806 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1 



those. If no honey is reported, or very lit- 

 tle of it, it gives the impression generally 

 that the season has been a failure. Later 

 on, when honey is dumped on the market, 

 prices are liable to go all to smash. The 

 slight upward tendency in prices of generally 

 reported failure is more than counterbal- 

 anced by overloading the market at the 

 wrong season, say after the holidays. But 



1 shall have more to say on this subject else- 

 where.— Ed.] 



' ' If we have a fair season, is it necessary 

 that we should have another year in which 

 to determine the value of a queen?" quoth 

 ye editor, p. 756. I think you misapprehend, 

 Mr. Editor. I didn't ask "another year," 

 but merely one ' ' full season after the year 

 she is born." Come to think of it, though, 

 if all queens were reared at the close of the 

 harvest, that would allow time for a full 

 record when a year old. As to deciding on 

 that queen for a breeder because of her 

 record of three days, it might be pretty 

 safe if the record was sufficiently large; but 

 another queen in the same apiary with a 

 smaller record for that three days might 

 make a better record for the season. 

 Wouldn't you rather trust to the record of 

 the whole season than to that of three days? 

 [But the record of the queen that filled the 

 whole super in three days was good the en- 

 tire season. I question very much whether 

 a colony that would make a smart spurt for 

 a few days would not also make a good rec- 

 ord as compared with other colonies in the 

 yard. Our old red-clover breeder, which is 

 dead now, would often make a fine showing 

 in the combs when other queens were doing 

 nothing; then when there was a realy^ow of 

 clover or basswood she would jam the honey 

 into the supers in a way that left every 

 thing else behind —Ed.] 



Better be a little more expHcit when you 

 give instructions to beginners, Mr. Editor. 

 Page 761 you say, speaking of dual introduc- 

 tion, "As soon as she is laying, the other 

 virgin ... is fixed so that the bees can eat 

 out the little plug of candy." I know a 

 man not a thousand miles from Marengo 

 who freed the caged queen directly into the 

 hive at the same time he took away the lay- 

 ing queen, without any ceremony of candy- 

 eating. You see he hadn't read page 761, 

 but went by page 704, ' ' Just the minute she 

 deposits eggs she is removed, and virgin No. 



2 is released, when she will fly almost imme- 

 diately." Some of his virgins thus uncere- 

 moniously released were accepted all right. 

 Mostly, I think, they were maltreated or 

 killed. [The editorial in question was writ- 

 ten for the experienced bee-keeper, and 

 not for the beginner, who, I believe, should 

 not attempt the dual plan of introducing 

 when there is a possibility of his making a 

 failure with even the single plan. To be 

 sure, you know how to fix a cage so the bees 

 can eat the queen out. We have a little 

 slide that shoves over the candy; and after 

 the virgin has been confined a sufficient 

 length of time so that she has the same body 

 odor as the cluster of bees with her, and the 



other queen laying and taken out, then we 

 pull the slide over, exposing the candy so 

 the bees can eat her out in a few hours. 

 But almost any cage can be handled in this 

 way. If a piece of tin is tacked over the 

 candy, and then pried off at the proper time, 

 precisely the same result will be accomplish- 

 ed. We introduce hundreds and hundreds of 

 virgins by releasing them immediately. But 

 we could not do that on the dual plan that I 

 was talking about. As long as there was a 

 laying queen or a virgin in the hive we 

 could not let out another virgin without 

 bringing on a small-sized war, and a fight 

 to the finish. — Ed.] 



Reasoning pretty good, Mr. Editor, page 

 757, but a little astray in your facts and sup- 

 positions. "A case of sections weighing 

 12J pounds is made up of sections that won't 

 crate up well." Error of fact. I've had 

 many a one that crated perfectly; expect to 

 have more of them. " Possibly you were 

 referring to the IJ | section." Error of sup- 

 position. I was referring to IJ sections. 

 ' ' You say you have produced many a case 

 of full- weight sections with separators. But 

 this is not saying it was an average." 

 Pray, what has that to do with it? If only 

 one case in a hundred is full weight, should 

 I be obliged to be docked on that one case? 

 Given price enough, and I'll agree in a good 

 season to have the whole average full 

 weight. But I'm not likely to make any 

 strenuous effort in that direction so long as 

 I'm to be punished for it to the tune of 1 to 

 3 cts. a pound. In my crop of 1903 I notice 

 one case weighed 12 pounds 14 oz., and it 

 cased perfectly. That was without any 

 sorting out for heavy sections, but with 

 some effort to keep down the weight of cases. 

 No, I don't believe we can see alike. But 

 then, it isn't necessary, for I don't know 

 that my digestion would be all right if I 

 didn't have something to quarrel with you 

 about. Just this one question by way of a 

 parting shot: All your argument for full 

 weights bringing 1 to 3 cts. a pound less is 

 based on their being leaky because without 

 separators. Now if that were the real 

 foundation, don't you think that, instead of 

 saying they must weigh less than 16 oz. to 

 the section, it would have been, " they must 

 be separatored " ? [If we are going to base 

 our statements on unusual or extraordinary 

 conditions, throwing out of consideration en- 

 tirely general averages, we shall have 

 a hard job to prove any thing. I feel 

 sure you know that a li section does 

 not generally run up to a full pound weight: 

 so what is the use of shoving the exception 

 forward? If commission men were all bee- 

 keepers they probably would put forward 

 that latter statement. But even a case of 

 sections produced with separators might 

 have its combs so fat that they would be 

 bulgy and leaky. It is natural, then, that 

 the commission man should make the state- 

 ment just as he did. There is not one com- 

 mission man in a dozen who knows than an 

 overweight or bulgy section is generally 

 from an unseparatored super. — Ed.] 



