102 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Feb. 15 



SIFTINGS. 



By J. E. Crane, Middlebury, Vt. 



That seat and tool-box, page 699, Nov. 15, 

 looks as though it might be a tine thing where 

 the hives are low enough. It is much better 

 than a one-legged stool. 



If a beginner can not profit by an illustrat- 

 ed article, page 739, Dec. 1, on handling 

 combs that are insecurely fastened in the 

 frames he had better give up the business. 



On these cold winter mornings, as we eat 

 honey on our buckwheat cakes we should re- 

 member the thousands of bees that spent 

 their lives collecting the nectar that we enjoy. 



Mr. Foster, page 591, Oct. 1, has some very 

 good ideas about marketing or selling honey. 

 "Visit with him," the prospective buyer; 

 "any man you are talking with should be 

 your friend — that is, you should meet on a 

 friendly basis." This is golden. 



We are glad that the white-clover prospects 

 of the country are good, page 721, Dec. 1. 

 They are not as good in this section as we 

 wish, for our auUimn was as dry as it was a 

 year ago. We have a much better show for 

 alsike, however, than last year. 



Page 696, Nov. 15, in the discussion on hive 

 size 1 found myself, after using ten-frame 

 Langstroth for years, drop to eight frames 

 for comb-honey production, and again when, 

 three or four years ago, we began extracting 

 we went back to the ten-frame size as larger. 



Dr. Miller gives his experience in feeding 

 sugar syrup, page 590, Oct. 1, and again on 

 page 724, Dec. 1, and he comes to the con- 

 clusion that two or two and a half sugar to 

 one of water is about right. 1 agree with 

 vou, doctor, on the two-to-one basi<^ We 

 have fed some 8000 lbs. of sugar this i.-.li with 

 about 4000 lbs. of water and 800 of extracted 

 honey. 



The Massachusetts Society of Bee-keepers 

 invited me down to Boston the first weeK in 

 Decpmber to tell them how to produce hon- 

 ey in New England; but after hearing Presi- 

 dent Britton tell how sections should be put 

 on as soon as honey came freely, and that he 

 had taken off finished sections the 19th of 

 April, and had the past season taken 300 lbs. 

 of comb honey from a single colony, I thought 

 I would like to go to school awhile before I 

 tried to teach. 



On p. 622, shade in the morning is repre- 

 sented as being detrimental to the welfare 

 of the colony of bees. 1 have some doubts 



in regard to this. I have kept bees for many 

 years in places where the sun scarcely ever 

 shone on the hives, and have failed to no- 

 tice enough difference to make it worth 

 while changing their location; indeed, I have 

 sometimes found my most productive colo- 

 nies in such places. [Let us hear from oth- 

 ers on this. — Ed.I 



-^ 



Dr. Miller, page 656, Nov. 1, thinks it pos- 

 sible that there may be a difference in hon- 

 ey-dew that makes bees winter on it in some 

 places and die in others, while the editor 

 thinks the difference not "dew " so much to 

 the "dew " as to the honey mixed with the 

 "dew." 



Well, Mr. Editor, here is a clear case of 

 where you and 1 don't think alike. Some 

 years ago we had a great flow of honey-dew 

 about Sept. 1, after all white honey was 

 gathered, and we have little other in this 

 section. I had three large apiaries stretch- 

 ing from east to west about three and a half 

 mfles apart. The conditions were as nearly 

 alike as they well could be, as it seemed to 

 me; yet the two outside yards wintered very 

 badly while the one between them wintered 

 with little loss. The same appeared to be 

 true in other locations further north. Now, 

 isn 't it reasonable to suppose that the honey- 

 dew from oaks or elms should be quite dif- 

 ferent from that gathered from basswood? 

 We know that that from willows is of such 

 inferior quality that even the bees refuse to 

 gather it when abundant. [We don't know. 

 —Ed.] 



4^ 



I was much interested in Dr. Miller's 

 article on the improvement of bees, page 

 697, Nov. 15, and especially in the fact that 

 he thinks the black bee of Switzerland a dis- 

 tinct type. I believe that these bees are no 

 better than our own, or, at least, than the 

 better strains of our black bees, and that the 

 reason they are so highly prized by the Swiss 

 is that they are better adapted to the flora of 

 Switzerland than the Italian bees. Bee-keen 

 ers living in sections where buckwheat is 

 the principal source of honey have told me 

 that they get better results and more honey 

 from the blacks than from the Italians, or 

 from a mixture of the two. I have noticed 

 of late, however, that the Italians are being 

 used more extensively, even in buckwheat 

 localities, but not, so far as I have learned, 

 because the Italians gather more honey, but 

 because they are better able to battle with 

 disease. May this not be the reason why 

 some methods of treating foul brood are 

 more successful with some bee-keepers than 

 wifh others? Mr. E W Alexander, whose 

 method of treatment of the black or Euro- 

 pean foul brood was by simply keeping his 

 colonies queenless for three weeks, used 

 the Italian bees, I think, exclusively; and 

 Dr. Miller, in curing his bees so successful- 

 ly, also has this race. Has any one with 

 black bees tried the Alexander method? If 

 so, what has been the success of such trial? 

 [Dr. Miller's bees are hybrids. — Ed.] 



