756 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15 



ers agreed on the shape of the tool. The 

 tool we shall put out will consist of a pry, a 

 scraper, a hammer, and a hook, all in one. — 

 Ed.] 



A SURE SIGN of laying workers I have 

 always counted it when more than one egg 

 was found in a queen-cell. June 13, in a 

 colony with a last year's queen doing good 

 work, I found a queen-cell with three eggs 

 in it— the only queen-cell in the hive. Never 

 heard of such a thing before. June 17— 

 another case exactly like it, only an addi- 

 tional queen-cell with only one egg in it. Is 

 it getting to be a common thing ? 



As A POSTSCRIPT to that helpful editorial 

 about greasy waste for smoker fuel, p. 705, 

 allow me to repeat that any who live near 

 railroad stations will find greasy cotton 

 waste thrown along the road by engineers 

 and firemen. [I had not thought of that; 

 but there are large quantities of this mate- 

 rial that can be gathered up on a mile or so 

 of track, especially near depots and switch- 

 ing-points. The more our boys use this 

 greasy waste, or printers' waste, the more 

 they like it. The smoke is much more last- 

 ing, and, what is more, it is perfectly clean, 

 throwing no sparks. — Ed.] 



My! my! my! how the time does fly! Here 

 is Ernest talking about a 14-year-old son, 

 page 704, and it's hard for me to think of 

 Ernest as any thing but a youngster himself, 

 presuming a good deal to undertake to edit 

 a bee journal. And he makes a good one 

 too. [Yes, the young man is now as tall as 

 his father, and he is now beginning to won- 

 der if he couldn't floor him also. Well, I 

 believe I am going to make a bee-keeper of 

 him. He is not afraid of bees, and rather 

 likes to help his pa, especially when I take 

 the little Olds automobile to the yards and 

 give him a chance to run it. — Ed.] 



Thanks, J. A. Green, for explaining, page 

 702, that the nearer sections approach a 

 pound in average weight the greater varia- 

 tion in individual weights. It's because 

 thinner sections will be built more uniform. 

 If you had said that before, I wouldn't have 

 thought, as I did think, that you meant that 

 any average weight either more or less than 

 a pound would be more uniform than the 

 exact pound average. But I might have 

 been smart enough to understand you, any 

 way. Now, another thing. You say, page 

 702, the variation would be increased by 

 making the section higher or wider. Please 

 explain why. 



Seems to me that stick for Coggshall to 

 roll gunny sacks on, p. 704, is something 

 new, isn't it ? As he told it to me, he said 

 to roll it up, "then take an ax and chop 'er 

 up." He would hardly chop 'er up with the 

 stick in; and if he pulled the stick out it 

 would leave it rather loose. Or is it better 

 to be quite loose? [If you will turn to 

 Coggshall 's article on page 74 for Glean- 

 ings of last year, you will see that he rec- 

 ommended rolling the burlap up on a half- 

 inch rod. It is rather hard to explain on 



paper just how tight the rolls should be. 

 We got very good results by making the 

 roll about half way between a tight and a 

 loosely wound roll. —Ed.] 



At last we have the whole dread truth. 

 After basswood lumber disappears, it will 

 cost 75 cts. a thousand for four-piece sec- 

 tions, page 701. Pshaw! if that's all, I'm 

 not going to lie awake nights fearing that 

 I'll have to give up the production of section 

 honey. [But, hold on. doctor! When lum- 

 ber advances, labor will also advance some- 

 what. It is the experience of the Root Co. 

 that our own labor has increased and is still 

 increasing in cost. Well, suppose we put 

 the price $1 00 per 1000 extra, you will have 

 to add to that cost your own labor in put- 

 ting the four-piece sections together. —Ed.] 



E. S. Miller gives fine instruction for 

 shaking swarms, page 713. But say, friend 

 Miller, why don't you tell us what the right 

 conditions are when you say bees will not 

 abscond "if the conditions within the hive 

 are all right" ? And what makes you think 

 "bees don't like to see daylight through the 

 top of the hive"? For years my colonies 

 had an opening at top at back end of hive, 

 and I never knew any objection except that 

 they didn't finish sections so well at the 

 opening; but I thought that was the cool 

 air, and not the light. I gave it up on 

 account of that objection, but for the past 

 two years have practiced it again, believing 

 the gain more than the loss. 



W. H. Crawford wants to know, p. 606, 

 whether he can succeed in having a queen 

 fertilized in an upper story with a hole for 

 the queen to get out. a laying queen at the 

 same time being in the lower story, and an 

 excluder between the two stories. I have 

 succeeded, but more often the virgin in some 

 way disappeared. [Yes, he can succeed 

 generally during the height of a honey-flow, 

 and at other times providing he feeds the 

 colony a little syrup every day to keep it up 

 to a high state of prosperity. But that is 

 too much work and expense. A far better 

 way is to use the baby nuclei. Yesterday, 

 July 11, we took 42 laying queens from 

 somewhere about 200 babies; and we figure 

 we can from that number average 20 a day. 

 -Ed.] 



It is possible that a queen should be 

 Oslerized when two years old, but to carry 

 it so far as to requeen every year would 

 have the serious objection that one could 

 not improve his stock by selection, for no 

 queen can make a record unless she is allow- 

 ed to live a full season after the year she is 

 born. [If we have a fair season is it neces- 

 sary that we should have another year in 

 which to determine the value of a queen? 

 One of the best queens I knew of w:as a 

 yearling from Vernon Burt. This queen 

 filled 24 sections, besides drawing out the 

 foundation, in three days of 24 hours each. 

 She was reared last fall, and her hive was 

 stocked entirely with her own blood. Her 

 bees are still jamming in the honey in a way 

 that excels every thing else in the yard. 



