IN 



DEE CULTURE 



Published by The A. I. Root Company, Medina, Ohio 



E. R. ROOT, Editor a. L. BOYDEN, Advertising Mgr, 



H. H. ROOT, ASST. Ed. J. T. CALVERT, Business Mgr. 



A. I. ROOT, Editor of Home Department 



Vol. XXXV. 



DECEMBER 1, 1907. 



No. 23 



J. J. Hurley, the new editor of Canadian 

 Bee Journal, says in that journal, page 296, 

 "Ontario bee- keepers ought to be proud of 

 the fact that they have among them a man 

 of such world-wide distinction as Mr. McEvoy, 

 of Woodburn. Right you are, friend Hur- 

 ley; and what a good fellow Mac is besides! 



Referring to what is said, p. 1428, about 

 higher price for pure seed, I may say that, 

 years ago, I sowed a number of pounds of 

 sweet-clover seed which had weed seed in it. 

 It is putting it very mildly to say that, if I had 

 it to do over again, I would cheerfully pay 

 $5.00 a pound for pure seed rather than to 

 have the trouble I have had with weeds in- 

 troduced. 



How LONG does it take a colony to discov- 

 the loss of a queen? That's a question to 

 which 1 think I have never seen any definite 

 answer. (Jf course, circumstances will vary 

 the answer. C. P. Dadant says, American 

 Bee Journal, 716, that he "has often noticed 

 it within the hour, though it sometimes takes 

 longer." That gives us something definite 

 for one end of the answer, "often within the 

 hour." Mow, how much longer does it ever 

 take? [Dadant is about right. It is our opin- 

 ion that it will seldom take longer than an 

 hour, if it does that much, for bees to discov- 

 er their queenless condition. — Ed ] 



L. B. Smith says, American Bee Journal, 

 723, that he has no trouble in keeping a young 

 queen and two or more old queens in the 

 same hive; but with young queens it is a fail- 

 ure. [If he means without perforated zinc, 

 we would agree with him; but when the met- 

 al is used, the plural-scheme plan can be 

 worked clear up to and through the breeding 

 season, and up to the close of the honey har- 



vest. After that time one of the queens will 

 probably disappear — the one least able to 

 peiform the arduous functions of a mother. 

 —Ed.] 



That a queen caged near the entrance at 

 the bottom of the hive interferes less with the 

 working of the bees than to have her caged 

 elsewhere (Doolittle, 1433), is, I think, en- 

 tirely new. Looks good too. [In early 

 spring or toward fall, caging near the en- 

 trance would be likely to do some injury to 

 the queen, for the reason that she would be 

 left "high and dry" — that is, isolated from 

 the cluster, where she will become chilled. 

 While she will, of course, recover, she will 

 be likely to sustain permanent injury. But 

 this is not saying we do not believe that Mr. 

 Doolittle may not be right on the general 

 proposition as to the effect on the bees. — Ed.] 



Advice about ventilating bee-cellars, page 

 1430, is good, only I'm not so sure about one 

 item: "During a very warm spell the outside 

 atmosphere may be very much warmer than 

 that of the cellar. The ventilator should 

 then be used only at night." When warmer 

 outside than in, you may be pretty sure the 

 inside temperature is above 45° — warm 

 enough so bees are using up oxygen pretty 

 fast, and confined air is so bad that it may 

 be better to keep ventilation going all day, 

 because warmer fresh air is better than cold- 

 er foul air. If convenient to have ice in the 

 cellar to keep down below 45°, then it may 

 do to close ventilation. [This question hinges 

 largely on locality. In the quotation refer- 

 red to we had in mind a temperature outdoors 

 of between 65 and 70, as we often have in 

 mid-winter, when the temperature in the cel- 

 lar, without opening up, would be somewhere 

 about 50. In that case we would still think 

 that night ventilation would be better than 

 ventilation during every one of the 24 hours. 

 —Ed.] 



"I FAIL TO SEE any advantage in feeding 

 syrup as thin as equal parts of water and su- 

 gar, even for early feeding for winter stores," 

 says J. L. Beyer, Canadian Bee Journal, 300. 

 Friend Beyer, don't you know that the little 

 chemists make changes upon the sugar syrup 

 fed to them so as to make it fit for winter 



