18S2 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



343 



|.}.|.).f.i.V^OV\. ^aNTV^^\L>»^ TN^V^S -ll-l-l 



A CHEAP FOLDING TENT. 



FA. PALMER asks for a folding tent. Let mc 

 Q suggest one; and if you can indorse it, tell 

 — " ^ him about it. Take a staff about two feet 

 long, shod one end with iron, that it may be easilj' 

 forced into the ground, and bore a hole in the other 

 to receive the handle of an umbrella. Make a veil 

 of mosquito bar of proper dimensions; put a cord in 

 the upper hem, and a light chain in the lower one; 

 to prevent anj' drooping of the veil, sow on, at suit- 

 able places, eyelet holes in duck or leather, to re- 

 ceive wires iu the ends of four light laths. The veil 

 is thrown over the umbrella as the ordinary veil is 

 over the hat, and, I im:igine, will keep off both the 

 sun and the bees. This arrangement, without the 

 veil, was adopted by a friend of mine in his nursery 

 while budding peach-trees, using the Jacob's staff 

 of his compass. C. H. Smith, M. D. 



EUaville, Ga., April 11, 1883. 



Your idea is certainly ingenious, friend 

 S., but I fear we could hardly Und an um- 

 brella large enough to furnish room inside 

 for the operator and a bee-hive. The tent 

 we use does not need folding up, and it is 

 also very quickly removed from one hive to 

 another, which could not well be with a tent 

 stuck into the ground. While I think of it. 

 the chain around the lower edge is so seldom 

 required that we now dispense with it alto- 

 gether. 



DRONES REARED IN COMBS MADE FROM WORKER 

 FOUNDATION. 



The other day I took a walk of a mile and a half to 

 mj' wife's mother's, to look at her bees, as she had 

 requested me to do. She is a beginner, and wished 

 me to make an artificial swarm for her, she fearing 

 that, if they were left to swarm by themselves, they 

 would goto the woods. Sol went to work, opened 

 the hive, a Lang troth, and I neverbeforc in my life 

 beheld such a strong swarm of bees in a hive at this 

 timeof j-ear; and upon removing the frames, you 

 can judge of my surprise to find that nearly a fourth 

 of the bees were drones and plenty more hatching. 

 I could tell the drones from the worker brood by the 

 cells of the drone brood being raised, or extended 

 out further than the worker. Now, all those drones 

 were actually reared in worker combs, the combs 

 manufactured from worker foundation made on the 

 Dunham machine. Now, where is the man who says 

 we can control the rearing of drones by foundation; 

 that, if we wish to have no drones, to use no drone 

 foundation? There was no drone comb in this hive, 

 I know, as I have had the care of that colony of bees 

 since she had them, over a j'car. What shall we 

 conclude, now? If lam corrtet, the Dzierzon the- 

 ory is mashed all line. I think it is he who claimed 

 that thequcen has to pass her body through just so 

 large a spaced cell, or it, the egg, will produce a 

 worker bee. Now, my theory Is, at present, that the 



nurse bees are the ones that know how all this is 

 done, about the sex the egg will produce; that, if 

 the egg is taken care of in such a way, it will pro- 

 duce a worker bee, and if neglected to feed at such 

 a time, it will produce a drone. Do you not think I 

 am right? G. Phillip.s. 



Komeo, AVis., May 23, 1882. 



Slowly, friend P. "Be sure you are right 

 then go ahead,'' is a pretty good motto for a 

 bee-keeper. If poor old father Dzierzon 

 were guilty of all he is blamed for lately, he 

 might have a pretty heavy load to bear. Tlie 

 compression theory was simply a suggestion, 

 and it did not come from Dzierzon either, if 

 I am correct. It has long been abandoned. 

 In the case you mention, the queen has be- 

 come incapable, for some reason or other, of 

 laying other than drone eggs, and of course 

 we shall have to have drones in worker cells, 

 for there are no others. This is always the 

 case with a drone-laying queen, or a fertile 

 worker, and such cases are not counted. If 

 you tind, on further examination, that your 

 queen produces worker brood, as usual, you 

 have certainly found something unusual. 



THE PIECES THAT "WEREN'T THERE." 



Inclosed find one dollar, to pay for parts of frames 

 sent last summer by mail. The original ones have 

 been found, and I consider It ray duty to pay for 

 them. If not enough, let me know. 



I. W. Humphreys. 



Woodstown, N. J., May, 1882. 



JNIany thanks, friend 11., for so kindly re- 

 membering us when you found out the fault 

 was not ours after all ; but I am really 

 afraid some poor clerk was made to pay the 

 postage for leaving them out, in spite of his 

 most earnest protest that he did send them. 

 What shall we do about this matter of mis- 

 takes y There have been so many reports 

 like the above, that I have really been afraid 

 to make our boys and girls pay for shortages 

 this year, as I used to do. AVill not our 

 friends be very careful in reporting things 

 missing, until they have made a most thor- 

 ough examination? Please have your box 

 on a clean floor or table, before you unpack, 

 will you not? and when you do, please bear 

 in mind the busy, tired workers, away off 

 here in Medina. Here is another : — 



You were right about the sweet corn. The chil- 

 dren were in such a glee about the maple sugar 

 that some of 1 hem took out the corn and laid it 

 away, and it was overlooked. The other package 

 was received all right. Please charge me with 12 

 cents. You will excuse nie for troubling you so 

 much. J. W. Koseberry. 



Kent, Mo., April 28, 1882. 



TAKING CARE OF TRUANT SWARMS. 



Thanks for Juvenile Gleanings. My eleven- 

 year-old Ernest is greatly tickled with it. My 23 col- 

 onies wintered outdoors better than ever, all very 

 strong, no loss. I sold one colony on the 6th day of 

 May for $12.00, and next day (Sunday, the 7th), some 

 of my friends came to me and told me there was a 

 swarm of bees on the court-house fence, and that I 

 could have it by going after it. I brought along a 

 little nucleus hive, 3 combs, with syrup in them, 

 and smoked them into that. They were rather 

 weak, but very pure Italians, and a very fine queen. 

 By adding a frame of brood with bees, they made me 



