306 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



in Gleanings, that an excellent plan is 

 to lay the boards out in the sun until the 

 wax and propolis are thoroughlj' soft- 

 ened, then scrape both sides with a 

 sharp metal or wood scraper. The 

 scraper must be narrow enough to go 

 between the slots. He says the metal 

 scraper is pr-^ferable, but a piece split 

 from a broken section will answer a 

 very good purpose. Keep the scraper 

 perpendicjilar to the zinc, and move it 

 rapidly back and forth, first on one 

 side, and then the other. 



»^ii»'«.»^»^«.»» 



Railroads, as a rule, take great pains 

 to keep their "right of way" free from 

 weeds and rubbish. In many places 

 quite a harvest might be gathered by 

 the bees from sweet clover growing 

 along- railroads, if the "section hands" 

 would not cut it down. Gleanings 

 says that an organization of bee-keep- 

 ers in Cincinnati, Ohio, requested the 

 railroads to allow the clover to stand 

 while in bloom, and the request was 

 granted to the great gain of the bee- 

 keepers. 



This is a move that may well be imi- 

 tated by other bee-keepers' Associa- 



tions. 



»*it»««j<^«^»^r« 



Early Cellaring of bees is desirable, 

 for the saving of stores, if for nothing 

 else. Mr. L. C. Clark, of Hiawatha, 

 Kans., writes to Gleanings that he fed 

 his bees sugar syrup in the fall, 

 weighed them Oct 15th, then left them 

 out of doors until Jan. 1st., (11 weeks) 

 and during this time they consumed an 

 average of 10 pounds per colony. 

 They were then placed in the cellar, 

 and from then until March 7th, the 

 consumption was only 1% pounds. 



I have several times had a stack of 

 colonies set on a pair of &cales when 

 placed in the cellar for winter, and the 

 average consumption was usually only 

 about one pound of honey per month. 



»^*^ii,»^;»»'*» 



Nails of the right size, and convenient 

 to hand, are an important part of the 



outfit of a shop or honey house. When 

 I had a shop I had a box a foot wide 

 and 16 inches long, by about four 

 inches deep, divided into four compart- 

 ments, with a handle in the center. 

 In one compartment were kept ten 

 penny nails, in another 8's, in another 

 6's, and in the other lath nails. Then 

 I had two boxes four inches wide, two 

 inches deep and 16 inches long, and 

 each box was divided into four com- 

 partments. Wire nails of varying 

 sizes were kept in the boxes, thus I had 

 right before me, at all times, an assort- 

 ment of a dozen different sizes of nails, 

 and could select at a moment's notice, 

 the kind of nail exactly suited to the 

 work. 



Introducing Queens by the long cag- 

 ing process is, I believe a mistake. I 

 have recently introduced 40 queens 

 with the loss of only one queen — and 

 that was a very populous colony of 

 hybrids. During the day I hunted up 

 the old queens, and, as fast as they 

 were removed, the new queens were 

 caged (alone) in the hives in cylindrical 

 wire cloth cages and left until dark, 

 when they were all released \iy putting 

 soft candy in the ends of the cages and 

 allowing the bees to eat out the candy. 

 My brother Elmer says he has been 

 introducing queens all summer in ex- 

 actly the same way, except that he 

 allows the bees to release the new 

 queen at once — simply hunts up and re- 

 moves the old queen, and puts in the 

 new one caged with the opening of the 

 cage stopped with candj* or broken up 

 comb honey. He has not had a loss. 

 I think it is a mis^akfe to allow a colony 

 to start queen calls' before releasing 

 the queen. If the new^ -queen is re- 

 leased soori allter the removal of the 

 old one, I dou'jt if the bees scarcely 

 realize the ch&nge.' They don't have 

 time to miss 'the 61d one, to really 

 know that she is gone, and when they 

 find the nfiw ilne, they may think she 

 is their owi; real'mother. 



