1348 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1 



gives a uniform heat over the entire surface 

 of the blade, and at the same time washes it 

 off, leaving the cutting edge practically clear 

 of thick honey at least. — Ed.] 



A WRITER in L' Apiculteur occupies two 

 and one-half pages gravely arguing that it 

 is the drones, and not virgins in cells, that 

 quahk in resppnse to the piping Sounds 

 foolish, doesn't it? And yet, can you give 

 positive proof of his error? [This writer 

 could not have had very much experience 

 in rearing queens. Years ago, I heard this 

 quahking in a cell. I opened it, and the 

 quahking stopped, and out stepped Miss 

 Queen. While this, of course, would not be 

 absolute proof that the sound emanated from 

 that point, yet the nature of the noise was 

 such that it could not have come from a lot 

 of individuals, but from only one. — Ed.] 



"There should by all means by a ce- 

 ment floor in the bee-cellax', especially if it is 

 built in clay ground," p. 1313. I thought so 

 too — put a cement floor in one room, but it 

 didn't work well, and I went back to the 

 clay floor Adam Grimm had the same ex- 

 perience. Possibly something else than the 

 cenaent floor was to blame. [A good deal 

 will depend on the locality, and whether the 

 cellar be properly drained. I remember 

 that, while 1 was in your cellar, the clay 

 bottom was very dry, almost to the point of 

 being dusty. In that case a cement floor 

 would be worse than useless; but in most lo- 

 calities without it the cellar bottom would 

 be damp or muddy, even though thei'e were 

 a good underdrain running around the wall 

 of the cellar. — Ed.] 



Clover was a failure, but we usually have 

 a moderate flail flow that gives us some seal- 

 ed combs for spring use. In anticipation of 

 this we gave some second stories of empty 

 combs Aug. 25, saying, "Now if they get 

 more than they can crowd into the lower 

 stoi'y they can cai'ry it above, and we shall 

 not need to w^orry about their having enough 

 below. Strange to say, when we came to 

 take ofl" the upper stories, about Oct. 1, we 

 found some colonies that had done tine work 

 above with scarcely any honey below, two or 

 three of the eight frames being bone dry — 

 not a drop of honey in them. Why? [In our 

 locality, if we put on an upper story in the 

 fall, and there be a fall flow, the bees and 

 the honey will almost invariably go into the 

 upper part of the hive. 'Why? Because 

 warmer there. I always supposed it was a 

 rule that bees would desert the lower story 

 unless they had brood there, and go up into 

 the upper one in the fall, other things being 

 equal. — Ed.] 



While conceding to A. I. Root full per- 

 mission to cut chunk honey out of his little 

 hives, the question he raises as to drone foun- 

 dation, p. 1291, is worth some consideration. 

 The fact that there is sufficient demand to 

 warrant its manufacture is no small argu- 

 ment. Your claim, Bro. Root, of the saving 

 of wax is granted; but the saving is very 

 small. More important, pei'haps, js the sav- 

 ing of labor in building drone comb. There 



must be other arguments in its favor, but I 

 don't know what they are. An objection to 

 it is the matter of looks; yet some may pre- 

 fer it, even in that respect. The more serious 

 objection is the attitude of the bees toward 

 drone comb in sections when there is little 

 or none in the brood-chamber. The queen 

 will be sure to go up and lay in the drone 

 comb if she can, so that the use of drone comb 

 in the supers carries with it the expense and 

 annoyance of excluders. Even with exclu- 

 ders space will be held open for the queen to 

 lay in the sections, thus hindering their com- 

 pletion. What advantages are there to coun- 

 terbalance these disadvantages? 



A file of combs of honey stood in the api- 

 ary, and a little leak atti'acted quite a band 

 of robbers. Not one of them showed less 

 than three yellow bands, although such bees 

 are by no means in the majority in the yard. 

 Does that mean that the three-banders are 

 more industrious gatherers than hybrids? 

 Or does it mean that they would rather rob 

 when their darker sisters wei'e bringing 

 in loads of pollen from the scanty pas- 

 turage? [Is it not true, doctor, that when 

 robbmg first starts it is some particular col- 

 ony, and that colony only, that is involved? 

 After robbing becomes well started, other 

 bees in the other colonies take a hand in the 

 general fracas. Some years ago at one of 

 our out-yards I noticed that, when any initial 

 robbing was going on, it was a certain colo- 

 ny of hve-banders — the only tive-banders in 

 the yard, and these were the ones that would 

 flrst begin the stealing. At other times I 

 have noticed that, when we had only one hy- 

 brid colony, that was the one that would be- 

 gin the business. Now, if you had taken the 

 time to identify these three-banded bees, and 

 if you had some means by which you could 

 go back into their history, so far as it relates 

 to robbing, I think you would find they had 

 learned to rob before any other bees in the 

 yard were beginning. iS'o, I always sup- 

 posed that the ordinai'y yellow or leather- 

 colored three- banded Italians as a race were 

 less inclined to steal than hybrids. When 

 we had blacks and hybrids in our home yard, 

 as I now remember it was these bees that 

 would commence robbing while the three- 

 bauded bees were at home or in the field. 

 ISext time you see some three-banded bees 

 roljbing, and only those, watch the hive to 

 which they go. I shall be surprised if you 

 do not discover that they all go to one hive. 

 In the course of an hour or so bees of other 

 colonies may be attracted by the roar in the 

 air. — Ed.] 



Feed now rather than attempt it later in 

 the cellar. Liquid food given to bees after 

 they have been put in their winter reposi- 

 tories will stir them up to unnecessary activ- 

 ity, causing them to overeat, and overload 

 their intestines, with dysentery as a result, 

 in the spring. 



