598 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Sept. 15 



me about 8 cts. apiece for the material, and twenty 

 minutes' time is needed to make one. I put the 

 thin wooden cover on the hive, and then the con- 

 crete cover on top of it. In this way they look very 

 nice, I notice that some lay stones on top of the 

 hives to keep the wooden covers from blowing olT. 

 Would not these concrete covers be much better? 

 Sycamore, O. C. A. Hale. 



[These concrete covers will, perhaps, be all right, 

 although if you had a large number of colonies you 

 would probably find it a good deal of work to han- 

 dle such a heavy cover every time you open a hive. 

 There would, of course, be the advantage that they 

 would never wear out, and there is probably no 

 chance that water could get at the thin wooden 

 cover underneath: but still, if the hives were not 

 perfectly level every way, and if the under side of 

 the concrete cover were flat, it might be that the 

 water would run along the under side and soak up 

 the thin wooden cover. It would be well to try the 

 few that you have niade before you make a large 

 number. — Ed.] 



Requeening a Colony that has Long been Queen- 

 less. 



I have a colony that seems to be full of bees, but 

 queenless, and it has been long enough to have 

 sealed worker brood. I should very much like to 

 save them. What would you do for them? I run 

 them for extracted honey. They had an old queen 

 in swarming time, and swarmed early. I caught 

 the queen while they were coming out, divided the 

 brood, and put half in each of two ten-frame Dove- 

 tailed hives, filled up with empty combs, and put 

 on a honey-board queen-excluder, and they made 

 20 frames of extracting-combs. After I took off the 

 two upper stories I found they did not supersede 

 the old queen but became queenless. I am afraid 

 they will not accept a queen, as they have been so 

 long queenless. I have strong colonies to take 

 from if s.afe to do so. 



Morgan, Mich., Aug. 18. W. S. Adkins. 



[If the colony has long been queenless it is a little 

 risky to introduce another queen. In the case de- 

 scribed we would advise taking unsealed brood 

 out of the other strong colony and putting it in 

 this colony, letting them build cells of their own. 

 If you find that they start them you could then in- 

 troduce safely a queen that you could take from an 

 other colony, or you can allow the bees to go on 

 wi'h their cell-building and raise a queen of their 

 own. — Ed.] 



Importance of Selling Honey-dew as Honey-dew 

 Honey. 



I have some white-clover and some honey-dew 

 honey, mixed, from last season. This is not a good 

 table honey. I wrote to the National Biscuit Co., 

 Chicago, to see what they would give me. I re- 

 ceived a very satisfactory answer, but they asked 

 me to sign a pure-food paper. 1 do not know how 

 to class such honey under that law. Will you ad- 

 vise me how to proceed? 



Williamsburg, Ind., Aug. 2. T. A. Oler. 



[Probably all the National Biscuit Co. wants you 

 to do is to sign a statement reading something like 

 this: "I hereby guarantee any honey I may sell to 

 the National Biscuit Co. at any time to be pure, ac- 

 cording to the National Food and Drug Act of June 

 30, ISK)6." 



The National Biscuit Co. will not buy honey un- 

 less it is pure. When you sell honey-dew, be sure 

 to sell it as " honey-dew honey " and not as " hon- 

 ey," otherwise you would be violating the national 

 pure-food law. The National Biscuit Co. is proba- 

 bly willing to buy honey dew honey; and all it 

 wishes to be assured of is the fact that the honey 

 is absolutely the product of the hive, even if it is 

 honey-dew. — Ed. ] 



Chickens that Ate Worker Bees. 



S. W. Uber, p, 391, June 15, says he has never seen 

 chickens eat any bees but drone-s. I wish he could 

 see my flock of Barred Rocks. I have my chickens 

 and bees all in one pen: and the way those half- 

 grown chickens eat bees is something terrible for a 

 bee-man to look at. I thought at first they were 

 eating only dronee: but on closer ob,servation I 



could see that it was the workers they were after. 

