1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1889 



was a mixture of honey from the earliest 

 flows, probably mostly clover. It seems that 

 this granulated honey caused the loss of these 

 colonies. What caused the honey to granu- 

 late? Charles M. Harris. 



Jefferson, N. Y._ 



[We can not tell what caused the honey to 

 granulate unless it was not properly ripened 

 in the first place. No. some candied honey, 

 at least that which has granulated solid and 

 dry, is not a good winter food. But a soft 

 moist granulated is not bad. — Ed.] 



An improvement on the ladder would be 

 to have a rack made as wide as the hive-bot- 

 tom is long, and with a projection raised 

 above the ends of the bottom-boards on each 



WEAK COLONIES W^INTERED SUCCESSFULLY 

 IN A DAMP CAVE. 



Last summer was the worst season I ever 

 witnessed for bees. The wet weather set in 

 the last week in June, and was nothing but 

 wet all summer and fall. There was no 

 time during the summer and fall when bees 

 could work more than two days out of each 

 week, therefore every bit of honey was wash- 

 ed away so that the bees made no stores to 

 live on. 



I began feeding eight colonies in October; 

 but I was a little careless and did not feed 

 fast enough, so the bees ate the feed about 

 as fast as I fed them; therefore, by the time 

 cold weather set in I found that my young 

 colonies had very light stores to winter on, 

 so 1 had a small cellar (or, rather, a cave) 

 in which I kept my winter vegetables, which 

 was sufficient to keep vegetables from freez- 

 ing, i thought I would risk putting my bees 

 in, although it was very damp. I was afraid 

 they would mold; but I put the bees in about 

 Nov. 20. 



I put wire screen over the entrance, and 

 spread an oil-cloth cover over the top, and 

 then put the super on. I cut a hole in the 

 oil-cloth cover about one by two inches, right 

 in the center, over the cluster, in order to 

 feed if I found it necessary. The front en- 

 trance is I inch by 12, so I left them there 

 until March 20, when the weather got so 

 warm that I noticed the comb was getting 

 moldy, and even the outside of the hive was 

 molding. Then I placed them on the sum- 

 mer stand, and, to my surprise, they are 

 all living and doing finely; and when I put 

 them out they had scan^ely any dead bees in 

 the hives; and some of the strong colonies 

 that I left out came near dying. I am now 

 feeding the weakest ones a little, and all are 

 doing well. R. A. Grun. 



Scherr, W. Va., March 30. 



carrying hives on a TWO-WHEELED CART; 

 TAKING OFF SUPERS DURING A HONEY- 

 FLOW. 



I think I have a better way to carry my 

 hives out of and to the cellar (also to carry 

 full supers to the house) than yours shown on 

 p. 557, April 15. I have a two- wheeled hand- 

 cart and a ten-foot ladder. 1 lash the ladder 

 on the cart, set about ten hives on the ladder, 

 and wheel it out or in alone; but, of course, 

 I can't go up or down the stairs with it. I 

 have wheeled eleven supers, well filled with 

 section honey, at a load. 



side to keep hives from slipping endwise, and 

 cross-cleats in the place of the rungs to hold 

 them from slipping the other way. 

 Lamoille, 111. A. D. Hopps. 



SWARJI FLIES TWELVE MILES. 



The distance to which a swarm may sustain 

 its flight is at least twelve miles, Aug. 15, p. 

 1070. Berlepsch followed a swarm that dis- 

 tance to a hollow pear-tree. See account in 

 first or second volume of the American Bee 

 Jo7irnul. E. W. Diefendorf. 



Otterville, Mo. 



DO BEES supersede QUEENS IN WINTER? 



Will the bees supersede a queen during 

 the winter, and thereby not secure brood un- 

 til the virgin has mated? I found a very 

 small queen in my neighbor's colony on the 

 18th of May, with very little brood, none 

 capped ; she, however, had just begun laying, 

 and it occurred to me that such was the case. 

 There were few bees — only enough to cover 

 one Hoffman frame. F. L. Parke. 



Paullina, la. 



[The case here given does not show there 

 was any supersedure. The small queen you 

 saw was probably the old one. She may 

 have stopped laying for the time on account 

 of cold, and then begun laying again. 



To answer your question, bees do not su- 

 persede their queens during winter. — Ed.] 



W^HAT determines THE SEX OF EGGS? 



I have read the various arguments in 

 Gleanings for a queen laying drone eggs, 

 etc. I have had a little experience here that 

 will probably throw some light upon the 

 question. 



In July of this year I had a mismated (or 

 else a virgin) queen that refused to be fertil- 

 ized. She began laying eggs steadily in 

 worker-cells. Of course, tnese produced 

 nothing but drones. I did not discover this 

 until about the first of August, when I killed 

 her and introduced an old queen that I knew 

 was all right. These worker-cells had been 

 lengthened and expanded at the top for the 

 developing drones, and so were not regular 

 in size and shape when the drones left them. 

 Now the old queen goes to laying in these 

 cells, with the result that a fair-sized percent- 

 age of these eggs produced drones. We 

 must remember that the swarming season 

 and the honey season were past at this time 

 of year here — namely, August, and the old 

 queen certainly had no intention of laying 

 drone eggs at this time of year; yet for some 



