Nov. 9, 1899. 



americain bee journal 



711 



may issue, no matter what the size of hive. With large 

 hives such as the Dadants use they do not have more than 

 two colonies out of 45 to swarm in a whole season. With 

 bees inclined to swarm, kept in 8-f rame hives, with the right 

 kind of a season, there may be from one to ten swarms a 

 day thru a period of two to six weeks. 



The ''Old Reliable" seen thru New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. HASTY, Richards, Ohio. 



TIME BETWEEN THE PRIME AND THE SECOND SWARM. 



On page 618 we have Critic Tajlor's record of ten second 

 swarms, the day-intervals after the prime being 5, 7, 7, 8, 

 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10. Beats me one day in having a five-day in- 

 terval ; but I beat him " all hollow " in the other direction. 

 He must remember that one year's records (or even a few 

 years' records) are quite insufficient. In this respect one 

 year differs greatly from another even in the same yard. 

 Presumably localities and strains of bees differ widely also 

 — must do so if the eight-day period some writers cling to 

 {a little bit fanatically it seems to me) is even tolerably cor- 

 rect. With me more swarms issue at 13-days' interval than 

 at 8 — that is, they did up to my last counting-spot six years 

 ago. At that time I went laboriously over the whole of my 

 past records and found 299 recorded intervals. And this is 

 the way they show up : 



At 6 days 3 



At 7 days 6 



At 8 days 32 



At 9 days 48 



At 10 days 46 



At 11 days 48 



At 12 days 39 



At 13 days 34 



At 14 days 24 



At 15 days 6 



At 16 days 9 



At 17 days 4 



Generally speaking, the more reluctant bees are to 

 swarm, the shorter the interval will be ; and the worse the 

 swarm-fever rages — that is to say, the less preparation there 

 is at the first swarming — the longer it will be before they 

 €an swarm again. If they swarm without any preparation 

 at all, and then hold the young queens prisoners in the cells 

 a day or two, we get a 17-day period, as above. 



THE ONCE-FOR-ALL M.\NIPUL.ATION. 



Comrade France's once-for-all spring manipulation is 

 quite a variation from the once-a-week-and-oft-between- 

 times method that is more frequently recommended — and 

 both vary some from the whenever-you-feel-like-it method 

 of the bee-feverish beginner. Page 609. 



THE BEE-GRAPE QUESTION. 



Anent the bee-grape question, ably handled by C. P. 

 Dadant, page 609, I would suggest that denying too niueli 

 often has the effect to confirm our grape-raising friends in 

 their opinion that all our talk is special pleading and non- 

 sense. Let us be careful about that. It is beyond denial 

 that when a man not inured to stings wants to pick grapes 

 it is a miserable nuisance to have the "bunches covered with 

 bees. A few kindly expressions of regret will go farther 

 than a ton of argument just then. What does he care — the 

 man with one eye closed, and hands swollen too stiff for 

 service — whether (theoretically) bees can puncture grapes 

 or not ? We'll only set him to breaking commandments by 

 the evasion of non-evadable facts. The proofs we have to 

 offer have their application, yet they really don't cover the 

 whole ground — more's the pity. We cannot answer him 

 when he sings — 



O thou beautiful, dutiful, houeyful bee I 

 That you don't puncture grrapes I may yet have to see; 

 But I'll show any court in this " bloomin countree," 

 That you puncture rae. 



TH.AT BEAUTIFUL APIARY. 



A beautiful picture and beautiful apiary is that shown 

 on the first page of Oct. 5 — honey record beautiful, too. We 

 say at once. How beautiful is art, Ho.v beautiful is nature. 



How beautiful is solitude 1 Kind o' startles us to be told we 

 are looking at a spot inside city limits. You're one of 

 "dose happj' bee-mans," Mr. Herman. All the g'round is 

 covered thick with tan-bark. Splendid — except that I should 

 fear that in some desperate drouth a lurking spark from the 

 smoker might send the whole thing up in a blaze. Or is 

 spent tan, on the ground, always fire-proof ? A little 

 ashamed to confess that I don't know. I do know that I 

 hate weeds, and don't like grass much better — neither do I 

 love the amount of hoeing that I have to do in my apiary. 



BEE-ZINC — "MAKING" HONEY. 



Doolittle, on page 626, evidently doesn't think much of 

 excluders that only go part waj-. Hits me. All my ex- 

 tracting-supers have more than half the bottom covered 

 with plain tin. I do not thini; that I lose materially by it ; 

 but I am hardly prepared to prove it. He is probably right 

 about the case in hand, which had the center closed. I have 

 a strip of perforated metal clear across the center, and 

 plain tin strips on the two sides. Doolittle is right, also, in 

 sailing in some more into the stubborn nonsense that bees 

 want a path direct from the flower to the surplus cells. It 

 is nearer the truth to saj', with the unenlightened public, 

 " Bees waX't' honey," than to say they merely lug it home 

 and dump it like stovewood into a wood-box. 



SOUND ON CELLAR-DOORS. 



On page 626, Wm. M. Barnes is sound on cellar-doors — 

 inch of dead air space within each door, and three feet of 

 dead air between the two doors. 



FOUL BROOD IN CUB.4.. 



Sad to hear, as we do from W. W. Somerford, page 627, 

 that all men and methods fail to cure foul brood in Cuba. 

 With endless summer and infection everywhere, scientist 

 and anti-scientist, doctor and faith-healer, alike "get left " 

 — without bees. 



SOME PRAYERS WISELY' UNANSWERED. 



Unanswered prayer. It seems, page 629, that the father 

 of Mr. Doolittle prayed that he might fail with his bees. I 

 suspect that a vast number of unanswered prayers are as 

 unwise as that one was. 



BLAMING THE BEES FOR RATTLESNAKES. 



Judge Terral, page 629, is rather extreme in blaming 

 the Holy-Land bees for the rattlesnakes in his apiary. 

 Good example of the wa^- a legal man can " soc et tuum " 

 when he undertakes. (Snakes came because the weeds were 

 tall, and weeds were tall because the bees considered their 

 land too holy to have hoeing or mowing there.) 



PINK COMB AND CRIMSON CLOVER. 



That pink comb from crimson clover, eh ? — and pink 

 honey, ditto. Let's keep that in mind till we can disprove 

 it — or prove it. Page 635. 



BEES THAT "WON'T GO HOME TILL MORNING." 



In the Question-Box, page 634, Utah strikes a fresh and 

 breezy sort of question — whether bees ever stay out all 



night — 



Where is my wandering- bee to-nigrht, 

 "Where is my wanderingf bee? 

 My heart overflows, 

 And 1 love her she knows. 

 Where is mv wandering bee? 



Most of the senators are prompt and sure in the affirma- 

 tive. Half-a-dozen have doubts — else a fit of " the con- 

 trairies. " Mr. Green says not intentionally in any case. 

 Probably true that they newer prefer a lodging on a leaf to a 

 lodging at home ; but they will deliberately go to the woods 

 when it will certainly be so dark that they dislike to fly be- 

 fore they can get a load and return. One of the unex- 

 plained mysteries of the bee is why at eve the change from 

 readiness to fly, to great reluctance to fly, comes on so sud- 

 denly — get hundreds of bees on your clothes, and find it 

 almost impossible to get them off, if you don't look a little 

 out. I once had a case where many bees were robbing a 

 room in the house where they had found some plunder. As 

 the light began to fade many dozens of them got together 

 in a corner of the room with evident intent to spend the 

 night there, altho their hives vrere only a few rods away. I 

 had let them alone till eve as the cheapest way to get rid of 

 them — and was disgusted to find that I had to go to work 

 and put them out. 



