GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. IT). 



I place a piece of tin, about S inches square. 

 These tins can be held in place by driving a 

 nail through the center of each into the stake; 

 but this is not necessary; for, after the 4x4 are 

 placed on top of them, they will stay all right. 

 If the whole is a little away from the walls this 

 will keep mice from getting at the hives, as a 

 mouse can not walk bottom side up on a piece 

 of tin. Old pieces of sheet iron or zinc would 

 answer for this as well as tin. 



I will now give those of you who have your 

 bees in the cellar so that mice can get at them 

 a plan by which you can get rid of them with- 

 out their doing much if any harm to the bees. 

 You will need three or four old saucers. Tin 

 covers, or any small dishes that are not of 

 much account for any thing else, will answer 

 for this purpose. In one put some cheese that 

 is mashed up fine; in another put some fresh 

 lean pork that is chopped up tine; and if beef 

 is handy, put some of that in with the pork. 

 In the other, put some honey; and if you have 

 both dark and light, it would be well to give 

 them a dish of each kind. Try to suit the taste 

 of all. Season the contents of each dish with 

 arsenic well mixed in; and if these dishes are 

 set around in the bee-cellar, and the contents 

 renewed every two or three weeks, mice will 

 not damage the bees much. It does not cost 

 very much to feed them this way, as one meal 

 is all each one cares for; and if any of you do 

 not care to kill them, it is far cheaper to feed 

 them in this way without the arsenic than to 

 let them help themselves in the hives all win- 

 ter. 



Some of you will probably think it is not 

 necessary to give them such a variety; but in 

 order to have them let the hives alone, I assure 

 you that it is. 



Now, probably some of you will also think 

 that I have exaggerated the damage mice do; 

 but I will again assure you that I have not; 

 and in this locality, at least, they are often the 

 cause of heavy winter losses. 



Southern, Minn., Dec. 3. 



FIVE-BANDED BEES. 



BEEf) FOR business: A KKW POINTS WELT- 

 SI A I)E. 



By J. J. Hardy. 



the best honey-gatherers; then after they have 

 stored the sweet nectar I like to have a divide 

 without bringing on a regular pitched battle. 

 Give me the best honey-gatherers that are 

 good-tempered, and I will be satisfied. Every 

 one must admit that these are the essential 

 traits of a good honey-bee; and whenever you 

 attempt to breed in an additional trait you 

 must do it at the expense of one or both of 

 these. 



BEE-SPACE. 



After trying different distances, from one- 

 fourth of an inch to three-eighths. I settled 

 down on one-fourth of an inch as the correct 

 bee-space. I use double-top-bar brood-frames; 

 and where all the spaces between top-bars, 

 frames, and supers are }4 inch, I have neither 

 brace nor burr combs. 



RAISING QUEENS IN FULL COLONY. 



I have tried raising queens in the same colony 

 with another queen by placing the old queen 

 on four or five brood-frames behind the divi- 

 sion-board, with queen-excluder, without any 

 chance of exit from the hive. The entrances to 

 these hives were on the side. They built 

 queen-cells readily, and raised queens. But 

 the queens, instead of going out to mate with 

 the drones, seemed to have a mania for killing 

 the old queens, which they did, in many in- 

 stances, going through a double set of excluders 

 on the division-board, to reach them. But 

 they could not. or did not, get back to go out to 

 mate, and soon disappeared. And the others, 

 too, disappeared in a short time without even 

 laying any eggs. I lost a good many bees by 

 this experiment, but I learned that it is best in 

 bee-keeping, as well as other things, to experi- 

 ment alwavs on a small scale. I used a single- 

 story hive for these experiments. 



Lavonia, Ga. 



BEE-PARALYSIS. 



They are very pretty to look at. but every ex- 

 perienced bee-keeper and stock-raiser knows 

 that the fewer points of excellence you strive to 

 attain in breeding bees, horses, cattle, or any 

 thing else, the nearer you can breed up to your 

 ideal of perfection; and not only so, but every 

 added point is detrimental to the others. The 

 prettiest bees that I ever saw were those that 

 came in so heavily loaded that they would fall 

 and roll over each other in front of the hive. 

 The prime essential in a honey-bee is its honey- 

 gathering qualities; therefore I breed first for 



REASONS FOR THINKING IT IS NOT CONTAGIOUS. 



By S. A. Shuck. 



Editor OJeanings:—! have just read Mr. T. 

 S. Ford's article, page 871, on the above subject. 

 In speaking of bee-paralysis Mr. Eord says, 

 "Beyond all doubt it is infectious." And in 

 your footnote you state that it is "positively set- 

 tled now that the queen can and does transmit 

 the disease." 



While the circumstances in Mr. Ford's apiary 

 are such as to cause him to decide so positively, 

 yet there are so many contingencies in matters 

 of this kind that there is much room for error 

 in judgment. If the disease is infectious, why 

 is it that a severe case of it does not infect a 

 part or the whole of my apiary? Yes, if it is 

 infectious why is it that a sudden flow of nectar 

 causes it to disappear altogether, as in Mr. J. 

 P. Israel's case? 



While I have noticed a few of these paralytic 

 bees in a portion of my colonies nearly every 



