1882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



441 



any place to put on sections? I don't think it is, 

 nor shall I go to building' chaff hives till I have had a 

 chance to use my new Simplicities at least one season. 

 The best plan that I can think of is to warm up my 

 bees by putting straw mats, chaff cushions, or felt 

 paper,aroundthemwhiletheyai-eoutof doors; but in 

 winter, I believe yet there is no safer place for them 

 than the dark, quiet corner of my cellar. 



Prospects are a little brighter to-day, July 4th, for 

 the weather is warm, bees are working, and I have 

 had two swarms. Both came out of old patent hives, 

 the kind you recommend so highly for kindlings. I 

 have only four of that kind in my yard, and nine 

 Simplicities; so you can see which are ahead. If I 

 had strictly followed the rule of "Square Root," 

 transferred the bees duringfruit-bloom, and destroy- 

 ed the old patent hives, pcrJiaps I should have had 

 earlier swarms, and more of them. 



J. W. riARKNESS. 



Keeseville, N. Y., July 4, 1883. 



Don't be in a hurry to arrive at conclusions. 

 friend II. Last winter was an exceptional 

 winter. By no means throw away your 

 Simplicity hives. Keep them for summer 

 hives ; and when it comes winter, double up 

 and winter only in the chaff hives. Almost 

 every apiarist will lind use for half as many 

 more hives in the summer than he needs in 

 winter. 



^ I ^ 



FRIEND MAIiONE'S 25 YEARS OF BEE- 

 KEEPING. 



A SWARM OP CYPRIANS 4 FEET LONG, ETC. 



HAV^E been keeping bees for 25 years. Bees are 

 a great favorite of mine. Twent.v-two years of 

 that time I kept them in box hives; didn't 

 know any better. I got up to as many as 12 stands 

 twice in the 22 years, and lost all I had, twice. In 

 the fall of 1879 I got a stray number of Gleanings. 

 It gave me the bee fever. I got the ABC, and that 

 made the fever worse. I went to work and made 15 

 hives that winter. My wife and neighbors wanted 

 to know what I was going to do with so many hives. 

 I said, " Put bees in them." They would say, "Don't 

 count your chickens till they are hatched." They 

 " hatched," and I have 26 hives of bees to-day, all in 

 frame hives, with straight combs, and how they 

 swarm ! and such big swarms as my Cyprians send 

 off, I never saw before. One swarm was 4 feet long, 

 and filled a 2-story hive. They swarmed the ITth and 

 21st. Four days after, I extracted 20 lbs. of honey 

 from upper story, and the lower one seemed to be 

 full too. 



I fed ten colonies extra, to satisfy myself if feed- 

 ing would r ay. From those 10 I am getting my hon- 

 ey now; I have got 200 lbs. of extracted honey from 

 5, and 5 I fixed for comb honey; these won't go into 

 the boxes; but, oh how they swarm! I like the 

 Cyprians best —better than the Italians; they fly off 

 the combs and go into the hives better than the 

 Italians, and while extracting I can see a big differ- 

 ence in Ihe amount of honey in the combs. When 

 extracting, I find a ready sale for my honey at 50 cts. 

 per quart in Mason's quart fruit-jars, jar thrown in. 

 The honey is linden and white clover mixed, and is 

 very thick. I extract before it is sealed, and it 

 weighs 3 lbs. and 3 ounces per quart. I fed 30 lbs. of 

 sugar to those 10 colonies, and have taken $24.00 

 worth of honey from 5 of them, and have C swarms 



from the others, and linden harvest about half gone. 

 With sumac, smartweod, buckwheat, and other 

 flowers to come yet, look out for a big honey crop io 

 Iowa this fall. I have lived here for 25 years, and 

 never saw a wet season yet without a big honey flow 

 from smartweed. 



DOLLAR QUEENS OR TESTED. 



The first Itnlian queen I ever bought was a tested 

 one; the second cue was a dollar queen from Hay- 

 hurst, that proved to be worthless. But I knew the 

 terms before I bought her, and was satisfied with 

 her. But I thoughtlessly told you about her, and 

 mentioned friend H.'s name. As soon as he saw 

 what I said, he sent me a card offering to replace 

 her. That one offer placed confidence in me toward 

 friend Hayhurst that will be hard to move. I ac- 

 cepted half the offer, and then bought a Cyprian 

 queen of him. Now, what I want to say is, that the 

 queens that I raised from that dollar queen are 

 worth twice as much as those raised from the tested 

 queen, and I have that dollar queen yet, and this 

 summer she is second to none of my Italians. 



THE NEW BEE DISEASE. 



I noticed something in June and July Gleanings 

 about a new bee disease. I noticed the same thiog 

 among my bees exactly; but as soon as linden came 

 in bloom it disappeared. I think, from what I could 

 find out, they found some poison honey-plant, and I 

 think it was the milkweed. I examined it closely, 

 and found bees on it, acting like those at the hive. 

 I may be mistaken, but think not. 



Just one question, and I will stop. You say, in the 

 ABC, that after-swarms are led off by virgin 

 queens; do they mate before, while, or after they 

 swarm? Wm. M alone. 



Oakley, Mason Co., Iowa, July 21, 1882. 



Thanks for your report on the Cyprians, 

 frien M. That four-foot swarm must have 

 hung down pretty long, I imagine. Three 

 lbs. and 3 oz. to the quart would be nearly 13 

 lbs. to the gallon, and that is pretty thick 

 honey for that extracted before it is sealed 

 up. "Virgin queens do not go out to meet 

 the drones, usually for several days after the 

 swarm issues ; but they may go out, the 

 same day, in extreme cases — never before, 

 I believe. I don't think your sick bees had 

 any disease, friend M. It was doubtless the 

 milkweed - pollen trouble, pictured in the 

 A B C. 



TEXAS AND THE IRREPRESSIBLE 

 HOKSEMINT, ONCE ITIORE. 



WHAT THIRTY STOCKS DID IN ONE MONTH. 



^D^EES are making some honey now from cotton 

 J™ and melon blooms. I will send you my repoi't 

 — for the month of June. 1 had 30 stands of 

 bees in good condition the first day of June; as the 

 horsemint was very fine, and more of it than usual, 

 I thought I would try and see what I could do in one 

 month; so there was not a cell of honey in the up^ 

 per stories on the first day of June, and the last day 

 of June I finished extracting, and I got only 2270 lbs. 

 in one month from 30 hives. How is that for Texas? 

 I have one hive of hybrids that made 143 lbs., and 

 others that made 100. I have hives that were May 

 swarms, from which I got 75 lbs. of surplus. All this 

 was in one month. 1 kept my bees very strong by 

 returning all after-swarms to their parent hive. As 

 soon as the swarm would come out I went into the 



