Vol. XXXIV. 



JUNE 15. J906. 



No \2 



V DjRji^. CMilJLr.r^ 



R.'.C. Aikin's plans, p. 731, are so thor- 

 oughly logical that it almost makes one fall 

 in love with the sectional hive. 



"The German Cfntral Union of bee- 

 keepers numbers 3^,809 members." That 

 statement, made on p. 715, needs correction. 

 A later numbering makes the number 50,000. 



Rkidenbach, editor Pfaelzer Bienenzeit- 

 ung, has made repeated observations, and 

 finds the temperature of the center of the 

 cluster in the coldest weather 86 to 92°, and 

 the periphery, or crust, 59 to 73°. 



Bareheaded brood is caused by worms, 

 says Dambach, in Schweiz. Bztg. Just 

 what I said years ago. Proof lies in the 

 fact that it does not occur in strong and 

 prosperous colonies, and always in rows or 

 spots. 



Prof. Surface, you have stirred me all 

 up by saying in your list of Pennsylvania 

 honey-plants, "alfalfa, where grown." 

 Please tell us more about it. Does it yield 

 in every locality where grown? It grows 

 here, but as yet there is no proof that it 

 yields. 



You THIVK, Mr. Editor, that climatic con- 

 ditions may account for the delay in queens 

 hatching. Quite right. Another thing that 

 may make even more difference is strength 

 of colony. Careful and repeated experiment 

 may very likely establish 17 days as the cor- 

 rect time from the laying of the egg to the 

 emerging of the queen, if the experimenting 

 be done in a nucleus weak enough. 



J. E. Crane's "crumb of comfort for Dr. 

 Miller," p. 721, is more than a crumb. It's 

 a whole loaf. Nor does the comfort consist 

 in the fact that hybrids give more honey 

 than pure stock, but in the fact that he 

 gained by u=ing pure queens with grade 

 drones. That's easy to try. I'll try it. 



In addition to the good advice given Prof. 

 Bigelow, p. 746, this also might be given as 

 another alternative: Move the old hive with 

 its contents to a new location. Take from 

 it the queen with a frame of brood and bees, 

 and put in a new hive on the old stand. 

 Two or three days later, more brood can be 

 given to the new from the old, if desired. 



You SAY I never liked the shallow hive. 

 "Error i' the bill." I liked it, and expect- 

 ed to adopt it, until trial showed its faults. 

 [I remember that you once used the Dan- 

 zenbaker hive, but this is only slightly shal- 

 lower than the regular Langstroth size. I 

 did not remember that you ever used the 

 genuine shallow hive in any considerable 

 number.— Ed.] 



Editor Root asks again, p. 717, if I don't 

 find myself clinging to the old, true, and 

 tried just a wee bit more than I once did. 

 Certainly; didn't I say so, p. 717? I said I 

 had improved just a little, and was less in- 

 clined than formerly to run after new things. 

 Still, I don't think I'm yet quite so conser- 

 vative as the editor of Gleanings — for in- 

 stance, in the matter of three- compartment 

 hives. 



How many of the "younger fry" have 

 abandoned T supers? They have hardly 

 abandoned them who have never tried them; 

 and I would abandon them too if I used them 

 as some do— intelligent men too. An inter- 

 meddler at my elbow suggests, "If the A. 

 I. Root Co. had pushed the T super as much 

 as some other things, wouldn't the younger 

 fry all be using the T super? [Did I say 

 the younger fry abandoned something they 

 never used? I have looked, but I do not find 



