180 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 1. 



a great white sheet of snow is loosened, and 

 slides gracefully to the ground: yonder, a great 

 green limb is broken from the tree by its great 

 weight of snow and ice. and comes down to the 

 ground with a crash. 



In the early twilight of the night of Feb. 14, 

 the large feathery flakes of snow began to 

 descend, and fell upon the people gathering at 

 a hall to celebrate the festival of St. Valentine. 

 The snow v/as a great novelty to the young 

 people, born and reared here, for they had 

 never seen before more than a few flakes that 

 melted as they fell. It continued to fall until 

 it was three inches deep, and balls of the beau- 

 tiful snow were brought into the hall, and were 

 a source of much fun and merriment. Tiny balls 

 were tossed at each other, in great good humor 

 and pleasantry. 



This is the third time during the winter, 

 when there was freezing during several nights, 

 and all winter gardens were destroyed. A few 

 days previous to this last storm I was delighted 

 in watching a very large colony, sailing in with 

 heavy loads of light lemon-colored pollen, gath- 

 ered from the tyty. The sweet-scented bloom 

 of the tyty thickets yields much white honey. 

 Many colonies have died of starvation in this 

 locality, and more will probably follow, as this 

 last freeze will cut off the bloom for some days. 



St. Andrews Bay, Fla., Feb. 15. 



BEES MOVING IN THE CLUSTP;R. 



Question.— A neighbor tells me that the bees 

 during winter are continually moving from the 

 outside to the inside of the cluster, that they 

 may have access to their honey. Is such the 

 case? 



^?is»'er.— This story of your neighbor is one 

 that has been told a great many times, and is 

 based on the very reasonable supposition that 

 each individual bee must help itself to honey 

 directly from the cells containing the same. 

 But, reasonable as it may appear, I am led to 

 believe that the story has no foundation in 

 fact. I have just been in the bee-cellar to see 

 if I could see any thing of the kind going on, 

 and I have to report that I do not. Some of 

 the colonies have bees hanging below the frames 

 to the amount of one-fourth of a good sized 

 swarm, at least; and if such changing for honey 

 was going on as has been supposed, certainly 

 now and then a bee would be crawling in after 

 honey, especially as the lowest bees would have 

 to travel some five or six inches up through or 

 over the cluster, to get where the honey is. 

 But I see nothing save a big cluster of nearly 

 or quite motionless bees, hanging and over- 

 lapping each other— each one, or nearly so, 



having its head under the body of some other 

 bee. Of course, it is impossible to see or know 

 just exactly what is going on inside of the 

 cluster of bees during winter; but I had al- 

 ways supposed, and so believe now, that 

 bees give honey to one another ; that is, the 

 bees which are near the honey give to those 

 under them, and these to those next further 

 away, and so on till the last bee is reached, and 

 the very bottom outside of the cluster. Bees 

 are continually passing honey around during 

 the summer, and why should they not do the 

 same thing in winter, when it is more to their 

 interest to do so than in summer, when all can 

 go about as much as they please? I am aware 

 that these things are of minor importance; but 

 I have always believed that it is better to be 

 informed on all the minutite of bee-keeping 

 than to pass any thing by as non-essential, as 

 such a course allows us to easily drop some 

 important point which would otherwise be 

 brought to light. 



REMOVING POLLEN FROM COMBS. 



Question. — Having some combs stored away, 

 left from queenless colonies last summer, which 

 are pretty well tilled with pollen, I should like 

 to know how I can remove the same before I 

 give the combs to the bees. Will you please 

 tell us in your department in Gleanings how 

 it can be done? 



Answer. — Most assuredly I will tell you; for, 

 did I have those combs, I should consider them 

 worth almost if not quite as much as though 

 they were tilled with honey. The very best 

 way of removing such pollen is to insert one of 

 those^ combs of pollen in each hive having a 

 prosperous colony of bees in it, in the spring; 

 and if you have enough of those combs to go 

 around you can consider yourself lucky. They 

 should be put into the hive next to one of the 

 outside frames of brood, and the work should 

 be done in early spring on some warm day, be- 

 fore the bees procure pollen from the fields. 

 This will save you all necessity of feeding your 

 bees rye or wheat flour, or corn or oatmeal, and 

 will be of more advantage to the bees, as it will 

 give the pollen right where they wish it, and 

 save the loss of bees which usually occurs from 

 their going out in cool windy weather in search 

 of pollen. It has been I'ecommended scores of 

 times that we feed our bees flour or meal in 

 the spring, to stimulate brood-rearing; but 

 after years of experience along this line I have 

 become satisfied that such procedure is a waste 

 of time and material, where the bees have pol- 

 len in the hive, and causes a loss of old bees to 

 a greater extent than that gained in young 

 ones. Thus you will see that ihese combs are 

 very valuable for early brood-rearing, before 

 pollen is plentiful in the fields. If you are so 

 situated that your bees can secure pollen from 

 the fields as soon as they can fly in the spring, 

 so that you can not use the combs to advantage 

 as above given, the next best thing to do is to 