 The honey-flow is now over, and the bees have 

 killed off all their drones; biit the chickens keep on 

 eating bees every day, and they do not seem to 

 care very much for stings. They will stand a little 

 way back from the entrance, watch it closely for a 

 minute, and then dart at it and grab a bee, and 

 then run; and if any of the bees give chase, the 

 fowls stop when a short distance from the hive, and 

 let the bee alight on their feathers, then pick it off 

 and eat it. The chickens are well fed with all kinds 

 of grain. I have kept bees with chickens for years, 

 and have never observed them eating bees till this 

 summer, A shortage of insects is the only way I 

 can account for it. The old hens do not seem to 

 bother — only the half-grown chickens. 

 Mason City. la., Aug. 13. W. E. Brown. 



How to Prevent Leakage when Shipping Bulk 

 Comb Honey in Friction-top Cans. 



Having had some worry and loss of comb, or bulk 

 comb honey, when packed in cases of 10 to 12 pound 

 cans, and especially when shipped out of the State, 

 I have at last found a way of packing said cases in 

 such a manner as to eliminate all possible loss 

 from leakage in transportation. All who have had 

 any experience with the boxes containing the r2-lb. 

 friction-top pails know they are very light and 

 frail. Now, my plan and practice of preparing 

 these for a long journey are to place the buckets in 

 the cases after being filled; remove the bails, and 

 crowd six pails to one end of the box and the other 

 four to the other end, which leaves a one-inch 

 space between the two groups of pails, In which I 

 place a piece of one-inch lumber as wide as the box 

 is deep, and as long as the box is wide, forming a 

 solid partition into which the sides, bottom, and 

 top of the box may be securely nailed after first 

 packing jjaper or any good packing material be- 

 tween and on top of the pails. Of course, the bails 

 should be dropped iuside the box. If all bee-keep- 

 ers would use care in putting their honey in the 

 best possible shape for shipment, our freight rates 

 might be reduced to some extent at least. 



Moore, Texas. O. E. Milam. 



A Second Crop of White Clover the Same Year. 



Something which 1 consider unusual happened in 

 this locality this summer, and I want to ask the 

 readers if they ever knew any thing like it. It is a 

 second crop of white clover. There has been a great 

 deal of rain here all summer, and a good crop of 

 clover in June and early July; and clover ceased 

 blooming about July 15 as usual. There were sev- 

 eral heavy rains about that time, however, and 

 about ten days later a few clover-blossoms appear- 

 ed. In some places there is almost as much bloom 

 as there was the first time. This may not be any 

 thing unusual, but it struck me as being something 

 a little out of the ordinary. 



liOuisville, Ky., Aug. 11. J. B. Chrisler. 



Curing Foul Brood in Dry Weather. 



How can I cure American foul brood in this dry 

 weather of Iowa, where there is not a drop of honey 

 in the fields? 



Cedar Rapids, la., Aug. 5. V. Hlavaty. 



[The method for curing foul brood in dry weather 

 is precisely the same as curing that disease in any 

 other kind of weather, except that it will be neces- 

 sary to give a little stimulative feeding 24 hovirs aft- 

 er the bees have been shaken on to the foundation. 

 The treatment we would recommend is the Quinby 

 plan of shaking or brushing the bees on to frames 

 of foundation in a clean hive. The old hive may be 

 used again, providing it is scorched out with a 

 painter's torch. — Ed.] 



End-spacing Staple in the Middle of the End-bar. 



Mr. Louis H. Scholl advised placing the staple J4 

 inch lower than usual to do away with propolis. I 

 liave been placing the staple 2 in. below the top-bar 

 in tlie frame-ends to prevent the splitting of the 

 end-bars, and I find I like it better than the old 

 way, as the frame-ends, besides not splitting, are 

 spaced more regularly from top to bottom, and I 

 think you will find it worth trying. 



Allenville, Ala., Aug. 19. H. F. Hart. 



