

 accusing the bees of the same lack of judg- 

 ment. A footnote, p. 640, says, "They will 

 gather pollen when they can not get any 

 thing else . . . when nectar comes in 

 they will spend all their energies in the stor- 

 age of honey. ' ' In early spring the propor- 

 tion of pollen to honey is larger, as at that 

 time nearly every thing gathered is used up 

 in brood-rearing. Later on an excess of 

 honey is gathered for winter stores, and yet 

 I never saw so heavy a flow of honey that 

 the bees did not do their daily stunt on pol- 

 len. [Perhaps my language, taken literally, 

 apart from every thing else, may be a little 

 strong. But I was assuming that the bees 

 already had the hives well filled with pollen; 

 then when a flow of nectar would come on 

 they would gather no pollen because none 

 would be needed. Am I not right under 

 these conditions? I grant that some stray 

 bees will be taking in pollen, even in the 

 height of a white-clover or bass wood flow; 

 but is it not a fact that at such times there 

 is no pollen, or at least not enough to take 

 care of the brooding going on in the hive? 

 -Ed.] 



Desiring to test the correctness of Mr. 

 Doolittle's belief that there is no loss of 

 heat from the brood-nest when an empty 

 story is put over a colony, I experimented. 

 May 7, in the morning, I put an empty hive- 

 body on No. 66, and covered it, fastening a 

 thermometer to the inside of the cover, hav- 

 ing another thermometer outside. An hour 

 later it was 21 degrees warmer in the hive 

 than outside. At 9:35 it was 17 degrees 

 warmer in the hive; at 11:15, 21 degrees; at 

 12:15, 22 degrees; at 1:40 p.m., 13 degrees; 

 and at 5:10, 9 degrees. [You do not state 

 any conclusions, doctor; but the inference is 

 that, inasmuch as there was a difference all 

 the way from 22 to 9 degrees between the 

 mside and outside temperature, therefore 

 tnere must have been a loss of heat from 



the only source of heat— the ball of bees in 

 the lower hive. Or, to put it another way, 

 you would infer that the crust of bees did 

 not hold all the heat because some of it es- 

 caped into the. upper hive. Perhaps Mr. 

 Doolittle meant that the brooding heat of 

 the cluster of bees would be the same, no 

 matter what the outside temperature was ; 

 and that, in order to keep this heat up, the 

 cluster would either have to contract or eat 

 more honey and thus generate more heat. 

 Possibly bees have other means of raising 

 their own internal temperature; but that 

 would not prove that the outside crust of 

 bees would confine the heat. I give it up, 

 and will turn you over to the ' ' tender mer- 

 cies" of Doolittle.— Ed.] 



f' Glad to see the exact] figures|^for^the 

 time of a queen's maturing, from so experi- 

 enced a hand as G. M. Doolittle, page 647. 

 If three days be allowed for an egg to hatch, 

 his time from the laying of the egg to the 

 emerging of the queen is from 15 days to 15 

 days 4 hours. Formerly 17 days was taught, 

 and 16 days is still given by some authorities. 

 Fifteen is the time in this locality. [In view 

 of the reported different experiences, it may 

 be possible that the difference in climatic 

 conditions may account for the delay in 

 queens hatching. I have been running an 

 incubator lately, or trying to, and I got 47 

 chicks out of a possible 130 It took 22 days 

 for most of them to hatch. I am told that 

 some of them ought to have come out on the 

 20th day. But my incubator man tells me 

 that I kept the temperature too low at the 

 start. Is it not possible that the bees are 

 not able in all localities to control the tem- 

 perature around the cells, especially some 

 seasons of the year? If so, this would ac- 

 count for the difference in the recorded ex- 

 periences. 



As I know you will inquire about the fate 

 of those chicks, I might say that I have 6 left. AJ 

 As nearly as I can determine, the temper- fl 

 ature in the brooder was not right, I shall 

 try it again, and then later on, perhaps, try 

 artificial incubation of queen-cells and brood. 

 If I do, I will see if there is a difference in 

 the times of hatching when the temperature 

 is below normal slightly,— Ed.] 



J. Ridley has sounded a much-needed 

 note of warning, page 651. Neither are his 

 local conditions exceptional. Those of Mr. 

 Alexander are exceptional, very. I believe 

 Mr. Alexander is a good bee-keeper, and a 

 good man; but if there is any thing like a 

 general attempt at following his teachings 

 it will only be at a loss. [And yet, doctor, 

 we have a large number of favorable reports 

 from those who have followed the Alexan- 

 der teachings— as much so as from any cor- 

 respondent who ever wrote for these columns. 

 You will not forget to consider that Mr. 

 Alexander as well as myself have both stat- 

 ed the peculiarities of his locality. His hon- 

 ey-flow is considerably later than most of us 

 have. It is of a different character, and 

 his bee range is decidedly different in that 

 the bees can fly further than they can in 



