1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



the night,'|as the space between the walls is 

 never air-tight, and will admit a circulation of 

 cold air. So far as I can ju ige, the colonies in 

 chaff hives raise a little more brood tban those 

 in single-walled hives; but they lose only very 

 little of it, and that only during the most mark- 

 ed variations in temperature. 



Feeding in the early spring to remedy the 

 lack of stores has not proven very satisfactory. 

 Feeding in the hives during day time almost In- 

 variably induces robbing. Feeding at night or 

 during cold days, requiring the removal of cov- 

 ers, packing, etc., more or less injures the bees. 

 Besides, it is too cold outside of tha cluster to 

 take the feed, and they may starve by the side 

 of the feeders unless the feed is warm. If done 

 in that way the feed ought to be as warm as 

 possible. It may be at a boiling temperature. 

 If cold it will not be taken until the next flying- 

 day. Then the bees, on discovering it, will get 

 ^ excited and set up a great buzzing at the en- 

 trance, and attract the robbers. 



Feeding combs of honey on top of the frames 

 has the same disadvantage, only worse, as the 

 smell of the transferred honey will be sure to 

 induce robbing. Feeding outside has the dis- 

 advantage of being too cold — that is, after the 

 bees know where the feed is they will go there 

 every time they can barely fly. As the feed is 

 colder than the air, it will chill them. This 

 could be obviated by taking the trouble to have 

 the feed warm. There remains yet the objec- 

 tion that the colonies which need feeding the 

 most would be the ones getting the least. 



Feeding in Boardman's way, at the entrance, 

 can not be practiced in such cases, as the nights 

 are too cold to permit it. This may sound very 

 strange, but it is so. In northern countries 

 there is a great deal of snow on the ground, and 

 the heat of the sun is employed in melting the 

 snow instead of raising the temperature of the 

 atmosphere. By the time the snow is melted 

 the season is well advanced, and the tempera- 

 ture rises at once considerably. In the South 

 there is no snow at that time of the year, and 

 the sun is higher in the skies ; so the tempera- 

 ture rises during the day and falls at night, 

 making then a considerable discrepancy. ] Per- 

 haps the success might be obtained by feeding 

 at the entrance with warm feed, but I have not 

 tried it. 



One more drawback in southern wintering 

 must be mentioned, viz., robbing. This may be 

 termed what A. I. R. used to call quiet robbing. 

 During the warm spells of weather the bees will 

 hunt up every hive and crack in search of 

 something sweet, and queenless or weak ;colo- 

 nies are almost sure to be robbed. It Is nearly 

 impossible to detect such robbing. Ii goes on 

 little by little every warm day. As the old bees 

 as well as the young ones take a playing-spell 

 during the few warm hours of the warm days, 

 the robbed and robbing colonies can not be dis- 



tinguished from the others except by^the debris 

 of wax which may perhaps be seen at the en- 

 trance of the robbed colony. 



It is a well-known fact that a strong colony 

 will start out earlier in the morning than a 

 weak one. During these warm winter days a 

 strong colony may thus gain the entrance of a 

 weak one, and begin robbing on the honey out- 

 side of the cluster before the " inhabitants " of 

 the weak colony are fully aroused. I have lost 

 a few small colonies in that way. 



I found another cause of winter loss. Some- 

 times the weather is very dry from August to 

 the end of the season— in fact, so dry that noth- 

 ing can be gathered at all. In such cases no 

 brood is raised during that period, and the bees 

 going into winter quarters are already some 

 three or four months old, or about that. Their 

 vitality is already nearly at an end, and during 

 the winter they die off at a fearful rate. This 

 state of things is aggravated by the presence of 

 bee-paralysis, and many colonies simply die out. 



Knoxville, Tenn. 



[1 take it that the wintering problem in your 

 locality is more serious than in many portions 

 of the North where it is extremely cold. It 

 ■would appear, then, so far as wintering is con- 

 cerned, that it is better to be clear north or 

 clear south. In the extreme North, bees perish 

 because of extreme cold; in the South they are 

 liable to die from starvation, or be robbed out 

 by other bees. The condition of extreme cold 

 can be met by protection; the other one, starv- 

 ation, can be met by judicious feeding; but in 

 the middle section it is difficult to even feed. 

 If I am correct, then there should be a large 

 supply of sealed stores in the fall. — Ed.] 



CLIPPING QUEENS' j WINGS. 



EARLY EGG-LAYING OF A QUEEN; LARGE NUM- 

 BER OF QUEEN-CELLS ON ONE COMB. 



By EUas Fox. 



jFriend Root:— I should like to sayl^a few 

 words on several subjects. I would say to Dr. 

 Miller that he offers no better'evidence than I 

 relative to bees puncturing grapes. D If they 

 can cut holes through new oil cloth over the 

 top of the frames (which they do) they !can 

 surely cut the skin of a grape ',if they were so 

 inclined; but here is the point: ^Nature has 

 forbidden them. I am no pumpkin-eater. Dr. 

 M., consequently I have had no experience in 

 this line. 



A word in regard to clipping queens' wings. 

 I have practiced this for 14 years, and my 

 queens' wings are just as long and just as 

 strong to-day as they were then; and, in fact, 

 it is the only perfect method of manipulation 

 to-day, where bees are increased by natural 

 swarming. Everybody knows that when bees 

 swarm their instinctive thought is to get away 

 from their old hive; but as soon as they find 

 their queen is not with them this thought is re- 

 versed, and that means that every thing else is 



