1882 



(JLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



4S1 



ARE THE CYPS AHEAD? 



MORE ABOUT THE QUEEN THAT G WE THE 700 LBS. 

 OP HONEY. 



MIP! hip! Hold on, friend Hetldon. before you 

 dive into a poor fellow and dissect him from 



■ head to foot. My dear sir, I did not claim 



the greatest yield from -t colonies the progeny of -t 

 queens, but my record was from a single colony. 

 When I sent my old sombrero in the air with the 

 shout " Eureka! " for the Cyprians, I was honest in 

 believing my record was the best. I claim that my 

 record ^HcZrti/ is nearly 100 lbs. better than the best 

 from a single colony. Let me examine my apiary 

 register, and I find the mother to my big-colony 

 queen (the A. I. Root $1 Cyprian of Aug., 1880j leads 

 out a swarm April 8; six days later, an after-swarm; 

 next day, another after-swarm to which I gave two 

 frames of brood, the other two only one on wired 

 fdn. to fill the hive. June 11th the o'd (Root) queen 

 comes out again with a large swarm, and four days 

 later an after-swarm, to which I gave two frames of 

 hrood and 8 wired fdn. frames. The next day, 16th, 

 No. 2 swarm sent out a large swarm. I nosv cut out 

 all queen-cells to prevent any further swarms, and 

 from these seven Cyprian colonies, all from one, 1 

 extracted, up to Aug. Hth, a little over 1000 lbs. of 

 well-ripened mint honey, which I think equal to 

 white clover. As before stated, I was unable, for 

 want of means and help, to get over 'a or fi of the 

 honey that my bees could have stored. I am fully 

 satisfied, that had I worked these seven colonics as 

 I did my big colony, I could have tak^n a ton of ex- 

 tracted honey. 



Dr. Farley, of Raleigh, Navarro Co., Texas, has a 

 colony I sold to R. A. High that has sent out 

 swarms, and the old queen takes the tenth swarm to 

 the woods, and from these T think he told me he had 

 taken about 1200 lbs. extracted and comb honey; 

 and now I will give you what the big colony has 

 done up to Sept 8. 



At date of hiaf report, - - - - 700 lbs. 



July 30, extracted 3 upper stories, - 8'/^ 



and removed 2 stories, leaving 20 frames. 



Aug. 2^}, from one story (upper) extracted - 49 lbs. 



Aug. 29, " '■ " " " - 22 lbs. 



Sept. 8.— We have bad 3 rainy days sinre Aug. 

 29. and cloudy, damp weather for the past 

 week. From one story (upper) extracted 18 lbs. 



Allow for uncapping and waste, - - 2^4 



Grand total .... 800 lbs. 



They had left not less than 40 lbs. in the lower 

 story; and I am satisfied they will fill the top story 

 again, and will go into winter quarters with not less 

 than 70 lbs. I lost about 15 or 20 colonies by i-unning 

 to the woods; sold full colonies; have 97 full col- 

 onies and 1.5 small ones; have taken over 6000 lbs. of 

 extracted and comb honey, and not less than 5000 

 lbs. now in my yard, all from 36 colonies, spring 

 count. 



Let us sum up: 

 The first 700 lbs. sold @ 15 cts. - - $105.00 



100 lbs. sold @ 12'/^ cts. .... 13.50 



Total $117.50 



The net proceeds of one hive of bees for 1882. 

 Many thanks, friend Doolittle, for your kind criti- 

 cism, and you will see that,— 

 "Away here in Texas, the sun shines so brightlj', 

 The stars in their beauty appear; 

 The full moon in splendor illumines the night. 

 And bees gather honey all the year." 

 Dresden, Tex., Sept. 9, 1882. B. F. Cakroll. 



AN ENTHUSIASTIC ABC SCHOLAR. 



ALSO SOMETHING ABOUT SOME OF THE LESSONS HE 

 LEARNED. 



f' AM an A B C scholar, and love to read the re- 

 ports from others more advanced in this inter- 

 ' csting pursuit. But after reading friend Pond's 

 communication in Sept. Gleanings, page 446, 1 

 thought I could make quite a different report. I 

 have at last come to a realizing sense of the fact, 

 that keeping all colonies stnmg makes all the differ- 

 ence (many times) between a fair surplus crop, and 

 no surplus at all. I purchased my first colony of 

 bees (blacks) in a box hive, in April, 1878. I knew 

 nothing about bees, but began to study into the sub- 

 ject; got hold of a copy of Gleanings, got the bee 

 fever, purchased an imported Italian queen, a lot of 

 hives, several colonies of bees, and in Ihe spring of 

 1880 had 12 fair colonies. I increased to over 30, al- 

 though your advice, as well as that of others, was to 

 make haste slowly. I thought I knew— well, con- 

 siderable (if not more), and thought perhaps I 

 should prove an exception, and get along all right. 

 Many of my 30 colonies were mere nuclei, ani you 

 can guess the result of the winter of 1880-'81. I had 

 five weak colonies left. I bought four good colo- 

 nies, sold one, and last spring had ten colonies, most 

 of them rather weak. The spring was very wet and 

 cold, so 1 had to feed, and kept them breeding as 

 fast as possible, treating them according to friend 

 Doolittle's method, as given in the A. B. J. last 

 spring. By the time fruit-blossoms opened, my 

 strongest colony. No. 10, had ten frames well filled 

 with brood, and I have taken from them, up to Sept. 

 5, over 90 lbs. of honey, 20 lbs. comb, the rest ex- 

 tracted, and five frames of brood and bees, giving 

 them empty combs in return. I shall probably get 

 15 or 20 lbs. more if the weather continues warm the 

 rest of this month. I get 25 cte. for extracted and 30 

 for comb; $2.00 worth of granulated sugar will 

 make syrup enough to winter them. 



My 10 colonies have increased to 15 good ones, and 

 I have taken, to date, 4.50 lbs. honey, mostly extract- 

 ed, and expect at least 100 lbs. more. I have not fed 

 them at all since fruit-bloom commenced; have had 

 drones flying all summer, and plenty of them now 

 with drone brood in most of the hives. I think they 

 have done very well for this section. Of course, we 

 don't get such yields as you do out west, or down in 

 Texas. We have no basswood, and but very little 

 white clover, in this vicinity. After fruit-bloom 

 came blueberry blossoms, and my bees were very 

 busy on them. Then comes white clover, which 

 kept them breeding, and gave some surplus; then 

 sumac, of which there is not a great quantity here; 

 then came buckwheat, of which there was, without 

 doubt, as many as two acres within reach of my bees, 

 and the weather has been so dry it did not amount 

 to much. They are now working on goldenrod right 

 merrily, I assure you. I find I can get much more 

 honey by extracting clean from the brood-chamber, 

 because, although the honey-flow has been continu- 

 ous, it has not come in with a rush; and after they 

 have the brood combs well filled they will not exert 

 themselves to store surplus outside, as they will to 

 fill up after it is all taken out. 



I shall winter entirely on granulated-sugar syrup. 

 Of the four or five colonies I fed syrup in the fall of 

 1880, all lived; nearly all the rest died. I nearly for- 

 got to mention that one of my neighbors has taken 



