1SS2 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



401 



AVOICKUR ECiOS BKINtirONVERTED TO 

 DKOMCS, AGAIN. 



A "CLIKCHEH" THIS 1UVE. 



SN 3'our comments on Mr. PcttTS' article in Sept. 

 Gleaninos, you ask tor facts on that subject. 

 — ' In the latter part of June I took all the unseal- 

 ed brood from a colony of blacks, and gave them a 

 frame of fdn. partly built, and about one-third full of 

 esrgs that I expected to hatch on the next day. I 

 also cut four holes in it for them to start queen- 

 cells. The bees started queea-cells in all the holes, 

 and enlarged all the cells arouad the outside edge of 

 the patch of eggs into drone-cells, and raised drones 

 in them. On reading another article, where the 

 writer attributes such things to fertile workers, I 

 went to the hive to have a look at those drones; for 

 if from fertile workers, they were black, and I did 

 not want them around; but I found them to be 

 large Italiaos. And I also found brood capped in 

 the drone-eel's that were drawn out when they 

 were raising queens, to have capped brood in on a 

 level with the worker brood, and I expect to see 

 workers come from there. They also filled one of 

 the holes that I cut three queen-cells from, with 

 drone comb, and that they drew in the rim to about 

 the size of worker comli, and have eggs in them. I 

 have told you things just as I have seen them, and 

 that is all I can do. Wm. True. 



Chadwell, Clatsop Co., Oregon, Aug. 19, 1883. 



Many thanks, friend True. The facts you 

 have furnished completely demolish the idea 

 that fertile workers had any agency in the 

 matter. The remaining point to be proven 

 now, is that the eggs would not have pro- 

 duced drones, if left in the parent hive. 

 Have you, friend T., examined well the par- 

 ent hive, to see whether brood remaining 

 there has not a good many drones scattered 

 through itV We want to bring forward evi- 

 dence enough on this matter, while w^e fil'e 

 about it, so that it may be settled conclusive- 

 ly, to the satisfaction of all. 



THE SEASON IN WEST VIUGINIA, ETC. 



HOW MUCH REAL, PROGRESS ARE WE MAKING? 



||IIIS has been a peculiar season in this as in 

 most other localities. Formerly the month 

 of June and the first ten days of July have 

 been the season in which all our surplus honey has 

 beea stored. But this year our bees were short on 

 winter stores up to the tenth of July, after which 

 time they secured a good supply for wintering, and 

 gave an average of 40 lbs. surplus. At no time after 

 the first of April was there a lack of bees ready for 

 business — but such weather! 



SPitEADING THE IJUOOD. 



For some time past I have been In the habit of 

 spreading the brood-nest and inserting an empty 

 comb for the purpose of stimulating, in the early 

 part of the season, the production of brood, and was 

 of the opinion that there was a great advantage in 

 the method. This season, on approach of the time 

 for rapid breeding, I adopted the Doolittle method 

 of exchanging, every eight days, the outside combs, 

 having some brood to the center, and by the time of 

 fruit-bloom my hives were full of bees, and a ma- 

 jority of the colonics bad ten L. frames almost solid 



with brood, and every thing ready to secure the full 

 benefit of the yield from fruit-bloom; but we didn't, 

 and a liberal supply of sugar syrup was next in 

 order to hold them up to the scratch. Bees that 

 wore not fed during this scarcity seemed to roar 

 brood slowly, and I am strongly inclined to believe 

 they subsisted, both old bees and brood, on pollen 

 alone, as at all times, when bees could geta minute's 

 sunshine, they would find pollen. 



My bees built up so rapidly after I began this in- 

 terchanging of combs, I was about to get enthusias- 

 tic over the new departure, when I learned that 

 neighbors, some one or two miles distant from my 

 apiary, having bees in frame and box hives that 

 were not looked into from one year's end to another, 

 were having swarms, and hives just as full of bees 

 as my own. This news put a quietus on my en- 

 thusiasm over the " l)o:little method." In my yard, 

 one colony that did not begin to rear brood until 

 very late (so late I feared the qvieen was barren), 

 and which hive was opened but twice, and no dis- 

 turbance or interchanging of brood-combs, was just 

 as strong as any by the first of June, and had econ- 

 omized their honey much better than the others. I 

 have about decided that it is all a notion, this tinker- 

 ing with the brood-nest. If the queen is vigorous 

 and prolific, she will occupy the combs with eggs 

 just as fast as the bees are able, according to the 

 state of the weather, to care for them. Here again 

 nature's own laws are not tampered with. 



A SMALL BROOD-NEST FOR WINTER. 



Page 333, July No., friend Doolittle says: "Now, 

 friend Buchanan, did you really think that, because 

 you oould not reconcile a hive full of honey in the fall 

 with a small brood-department, or were you a little 

 jealous?" I certainly am free from a spirit of 

 jealousy; and with the peculiarity of your locality, 

 your small brood-department and 35 lbs. of honey for 

 winter may be the correct thing; but with us it has 

 been a failure. We have tested hives of all shapes 

 and sizes, worth speaking of, and find, for this loca- 

 tion, the ten-frame Langstroth gives the best results. 

 Here we get but little fall honey — some seasons 

 none; and with such small hives as Mr.L.uses there 

 could not be room for a sulliciently large brood-nest 

 and the amount of honey needed to run a colony 

 from the end of one honey season to the beginning 

 of another, save in rare cases. Even our ten-frame 

 L. hives, with 40 to 50 lbs. to start with, must some- 

 times be fed — this season for example. Here I will 

 advise bee-keepers to use hives of a size and style 

 best suited, and then we shall have less hive contro- 

 versy. 



EXTRACTING TOO CI-OSE — DANGER OF. 



This season, 34 colonies were arranged and ran for 

 extracted honey by giving ten L. frames in upper 

 story. The season not proving very good, their sur- 

 plus combs were emptied but once, then left undis- 

 turbed until the end of the honey season, at which 

 time the upper stories were mostly filled solid with 

 honey; but on lifting this olf I found the lower 

 frames had been occupied with brood almost in full; 

 and when the yield closed, and brood out, there was, 

 in many of these brood-departments, not five pounds 

 of honey. By an exchange of frames as required, 

 they were soon put in good shape for winter. Where 

 fall bloom is abundant I have no doubt bees would 

 fill up these empty brood-combs, or secure enough 

 to do them, had all been taken from the frames 

 above. Colonies run for section honey were found 

 to have plenty of honey in br^ood combs. 



