1882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



279 



solutely prevents all sticking of frames to frames. 

 I have experimented till I have demonstrated lo a 

 certainty, that there is no objection to this board 

 except its slight cost, and almost no trouble of man- 

 ipulation. These are thrice offset by its aid. One 

 correspondent writes me to know if I call that 

 "rack" a honey-board. He calls the "cover" to a 

 hive a "honey-board." Let us understand alike, that 

 a honey-board is a board that our surplus honey 

 rests on, on the hive, and of course is a perforated 

 board. Mine is a network of slats. 

 Dowagiac, Mich., May II, 1883. 



Our new cell is nearer like the Dunham 

 than any other cell ; bi^t although we liave 

 one of the highest-priced nickel-roll Dun- 

 ham machines all the time in our wax-room, 

 it does not begin to let go of the fdn. as well 

 as our $2o. 00 mills. As I have said before, 

 these let go of the fdn. far better than any 

 mill we have ever before sold at any price. 

 No one can be more pleased than I am to see 

 the day of high-priced fdn. mills at an end. 

 With your explanation of the way the Given 

 press often works, friend H., it does not 

 seem so strange we could not make it work, 

 after all. AVith our rolls we now use no lu- 

 bricant but starch, and I rather dislike lye or 

 soap about fdn., even if the bees don't ob- 

 ject. There are two reports in regard to the 

 shipping of fdn. made on the Given ma- 

 chine, on another page. 



If I am correct, our new round cell gives a 

 thinner base than any that has ever been 

 sent out from the Vandervort mills. Our 

 friends can easily test the matter, with the 

 free samples we furnish. Friend V. will 

 certainly copy the new cell sooner or later, I 

 think, as all other makers of fdn. mills must 

 do, including the Given dies. The cell can 

 be made as small as you please, thus giving 

 a wide wall of soft wax. The great point is 

 to discard sharp corners. 



I confess that I have never seen a honey- 

 board used between the upper and lower 

 frames of a two-story hive ; and my impres- 

 sion would be that some colonies would 

 build right up solid on honey-board and all. 

 But perhaps you have something ahead of us 

 on that line. We will try to have an engrav- 

 ing of it for the next number ; for of a truth 

 the building of the upper and lower frames 

 together has been quite a nuisance many 

 times. I should be a little afraid this sepa- 

 rating of the two stories, even the thickness 

 of a thin board, would have a tendency to 

 discourage the bees from going above. 

 VV' here honey is stored in boxes or sections 

 placed above a honey-board, it has been 

 quite universally the case, so far as I know, 

 that there was a loss over placing the boxes 

 right on the frames, or separated from them 

 by the thinnest piece of wood we could in- 

 terpose to keep the under side of the sec- 

 tions clean. By all means, let us look into 

 the matter thoroughly. 



Most two-story hives are made so that the 

 upper frames come within f inch of the tops 

 of the lower frames ; and as this space is too 

 small to admit of a honey-board, saying 

 nothing of a bee-passage, we shall, so far as 

 I can see, be under the necessity of a re- 

 construction in hives, to use the slatted hon- 

 ey-board. How is it, friend II.? 



A FEW ITEMS. 



POLLEN, AND WHERE IT COMES FROM. 



>ipvS^N page 193, Gleanings for April, 1 see that 

 %M friend Root says, in reply to Mrs. Chancellor, 

 that he does not know from what her bees 

 gathered black pollen, and also that he can not tell 

 where the variously colored pollens come from which 

 are gatheied in early spring. I can not tell from 

 what friend Root's bees get pollen, or on what Mrs. 

 Chancellor's bees were working when they brought 

 in the black pollen; but I believe 1 know from what 

 my bees get pollen of the various colors. Always 

 being very much interested in all substances col- 

 lected by the bees, I have traveled miles to see on 

 what they were working; for only as we know the 

 resources of our locality, can we intelligently man- 

 ipulate our bees so as to have them produce the 

 most to the best advantage. This knowing just 

 where all the different kinds of pollen and honey- 

 producing flowers blossom, and working according 

 to that knowledge, is one secret of successful bee- 

 culture. In this locality, the first pollen comes 

 from skunk cabbage, and is of a bright yellow. The 

 next, and immediately after, is from " pople," as it 

 is called here; and from the looks of the timber, I 

 should say it is quite similar to the poplar from 

 which Mr. Manum and others manufacture those 

 nice white sections. The color of this pollen is 

 black; and if there are any such trees in West Vir- 

 ginia, probably Mrs. C.'s bees gathered their black 

 pollen therefrom. The blossom is quite similar to 

 that of the pussy willow, except that, while the wil- 

 low blossom stands upright, the blossom of the pople 

 is drooping, and sways back and forth in the wind. 

 The pollen-spikes are also black, while those of the 

 willow are yellow. Next comes pollen from the 

 pussy willow, which is an orange-yellow color. These 

 are the three earliest kinds; but before the pople and 

 willow fail, soft-maple and elm take the attention of 

 the bees. 



Right here I shall have to disagree with friend 

 Root, for he sayR, " I should say the yellow pollen 

 came from the soft-maples." I have watched beea 

 many times at work on soft-maple, and they invari- 

 ably gathered a light-pink pollen therefrom, or at 

 least they had such in their pollen-baskets while they 

 were at work thereon. Elm, both the swamp, the 

 white, and the slippery kind, all furnish abundance 

 of pollen, all of which are of different shades of 

 green — that from the swamp elm being so light 

 that it might be termed yellow by the casual ob- 

 server. Next comes the hard-maple, which gives 

 the bees an abundance of pollen of a lemon-yellow 

 color. Following this comes dandelion, wild grape, 

 etc., till our interest is lost in pollen by seeing the 

 combs growing white with newly secreted wax used 

 in lengthening out the cells to store the honey which 

 is now coming in. One thing I have observed, which 

 is, that, so far as I know, the color of the pollen is 

 the same as the color of that part of the blossom 

 from which the bees gather it. So, if you see the 

 bees at work getting pollen from a yellow flower, 

 the pollen will be yellow, etc. As regards pollen 

 from clover, if I am correct it is gotten from near 

 the base of the corolla, when the color is green, and 

 not from the tlower proper. 



BEES GETTING WATER AFTER A RAIN, 



Friend Root says, on same page, in reply to Mr 

 Boardman, " If so, why do we not see them duringr 



