528 



GLEANiNGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15 



June I secured the rates above mentioned 

 at the Natick House, a commercial hotel 

 where some of the best traveling- men stop. 

 It was a fine new building, with nice clean 

 rooms on the European plan. You could 

 engage your room, and get your meals at 

 the restaurant if j'ou happened to be at 

 the hotel; but if you did not, j'ou did not 

 have to pay for something that 3^ou did not 

 get. Board and lodging are much cheaper 

 in Los Angeles, considering quality, than 

 almost any other city of its size and impor- 

 tance in the United State. California is a 

 food-producing State, and every thing in the 

 line of food stuffs, especially fruits, is cheap, 

 even if some other things are high. — Ed.] 



W. L. CoGGSHALL, p. 485, doesn't agree 

 with me that for rapid work a spaced frame 

 is better, and then throws the Hoffman 

 frame at me. Brother Coggshall, I wouldn't 

 have thought that of you! The Hoffman 

 frame works here just as it does with you, 

 and I would rather have an unspaced frame; 

 but a frame spaced with nails or staples is 

 another story altogether. By the way, W. 

 L., your frame is a good bit like mine, only 

 I've gone still further than you, and there's 

 more of mine. 



The Jumbo smoker seems a little heavy; 

 but for steady work it's a nice thing to have 

 a fire-pot that holds more than a quart, so 

 you can dump a good section of the chip- 

 3'ard into it. When fairly started and fully 

 loaded you can let it stand for hours 

 with no fear of its going out. Then it has 

 such a big base that you can leave it stand- 

 ing in the wagon when you drive from one 

 apiary to another, and go right on without 

 relighting when you reach the other apiary. 

 I like it much. [I have come to the conclu- 

 sion that the ordinary standard size of 

 smoker, 3X or 3)4 inches in size, is too 

 small for a large apiary. A 4-inch barrel 

 is none too large for the professional who 

 lieeps bees for the bread and butter he can 

 get out of them. — Ed.] 



The apiarist should heed the teaching 

 of nature, and not violate the rule by put- 

 ting an empty super under a partly filled 

 ■one, says Hershiser, page 492. You're a 

 pretty one, Bro. H., to talk about violating 

 rules. Isn't it a gross violation of rules to 

 work in sections at all? The rule is to work 

 down, not up. Did you ever know bees in 

 a state of nature to make a fresh start and 

 begin building four or five inches higher up 

 in a new place? And when an empty su- 

 per is put under a partly filled one, isn't 

 the " food and brood in as compact a space 

 as" when the bees begin work in an empty 

 super put on top? Just stop and think a 

 minute. Isn't there just as much vacant 

 space between the top of the upper super 

 and the brood-nest in one case as there is 

 in the other? By practicing the orthodox 

 method you say the work will be distribut- 

 ed in undesirable proportion. When the 

 bees are working in two supers, isn't the' 

 work distributed just as much whether the 

 upper or lower super is the fuller? [What 



Mr. Hershiser doubtless referred to was 

 that bees will not create a great space be- 

 tween the brood-nest and surplus. As you 

 truthfully say, they build their first attach- 

 ments of comb to the top of the log or box 

 hive, and then work downward? The up- 

 per portion is filled with honej^ and the 

 lower part with brood. In the ordinary 

 plan of tiering up, or, rather, tiering under, 

 we create a big vacuum, so to speak, between 

 the brood and the already partially stored 

 honey. Now, then, do we ever in nature 

 find a condition like this? When an empty 

 super is put on top, no work has begun, 

 and there is no vacuum to bridge over. The 

 bees complete the work below, then go 

 above. — Ed.] 



Say, Ernest, I wish you'd interview Les- 

 lie Alexander, p. 487, and see if you and he 

 can't come to some kind of a compromise 

 about those 45 colonies averaging 70,000 

 bees. [Is it not barely possible that Mr. 

 Alexander meant exactly what he said? 

 Mr. Phillips tells me that we in America 

 do not know what strong colonies are. If 

 3'ou will look over some of the illustrations 

 in this issue, you will see that many of the 

 Jamaican hives are two and three stories 

 high. Years ago, when we used to buy 

 swarms of the farmers, paj'ing for them so 

 much a pound, we secured quite a number 

 that weighed between 9 and 10 lbs. Con- 

 sidering that there are on an average 5000 

 in a pound, we have 50,000 bees, and these 

 swarms came from one-story hives. Simplic- 

 ity ten-frame. Now, is it hard to suppose 

 that a three- story hive, run for extracting, 

 might average 70,000 bees? A tropical cli- 

 mate is more favorable to the use of large 

 colonies than one like ours. The near- 

 er we get to the equator, the larger the col- 

 onies, as a rule. — Ed.] 



Putting additional supers alwa3's on top, 

 and never having more than two supers on 

 at any one time, will most certainl3' result 

 in hurr3dng up the sealing and getting sec- 

 tions packed full; and if you want some- 

 thing for a show, sections sealed out clear 

 to the wood, without regard to cost, that's 

 the way to work. It will give a larger to- 

 tal of fancy sections, but I think I can get 

 a larger total of money out of a whole apiary 

 by giving all the earlier supers on top, and 

 adding supers just as fast as the bees fill 

 them. Have your sections all finished next 

 the brood-chamber, and the work will be 

 sooner done, and 3'Ou will also have more 

 tendency to swarming, and in most cases a 

 little more tendenc3' to dark cappings than 

 when the sealing is done further from the 

 brood-nest. I've had colonies working in 

 five or six supers at a time, filling them 

 with bees; and if I had tried to crowd them 

 into two supers there would have been a 

 loss. [Either 3'ou do not sa3' what you 

 mean or I do not undestand 3'Ou. You say, 

 "I think I can get a larger total of tnoney 

 out of a whole apiary 63' giving all the 

 earlier sjipers on top. ^^ Italics mine. That 

 is Hershiser's plan. Don't 3'ou mean, put- 

 ting the "earlier supers" «w^^r those part- 



