1168 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15 



don't need a thick blanket of bees to care 

 fox* that. To a certain extent the outside 

 comb is only a help to keep the other comljs 

 warm. 



Very interesting is that array of hg- 

 ures. p. 1117, as to honey produced and con- 

 sumed. After all it hardly proves that in- 

 crease of bee-keepers has so very much to do 

 with increasing the amount of honey used. 

 Might there not be a good deal of honey 

 consumed if thei-e were no bee-keepers in the 

 country? Is it not likely that, where most 

 honey "is consumed, most coffee is consumed? 

 and surely the number of coffee-producers 

 has nothing to do in the case. Some of the 

 l)est outlets for honey, as in the lai-ge cities, 

 are without bee-keepers. But Mr. Bennett is 

 quite too modest in his estimate of sugar 

 consumed. That 20 lbs. per capita is about 

 45 lbs. shy of the mark. 



President Roosevelt has done many 

 notable things for which he will be held in 

 grateful remembrance, the latest, and not 

 the least, being his order issued to Public 

 Printer Stillings, " that hereafter all messages 

 from the President, and all other documents 

 emanating from the White House, shall be 

 printed in accordance with the recommenda- 

 tion of the spelling-reform committee headed 

 by Brander Matthews, professor of English 

 at Columbia University." [The President is 

 to be commended for the action he has tak- 

 en: but I see by the papers that some lawyer 

 has hvinted up" some okl law l)y which he 

 claims the order can not be carried into ef- 

 fect until such law is repealed. — Ed.] 



Brains of best quality, and not of small 

 quantity, must have lieeii used in getting up 

 that last smoker. The bellows-valve will 

 never get out of order, for thei'e is no bel- 

 lows-valve. The simple contrivance that 

 locks the nuts, completely prevents the an- 

 noyance of having them work loose, threat- 

 ening separation of barrel and bellows. The 

 brace to prevent weak knees, and the wire 

 handle allowing a hot cover to be handled 

 with comfort, are good. The light l)ellows- 

 sprlng is stiff" enough to do its full work 

 without needlessly tiring the hand' with its 

 extra stiffness. But the thing that excites 

 my greatest admiration is the what-you-may- 

 call-it that fastens the cover to the tire-box. 

 It looks as if its adjustable springiness would 

 warrant a perpetual tit of cover with any 

 reasonable amount of care in keeping clean. 

 In uo-get-out-of-order qualities this smoker 

 seems to have aljout i-eached the limit. [I 

 would explain that we sent Dr. Miller a 

 1907 valveless Root smoker. These are not 

 on the market yet, but we have Ijeen testing 

 them in our own apiaries the entire season, 

 and so far we find they are a succes.s. — Ed. J 



Do BEF.s carry eggs? Rudolf Hora, says 

 in 1>. Imker: Hive an after-swarm, cast in 

 good season, upon foundation, which will be 

 l)uilt out in four days. Then remove the 

 queen, make sure no" eggs are present, and 

 leave the bees to their fate. Three days 

 later many queen-cells will be found stocked 

 with jelly, but containing no eggs. Now 



place a frame of eggs and brood close to the 

 queen-cells. Three days later the queen-cells 

 will be found occupied". [I think there is no 

 question now but that bees do transfer eggs 

 from a worker-cell to a queen-cell. There 

 have been not a few reports where absolute- 

 ly queenless bees supplied one of their queen- 

 cells with an egg, and therefrom developed 

 a normal queen. We have had two in- 

 stances of the same thing in our own yard. 

 There could be no question that the" two 

 colonies were queenless, and had been for 

 some time. Apparently in their desperation 

 some one bee stole its way into another hive, 

 and when once inside it could easily steal an 

 egg and make oft' with it. A robber bee, for 

 example, in a hive that was hopelessly 

 queeenless, very possibly would steal an egg 

 for its colony before it would steal honey. 

 There would be nothing to pi'event its tak- 

 ing both. That bees may transfer eggs from 

 one comlj to another containing a queen- 

 cell or perhaps two of them, can now scarce- 

 ly be doubted. Any one who has raised a 

 large number of queens has had proof 

 enough of this. — Ed.] 



I tried outdoor feeding with cork chips. 

 I tilled a pail in the evening one-third full of 

 syrup, equal parts sugar and water, and 

 threw on a good lot of cork chips. Bees 

 were slow aljout working upon it next morn- 

 ing; l)ut by noon it was well covered. At 5 

 P..M. two bees were digging in the dry chips, 

 and not a dead bee in the pail — certainly a 

 success with me. I don't guarantee it tor 

 you. [I do not know, but 1 rather suspect, 

 doctor, if you were to continue this method 

 of feetling with the cork chips for a period 

 of two or three weeks you would find your 

 comics specked up with a lot of shiny l)lack 

 bees having more or less torn wings. We 

 have been trying the perforated scjuare can 

 having perforations in the bottom, can ele- 

 vated some 12 feet in the air: but we find 

 that even this device, the best of any thing 

 we have tried yet. does not prevent entirely 

 the Ijees from struggling against eai'h other, 

 resulting in a premature wear-out: l»ut I am 

 not so sure that this wear-out is any worse 

 than the wear-out of bees that go to a clover- 

 tield and die after a few weeks of hard labor. 

 I should like to get reports from others who 

 have tried the outdoor method in comi^arison 

 with the in-hive plan. So far I am inclined 

 to the opinion that the latter is more econom- 

 ical of bee-life and of syrup. But there is 

 one thing in favor of the outdoor plan: ami 

 that is. it in'ings al)out a condition much like 

 a natural honey-How hj which the bees in 

 the apiary will permit of opening the hives 

 and otherwise exposing sweets without rob- 

 bing. — Ed.] 



Astonishing how far one can stray away 

 from instructions when really trying to fol- 

 low them, if one has a genius that way. In 

 trying to follow your teaching as to having 

 two ([ueens in a nucleus at a time, Mr. Edi- 

 tor, I let the virgin out of the cage at the 

 same time that I removed the lajing (jueen. 

 The virgins thus turned loose, as you may 

 surmise, were killed. You straightened me 



