32^ 



GLEAi;riNGS in 13EE CULTUllE. 



July 



over the combs to the depth of eight inches, some 

 were simply covered with a cloth, and others were 

 left with nothing over the frames. Some were plac- 

 ed in a well-ventilated cellar, while others were buried 

 in "clamps." Some of the colonies which were 

 left out of doors, as well as those placed in the cellar, 

 and those that were buried, had pure granulated 

 sugar for winter stores: others had part sugar and 

 part honey, and still others had only the honey that 

 was in the hive in the fall. The majority had little 

 Or no pollen, while others were given an abundance. 

 Some were prepared for winter early in September, 

 and then left undisturbed, while others were not 

 t*acked until late in October. 



The results can be told in a few words. As nearly 

 as I can discover they have all wintered alike. The 

 past winter was mild, and bees, under almost all 

 conditions, have universally wintered successfully. 

 So all my trouble and experiments, this time, have 

 done little toward solving the wintering problem. 

 But I shall continue my experiments, year after 

 year, and, without doubt, in a few years a severe 

 winter, or some other cause, will again sweep away 

 the bees, and then my experiments may throw a 

 little light upon the subject. To make such experi- 

 ments valuable, they should be continued through a 

 series of years, and, if possible, be made in different 

 localities, and under different circumstances. For 

 this reason, I wish that other bee-keepers would ex- 

 periment in this line, and continue to do so for a 

 number of years. The bees which were wintered in 

 the cellar and in the " clamps," consumed very little 

 honey compared with those that were wintered out 

 of doors. 



HANDLING BEES WHEN IT RAINS. 



June 3. I have a lot of queen-cells that will soon 

 hatch, and I ought to be starting nuclei for them, 

 but it rains. 



June 4. Hains again to-day. 



June 5. And yet it rains. Will it never stop ? 

 Queens are beginning to hatch, and there is no place 

 to put them; what shall I do? And then came the 

 thought that they handle bees in house apiaries, even 

 in rainy weather; why not carry the colonies that I 

 wish to handle, into the shop, and handle them there? 

 No sooner said than done. A colony was brought in, 

 looked over, the queen found, combs for nuclei se- 

 lected and hung in an empty hive, their places In 

 the old hive filled with empty combs, and the col- 

 ony carried back to the yard. Then another colony 

 was brought in and treated in the same manner, and 

 then another and another, until I had a sulficient 

 number of combs to form as many nuclei as I 

 wished. Thanks to previous management, the nu- 

 cleus hives were all on their "stilts" in readiness 

 for the bees. I took a comb, covered with bees, in 

 each hand, and carried them to a hive in so short a 

 time that no harm was done, even if it ilid rain. The 

 half-dozen queens that had hatched were given to as 

 many nuclei, and all but one were accepted. 



June C. At last it has " cleared off." Although 

 queens "kept hatching all the time," there are 

 plenty of nuclei started for them. 



June 13. Bees are "lying on their oars," waiting 

 for the white clover that is just beginning to blos- 

 som. W. Z. Hutchinson. 



Rogersville, Genesee Co., Mich., June, 1883. 



We too, friend II., have found tlie Mason 

 jars about as good as any tiling for honey, or 

 maple molasses either ; and if you seal them 



up as you do fruit, while hot, you will have 

 little trouble from its ever looking like su- 

 gar, or lard either.— If you have much work 

 to do with bees when it rains, why not have 

 a small house apiary, with a few hives in it 

 for rainy days? Thanks for your good prac- 

 tical article this month, friend H. 



REVIEW OF CLEANINGS. 



fSEE, in the Gleanings fnr June, that there is, 

 in Paris, one suicide for 2700 inhabitants. Such 

 ' a figure would give about 1000 suicides every 

 year, or nearly 3 every day. 



As I am a native of Franco, where I have lived for 

 46 years, I can not let pass such an assertion with- 

 out protest. No doubt, friend Root, you have found 

 that in some Christian paper. It is, indeed, shock- 

 ing to see what means so-called pious people use to 

 blacken the men who take the liberty and have the 

 courage of thinking freely I The ckctcil, unaUe to 

 meet the arguments of the liberals, are accustomed 

 to slander them. If such is the charitableness of re- 

 ligion, the people at large would be better to have 

 none of it. 



On another page of the Gleanings you advise us 

 to use parafflne to make comb foundation, and to 

 mix it with wax for sections. This advice is about 

 as bad as the one you gave several years ago about 

 glucose, and will lead to the same results. 



Your advice will be commented in the journals, 

 and the conclusion will be that what we bee-keepers 

 offer to sell is not honey at all; shall we use paraf- 

 flne to make combs, and glucose to fill them? It 

 would have been better for all of us if you had quit- 

 ted type-setting when such an idea came to your 

 mind, so as to think of its consequences; for, at a 

 time of so manj' complaints against adulteration, 

 one in your position ought to be careful not to lead 

 the consumers to suspicion. 



This advice of yours is the more surprising when 

 we read in the May number, page 238, that you con- 

 sider eeresin, or mineral wax, as a thing unfit to 

 make foundation. Paraffine is mineral wax too. In 

 this circumstance, as in a great many others, your 

 mind is far from being settled. 



Your fear of being unable to find, in the icIidJc 

 world, beeswax enough to make comb foundation is 

 altogether groundess. For several years the pi'O- 

 duction of beeswax in the U. S. was so much above 

 the consumption, and its price so very low, that it 

 allowed a fair margin to the exporters. As soon as 

 a fair lot of beeswax was gathered, it was sent to 

 Europe, and sold there readily at 29 or 30 cents. Such 

 was the position of the article when the scarcity be- 

 gan. This scarcity was caused by the mildness of 

 the last winter, which did not kill the bees as usual. 

 Now the price of beeswax is too high to leave a 

 profit to the exporters; we will, in consequence, be 

 able to find, henceforth, what we need, and more. 

 Having anticipated this scarcity, we have bought, at 

 high figures, enough beeswax to fill all our orders, 

 and have a few thousand pounds in reserve. 



In the same number of June, I see also that you 

 indorse the idea that worker bees are able to raise 

 drones from worker eggs. Such ideas remind me 

 of the joke played by Mr. Wuite, of St Louis, on us 

 bee-keepers, about the fertilization of queens in con- 

 finement. Mr. Waite, having written that he had 

 had 125 queens mated in the hives with select drones, 

 all the bee papers were filled with articles of bee- 



