GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



separator, till the bees attach it to the separa- 

 tor instead of the bottom of the section. 



Next in order comes the putting-on of sec- 

 tions while the colony is too weak to fully occu- 

 py them, these weak colonies commencing on 

 the "bait" sections first, and then spreading 

 out from there in either direction; but as it is 

 the warmest and most homelike on the sides 

 next to the center, they draw out the cells near 

 the center of the foundation, up and down, first 

 on this inside of the foundation, which causes it 

 to curl at the sides till it comes nearer the sep- 

 arators than to the sides of the sections, and 

 thus it is attached to the separators instead of 

 to the i-ections, where it should be. 



Lastly, this trouble may come from putting 

 the sections on too early in the season, before 

 the honey-harvest commences, or allowing them 

 to stay on the hive during a long period of 

 scarcity, when the bees, not having any other 

 work to do, amuse themselves in gnawing the 

 foundation, from mischief, or because they 

 think it is some foreign substance not needed in 

 the hive, or to use the wax thus gnawed off to 

 stop cracks or crevices about the hive. It mat- 

 ters not from what motive this gnawing of the 

 foundation is brought about, it can result only 

 in less perfect combs than would have been the 

 case had a good honey-flow come on immediate- 

 ly after putting the sections on the hive. Such 

 gnawing more often results in the twisting- 

 about of that part which is left, than other- 

 wise, and, in thus twisting some portion^ of the 

 foundation, come nearer the separators than 

 the sides of the sections, when brace combs are 

 the result. The putting-on of sections too early 

 in the season can be easily avoided by studying 

 our location as to its flora; but as we can have 

 no control of the secretion of nectar, or the pe- 

 riods of scarcity coming after the sections are 

 on, this part of the matter can not well be over- 

 come where the ordinary foundation is used, 

 unless we can breed a race of bees that will not 

 gnaw the foundation when they are idle. The 

 new foundation now being worked on (which I 

 hope may be brought to perfection), having 

 quite a depth of cell, will overcome this gnaw- 

 ing matter, I think ; for in all of my observa- 

 tions I have never known bees to cut out drawn 

 comb, no matter how long they were idle. 



Now, by avoiding all the things which tend 

 toward these brace-combs being attached to the 

 separators, we can have perfect combs, and 

 honey of the highest quality, all other things 

 being equal; and I have so far overcome this 

 matter that hardly one section of honey out of 

 300 is defective along this line. 



Jf you would like to have any of your friends 

 see a specimen copy of , Gleanings, make known 

 the request on a postal, with the address or ad- 

 dresses, and we will, with pleasure, send theni. 



-xdM^rgMM 



HEART 8-EASE. 



I call attention to an error on page 790 of 

 Gi-EANiNGS. The " heart's-ease " or smart- 

 weed mentioned by Mr. Stilson is a species of 

 polygonum, and belongs to the buckwheat 

 family and not to the violet family, as the ed- 

 itor supposes. It is one of the many instances 

 of confusion of common botanical names. 

 Heart's-ease properly refers to the pansy, or to 

 its prototype, the species Viola tricolor, which 

 belongs to the violet family. The various spe- 

 cies of Poli/gojiitm are known by the common 

 names, "smartweed," " heartweed " (from the 

 heart-shaped markings on the leaves of some 

 species), and incorrectly by " heart's-ease," 

 which in this case is doubtless a corruption of 

 heartweed. 



Gray gives the name smartweed to the sec- 

 tion Persicaria, to which section the plant in 

 question belongs. To the whole genus he gives 

 the common name knotweed, doubtless from 

 the fact that they all have swollen joints. 

 Several of the polygonums are valuable honey- 

 plants; but aside from that they do not have 

 much economic value, as does their near rela- 

 tive the common buckwheat. 



Boulder. Colo., Nov. 6. D. M. Andrews. 



[After Nov. 1st issue went out, and before 

 yours came, I noticed the error and corrected 

 it in the next number (see page 813). But 

 heart's-ease is now an accepted name for a 

 species belonging to the Polygonacew. and in 

 the later botanies you will probably find this 

 name recognized. It is accepted by the Stand- 

 ard Dictionary, and the Latin for the heart's- 

 pase in question is Polygonum persicaria. — 



Ed. 



BEES AND BEARS IN FLORIDA; "SHOOING" 

 THEM OFF WITH AN APRON. 



Bees do better here near the swamps, and 

 sometimes people take them to the swamp and 

 leave them; then the bears generally take to 

 them and rob a hive every few nights, which 

 destroys the bees as well as the honey. They 

 don't use the care in robbing bees that men do. 

 J have known bears to come within a hundred 

 yards of a man's house and take honey from his 

 bees at night. They do sometimes climb a tree 

 that has bees in it, and gnaw the hole larger, 

 then run a foot in and get out as much honey 

 as possible. I know one tree this year which 

 was cut, and had been robbed of the honey by a 

 bear. I cut two trees this year, hived the bees, 

 and left them in the woods; and when I went 

 back to rob them a bear had taken the honey, 

 and the bees were gone. 



Bears are plentiful here, but are wild, and 

 hard to find. They gnaw a good many pine- 

 trees. It is said they gnaw them to get the 

 gum ofl' the tree on their hair to keep yellow- 



