702 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1 



should not be squeezed. Practically, the 

 time spent in trying to get it out in a way 

 to avoid this is far more harmful. After 

 you have got your sting out thus, you may 

 apply your remedy. Put it on gently. Don't 

 rub it in. This is almost always harmful. 

 Then let it alone. A second application is 

 seldom necessary and often injurious. Ap- 

 plied in this way, with special attention to 

 the first part of the instructions, you should 

 have no difficulty in finding a bee-sting rem- 

 edy that will exactly fit your particular case. 



/3r 



WEIGHT OF A SECTION OF HONEY. 



I see that, in my statement on page 526, 

 I should have been a little more explicit. 

 At the best, it is only a general truth to 

 which there will always be exceptions, and 

 it requires some explanations and possibly 

 modification. The original ' ' pound section, ' ' 

 introduced by A. I. Root so many years ago, 

 was 4J in. square and 2 in. wide, if I am 

 not mistaken. This section, used with sep- 

 arators, and well filled, would hold approx- 

 imately a pound of honey. Then the width 

 of the section was cut down. I am not sure 

 as to the reason for this, but it was proba- 

 bly in order to make it fit better the hives 

 that came into use later, especially when the 

 change was made from the ten-frame to the 

 eight- frame hive, and from the old double- 

 tier wide frame with tin separators to the 

 single-tier super generally using the thicker 

 wood separators. 



At the present time the standard width 

 for sections is li inches. When used with 

 separators this section can seldom be made 

 to hold a pound of honey. Only the excep- 

 tionally well-filled ones will come anywhere 

 near it. The average case of 24 sections 

 will weigh about 21 to 22 lbs., varying with 

 the season, the locality, the race of bees, 

 the strength of colony, the kind of super, 

 whether full sheets or only starters of foun- 

 dation are used, and perhaps a few other 

 conditions. The "plain" section, \\ inches 

 wide, corresponds very closely to this, being 

 a little heavier, on the average, I believe. 



Now, there are some people who have 

 gone a step further in cutting down the 

 width of the section, and are using If or 

 * ' seven to the foot ' ' regular, or If plain, all 

 of these three being nearly the same in 

 weight when filled. I am one of those who 

 use these narrow sections, and I think them 

 superior in several respects to the wider 

 ones. I will mention only one of these here, 

 which is that there is a much greater uni- 

 formity in the weight of individual sections, 

 especially if used in a properly made super. 

 This is more particularly the case when the 

 honey-flow has been rather Hght or the col- 

 ony has not had a very strong working force. 

 The reason for this greater uniformity of 

 weight is, in my opinion, that the thickness 

 of the comb more nearly corresponds with 

 what the bees build naturally. They will fill 

 the thicker sections when they are obliged 

 to; but unless they are crowded they will not 

 attach their combs to the bottom as well; 



they will not build as close to the wood nor 

 down into the corners as well as they do 

 with the thinner ones. 



Now, perhaps, you can see what I had in 

 mind in stating that, the nearer sections ap- 

 proach a pound in average weight, the 

 greater will be the variation in individual 

 weights. There are two ways in which you 

 can increase the weight of a section of hon- 

 ey, namely, by making the section larger, 

 and by having it better filled. Of course, 

 the better filled the sections are, the more 

 nearly they approach uniformity, provided 

 that separators have been used. But if you 

 succeed with a strong colony during a heavy 

 honey-flow, and with all other conditions fa- 

 vorable, in having your wide sections so well 

 filled that they are uniform in weight, they 

 will not compare well in weight with those 

 produced under less favorable conditions, 

 and I am speaking of crops or carloads of 

 honey and not of single cases. While much 

 might be done profitably in some cases to 

 increase the average weight of sections by 

 the adoption of better methods, the only 

 practicable way to get the average producer 

 to have his sections anywhere near a pound 

 in weight would be to increase the size of 

 the section. This might be done in two 

 ways, namely, by making the section higher 

 or wider, or by making it thicker. Either 

 of these methods, but more particularly the 

 latter, will tend to make greater the differ- 

 ence in weight between the heaviest and the 

 lightest sections produced in a season in any 

 given apiary or locality. 



As a practical illustration bearing on the 

 subject I will say that I have frequently 

 shown dealers that cases of the wide sec- 

 tions, weighing two or three pounds more 

 than my cases, contained sections that were 

 lighter than any of mine. 

 cr 



SWARMING. 



Swarming began early here this season, 

 and in many places there was a regular 

 swarming mania. Every thing wanted to 

 swarm and then swarm again. Beginners 

 were highly elated at the three or four 

 swarms they sometimes got from one, while 

 the older hands tried to keep back swarm- 

 ing until a little later. The swarming was 

 induced by the flow from cleome, which with 

 its large amount of pollen seems to have a 

 particularly stimulating effect in this direc- 

 tion. Colonies would swarm with plenty of 

 room in empty extracting-combs. 



THE SEASON UP TO DATE. 



The flow from cleome, while not very 

 great, was followed closely by that from al- 

 falfa, so that the yield so far has been very 

 fair. I took off the first finished case June 

 14, whereas it was the 22d last year, and the 

 19th the year before. The first flow from 

 alfalfa never lasts long here, though, as it 

 is cut too soon. At this date, June 17, the 

 hay is nearly all cut and bees are inclined to 

 rob. Sweet clover is now just beginning to 

 bloom, and on that rest our hopes of a crop. 



