1882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



599 



ernoon, with the buzz-saw, I cut out, line measure, 

 1300 ft. of bevel siding for chafif hives. I have the 

 treadle come up in front of me: imt I like friend 

 Hiftchinson's way so much bettei , I shall fix miue 

 £0 before I commence work this winter. 



Now, to go back to the hives: I made 39 chafif ones, 

 sold 19 of them, keeping the rest for my own use; 

 made 300 brood frames and wired them, putting on 

 metal corners, and filling ^^ of them with fdn., G. 

 W. Stanley's and A. I. Root's make, both very nice. 

 I made 100 wide frames, bought Novice's extractor 

 of Otto Kleinow; in fact, got every thing ready in 

 the winttr that I could. When the spring of '83 

 came round I found my 11 swarms, which were on 

 summer stands, alive, and all but one in tine condi- 

 tion. Quite early, before work commenced on the 

 farm, I set out my new hives on half-bricks, leveled 

 them with a level, and banked sand up to the porti- 

 co, according to Mr. Root's instructions. Just be- 

 fore apple-trees bloomed I set one swarm to rearing 

 queen-cells, by taking away their queen and giving 

 her to a division of another colony; from the 9 un- 

 tinkered ones I took 70 lbs. of apple-blossom honey 

 (extracted). I succeeded in introducing and fertil- 

 izing 6 young queens of my own raising, and bought 

 30 one-dollar queens, part of Mr. Root and part of 

 Otto Kleinow. All of Root's are pure, and most of 

 Kleinow's; some of the 30 were for my neighbors, I 

 introducing them. Of the 36 queens, 1 lost 3 in in- 

 troducing; two I was to blame for, and one was in- 

 jured in the mail. I have increased the 11 swarms 

 to 35, and all are in good condition for winter. I 

 have taken in all, 400 lbs. of honey; 70 apple, 130 

 basswood, and 200 buckwheat. 



BUCKWHE.^T. 



Right hei-e I want to speak of buckwheat as a hon- 

 ey-plant. The past season, and the one before it, it 

 has yielded honey splendidly; last winter my bees 

 wintered almost wholly on it, and did well. This 

 year, before it came, there was in some colonies 

 scarcely a cell of honey, and a few I had to feed; 

 now, all have an abundance to winter on, besides 

 the nice surplus; if they do well on it this winter, I 

 shall think it is a good honey to winter on. I have 

 had the bees all fixed for winter since the first of 

 October by crowding them on as many full frames 

 as they could cover well, and putting in a division- 

 board, filling the rest of the lower storj' and the up- 

 per one with loose oat chaff. I made two winter- 

 passages through every comb, and under the wooden 

 mat, which is covered with a piece of carpet; put 

 two '/i-inch strips crosswise of the frames, to take 

 the place of " Hill's device." 



In raising queens, just before the cells were ready 

 to hatch, I cut them out and put them in wire-cloth 

 cages, ?i in. in diameter, and 4 in. long; fastened a 

 row of them iu a brood frame, and hung it in the 

 center of the colony. But I hail trouble with the lit- 

 tle wee red ants; they would eat through the cell, 

 and destroy the young queens; had it not been for 

 that, I like the way. The bees would feed them 

 through the wire-cloth. After the youDg queens had 

 hatched, and gotten quite strong, I gave them to 

 queenless divisions which had been previously pre- 

 pared. I had good success in their being accepted. 

 In introducing a fertile queen I could always get the 

 bees to accept her much quicker l)y not trying to in- 

 troduce the accompanying bees with her; put her in 

 a cage by herself, and lay the cage wire-cloth side 

 down across the frames under the mat. Usually in 

 12 hours I could safely release the queen. In two 



instances they accepted her immediately. I notice 

 that A B C's often speak of the queens persisting in 

 flying when let out of the cage, and occasionally not 

 coming back. I had one that did not come back, but 

 I found her in front of another hive after a few min- 

 utes. I found that, when released in the morning or 

 evening, they were not nearly so apt to fly as in the 

 middle of the day. In making my divisions this 

 season I usually left the old queen at the old stand, 

 disturbing her as little as possible, taking frames of 

 brood with adhering bees to new stand. I think they 

 did better so. for all bees that went back to the old 

 stand found their own mother there. 



Last winter I sent two 5-year subscriptions for 

 Gleanings, getting two Waterbury watches for 

 premiums, one for a friend and one for myself; 

 both are running very accurately now, without an>' 

 balkinM". I want to tell how I wind mine. I took a 

 piece of "« pine, 18 in. long, and on one side cut a rab- 

 bet li in. wide. I have the stick on my bureau, and 

 every night when I wind my watch 1 take oneend of 

 the stick in my left hand, and put the other end on 

 the bureau, with the rabbet to the right; take the 

 watch in my right hand, place the stem in the rab- 

 bet at the lower end of the stick, and draw toward 

 me. I can wind it so as quickly as any watch. 



Myl how this is spinning out: Just one question, 

 friend Root: What kind of a feeder would j/oit use, 

 and how, iu feeding back extracted honey for box? 



C. S. Adams. 



Williamson, Wayne Co., N. Y., Nov., 1882. 



Well (lone, friend A. You have not made 

 very rapid progress, it is true ; but you have 

 been progressing all the time, nevertheless, 

 and you are surely succeeding in about all 

 you undertake in bee culture, and this is 

 perhaps a safer way than to make a big re- 

 port one season, and then have blasted 

 hopes. I think I should use the tin pan, 

 with a cloth over the top, described in the 

 A B C, to feed back extracted honey for 

 tilling sections. When the weather is cool, 

 and for feeding only small quantities for 

 stimulating, we prefer the Simplicity feeders 

 to any other.— Your plan for winding the 

 Waterbury, we published some time ago.— 

 Go on and prosper, my young friend, and let 

 us hear from you more. 



HONEY FROM COKIV, 



AND NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT. 



M Tyour request I send you to-day by mail a sam- 

 J(^_ pleof corn honey; I also send some heart's- 

 ' ease, so you can see how much milder in 

 taste and lighter in color the corn honey Is. You 

 asked me to tell you about it, and I should have 

 done so befoie, but have been so busy. Some time 

 in August, I forget the date, when white clover was 

 about played out, the bees took a "spurt," and for 

 several days we failed to find what they were work- 

 ing on. Heart's-ease and goldenrod were not in 

 bloom. My wife called my attention to it first. She 

 had followed the lino of bees, and foimd the corn- 

 fields swarming with the bees. At first you would 

 suppose a swarm was going over, and wonder where 

 they were. Stand still a moment, however, and you 

 will see a bee come from under the base of a corn 

 leaf, then one from between the stem of an ear and 

 the stalk, then some from away down by the roots, 

 and by that time you will begin to see where tbey 



