110 



GLEANlIsGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Feb. 1. 



first honey of the season. So I go to work and 

 try the new plan on the morrow, by unqueenlng 

 from two to five colonies, working the rest of 

 the apiary in the old way till I see how this 

 works. If the unqueening plan proves valuable 

 I mark this place on the book with a star; or 

 if worthless, I draw my pfncil across the whole 

 line, thus crossing it off. 



• If I have made this plain, and I think I have, 

 it will be seen thai 1 have all of real worth, to 

 me, of many volumes in this book, while the 

 matter which was worth only once reading is 

 left out. 



MORE ABOUT SWEET CLOVER; WHEN IT BLOOMS, 

 ETC. 



Friend Root:— I see in Nov. 1.5th Gleanings 

 that W. W. K. wants information as to what 

 season of the year sweet clover blooms. It 

 blooms here from July 1st until frost kills it. It 

 is so plentiful here that, for the last ten years, 

 my crop of white honey has been gathered from 

 it exclusively. For the last two seasons my 

 crop of honey has been very light, because the 

 clover did not seed itself, owing to the extreme- 

 ly dry weather. 



Sweet-clover seed must be sown and make a 

 stand in the fall, for next season s bloom. It 

 never blossoms the same year it is sown. If W. 

 W. K. wants to raise it for his hares, he can sow 

 it in early spring; and if the season is a wet 

 and growing one he could cut it in the fall. It 

 would probably get to be nearly a foot high, 

 and should be cut young before it gets near 

 blooming; for, after that period, it becomes too 

 woodv to be eaten by any kind of stock. It is 

 with hares as it is with other kinds of stock an- 

 imals—they must be educated to eat it. I have 

 tried feeding it to my Belgian hares, but they 

 do not relish it. I presume, though, after feed- 

 ing it exclusively, they would, like other stock, 

 learn to like it. 



Sweet clover is not a bad weed. You turn it 

 under before it seeds, and that kills it. It is an 

 excellent fertilizer when so plowed under. 



G. J. Flansburg. 



South Bethlehem, N. Y., Nov. 19. 



AGE OF bees. 



Early last May I hived a swarm of Italians, 

 and next day I found their queen dead under 

 the alighting-board. I gave the colony a queen- 

 cell. The weather was unusually cool at the 

 time, and, several weeks after, I noticed that 

 the hive was queenless; and oh opening it I 

 found that the young queen had never emerged 

 from the cell. Laying workers being present, 



no effort was made to requeen. In July, notic- 

 ing that the hive was very heavy, and fewing 

 robbers, I removed the hive and substituted a 

 .three-frame nucleus hive on the same stand, 

 and drove the bees from the old hive with 

 smoke. They took refuge in the nucleus hive, 

 which was furnished with frames tilled with 

 foundation. Desiring to see how long they 

 would live without a queen, and hoping that 

 they would draw out the foundation, I let the 

 bees remain in the nucleus hive all summer. 

 They drew out the foundation in one frame in 

 a patch about .5 inches in diameter, and surviv- 

 ed until October Kith, when the last one perish- 

 ed. This is evidence that bees may survive for 

 six months of summer — an occurrence that 

 seems a little unusual in view of what is usual- 

 ly taught in the books. The swarm was sec- 

 ondary, and the queen, consequently, a virgin, 

 and no brood was raised, so that the last sur- 

 vivor was over six months old. 



During an experience of four years in keeping 

 bees I have had as many as five swarms lose 

 their queens during the first week, and gradual- 

 ly dwindle away during the summer, always 

 building crooked and irregular combs, and per- 

 ishing in the fall; but I have never known bees 

 to survive quite so long as in this instance. 



Columbia, Miss., Dec. 14. T. S. Ford. 



[The circumstance you relate is a little out 

 of the run of the ordinary, and should not be 

 taken as evidence showing the age of bees un- 

 der average circumstances. When death is 

 staring them in the face, bees have a fashion of 

 economizing their stores, or even their energies, 

 when it is evident the effort will reduce their 

 numbers. If stores are scarce they will cut 

 down or stop brood-rearing in order to save 

 them; and you have given us an incident of 

 how they will, under extraordinary circum- 

 stances, save their bee life. The age of bees 

 under all circumstances can best be determined 

 by changing the color of the bees by the intro- 

 duction of a queen whose bees differ in color or 

 marking from those already in the hive. As 

 the new bees come on. the old bees will so right 

 on spending their energies as before. When an 

 Italian queen is introduced to blacks, or vice 

 versa, the old bees, after a heavy honey-flow, 

 will begin to disappear pretty fast in six weeks. 

 After the honey flow I have seen blacks and 

 hvbrids in a colony for six months and more.— 

 Ed.] 



a good strain of five banders. 

 I will continue breeding the five-banded Ital- 

 ians, which have been so much condemned in 

 Gleanings; but I am glad to say I have a 

 strain that has not met with so much condem- 

 nation; and as honey-gatherers have proved 

 themselves equal to the best. I do not think 

 any strain of bees has met with greater suc- 

 cess in this line than mine have. Among other 

 letters speaking of their praise I have one giv- 

 ing the statement where one of my "dollar" 

 queens gave a surplus of over 70 lbs. of choice 

 comb honey by the' side of two of A. I. Root's 

 six-dollar queens that did not store enough to 

 winter. This is only one instance among 



