896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



his all-around talent, and the success which 

 has been his, should let his light shine. 



By the by. he has an interesting history; but 

 there is only one thing lacking to make it 

 round and complete— a— a— dare I say it? — some 

 fair Eugenia who would make that wild can- 

 yon fairly blossom, and Wilder the happiest 

 man on earth.— Ed ] 



ENTRANCE FEEDERS. 



THE BOARDMAN AN OLD IDEA; SHADE, AND 

 ITS EFFECT ON THE TEMPER OF BEES: A 

 QUEENI.ESS COLONY RECOGNIZED BY 

 THEIR NOT CARRYING IN POL- 

 LEN, ET*". 



By E. H. Sclicvffle. 



About twelve years ago I purchased of Mr. C. 

 F. Muth a feeder made from the Mason jar, 

 screw top. The top was cut out, a piece of fine- 

 ly perforated metal soldered on, and a rim an 

 inch deep soldered on. This made a good feed- 

 er if the jar, when first inverted, was placed 

 over some receptacle until sufficient vacuum 

 was created to cause the honey to feed slowly. 

 Wishing to feed at the entrance. I made a thin 

 box with tin bottom, and projecting strips at 

 the open end. The top was of wood, with cir- 

 cular holes a little smaller than the rim on the 

 feeder. The half-gallon Mason jar was invert- 

 ed, placed over the hole on the top of the feed- 

 er, and it took care of itself. This did very well 

 for hives having a wide entrance. I believe 

 this is about the same as the Boardman feeder. 



By the way, Mr. Boardman claims that, with 

 a square hive, the queens won't go up into the 

 sections. I have 140 square Gallup hives ; and 

 unless prevented with queen-excluding zincs 

 the qugen goes to the top super almost every 

 season. I extracted several hundred sections of 

 that kind last season, and had a few left to 

 show Eambler when he was here. This season 

 I find the queen would have done the same as in 

 the few hives without zinc. The sections are 

 full of brood. The queen does not wait for the 

 cells to be drawn out, but lays her eggs as soon 

 as the cup is deep enough to hold them. Where 

 the flow of honey is limited or short, there may 

 be no trouble of this kind. Shutting a queen up 

 in sections, during a poor season, and not find- 

 ing any eggs in the sections, proves nothing. 

 TheC chances are that she would not have laid 

 in the brood-nest, as she and the bees don't 

 start a family when there is a doubt about its 

 support. 



Mr. Muth-Rasmussen once stated that bees 

 are better-natured in the shade, and his state- 

 ment was poo-hooed. A neighbor had an apia- 

 ry that made the life of himself and family a 

 burden. They were the most vicious bees I 

 ever saw, and were a constant annoyance to me 

 as well, so I bought them. He had them out in 

 the sun, without any shade. I placed them in 

 the shade of a row of apple-trees, within a few 

 feet of a public sidewalk, and in the sha,de they 



are as gentle as any bees I have. Eastern api- 

 arists should remember that conditions with us 

 are entirely different from the East. If they 

 could stand their bees and themselves out in the 

 heat when the thermometer registers 112° in 

 the shade they'd soon find both the bees and 

 themselves changing their angelic dispositions. 



I stated last season, that, in the early spring, 

 a queenless colony could be told by iheir not 

 carrying in pollen. 1 made that statement aft- 

 er an examination thai, in every instance, prov- 

 ed i was correct. Some of the bees were late 

 fall swarms. In their combs there was no pol- 

 len; others were old colonies whose combs were 

 full of old pollen from want of young bees to 

 feed it to. When Rambler was here I showed 

 him a drawing of a twelve-frame hive that I 

 had made several years ago, and talked over its 

 construction with him. He said: 



'■ Look out for Heddon I " 



"Why?" 



" Well, he claims a shallow divisible brood- 

 chamber as his patent."' 



" Don't all bee-keepers allow the queen access 

 to all the extracling-supers in her spring lay- 

 ing, and afterward confine her to the lower 

 brood-chamber?" 



" Yes." 



"Well, if you'll go over here to Columbia 

 you'll find a bee-keeper who works all of his 

 bees in 1-lb. supers, filling them all full of 1-lb. 

 sections. It suits him but it wouldn't me;'^ 

 and the last I saw of Rambler and Wilder they 

 were headed for Columbia. 



Now, there may be something in Mr. Hed- 

 don's hive that is patentable; but no one, cer- 

 tainly, can claim a patent on a hive because it 

 is four inches or four feet deep. I have bought 

 up all the bees in this section, and have a grand 

 conglomeration of every shape, size, and style, 

 from four inches to four feet in depth — box with 

 cross-sticks, to the Dovetailed. All I want is 

 an old-fashioned straw skep to gild and place 

 on top of my bee- house. 



This is my first season with the Coggshall 

 bee-brush. When once you get the hang of it 

 you can brush down the bees as slick as a Pull- 

 man porter does your clothes. It's " way up." 



The Manum swarmer is good ; but in its ab- 

 sence I found that a light box, 8 in. deep, 18 in. 

 long, 12 wide, with screw-eye and hook in one 

 end, did finely. Wet the box thoroughly; brush 

 in the bees, hang it on a limb or the ladder, and 

 brush the remaining bees off their alighting- 

 place. In a few minutes they will all gather 

 into the box, and can be carried anywhere. 



I trust the bee-men will keep up the agita- 

 tion for a 50-lb. honey-can. In its absence I use 

 a light block and tackle, which lifts the ex- 

 tractor up on to a table. When I wish to 

 strain out the honey I pick up a can of it and 

 drop it into a case as cleverly as Sandow could 

 do it, and all without any strain on my part. 



