1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



63 



chew when I was in school, when my cough- 

 ing would disturb others. Still, the poison 

 must be taken with discrimination ; but I 

 should think your lobelia honey would be 

 just the article exactly. One could deter- 

 mine by experiment just the quantity need- 

 ed to produce the desired result. I should 

 be exceedingly glad of opinions from our 

 medical brethren in regard to lobelia honey. 

 As we miyhear from a good many, please 

 let us be brief and to the point. Meanwhile, 

 friend S., you had better put a price on your 

 medicated honey, and do not be in a hurry 

 to dispose of it all. 



THE MICHIGAN ST A.TE3 BEE-KEE3PERS' 

 CONVENTION. 



SECTIONS OPEN ALL, AROUND. 



Continued from last i^sue. 



There was quite a long discussion in re- 

 gard to sections with openings for bees all 

 around instead of at the tops and bottoms 

 only. Our friend II. D. Cutting brought 

 saniples of both kinds, showing very dis- 

 tinctly that the bees fastened the comb hon- 

 ey more securely to the wood of the section 

 where there were openings at the sides as 

 well as at the top and bottom. The reason 

 of this I never clearly understood before. 

 It seems that the bees leave passages for 

 their convenience, at the corners and at the 

 sides, where the sections are made in the 

 usual way ; but where openings are also 

 made in the sides, allowing them to pass free- 

 ly from one section across to the next, they 

 seem to decide that these holes through the 

 comb are not needed. Now, this not only 

 gives us more honey in a section, but it 

 gives us comb honey more securely fasten- 

 ed to the sides, thus greatly, it would seem, 

 obviating the danger of breaking down, and 

 leakage during shipment. This is a very 

 important matter, if it should transpire to 

 be true. There is, however, a difficulty in 

 using sections open all around in most of 

 our usual arrangements, especially where 

 the T super, which has been so largely 

 adopted of late, is in use. The difficulty is 

 this : Where sections are to be open at the 

 sides as well as at the top, the sides must 

 come tight up against each other. If they 

 do not, the bees will stick propolis and glue 

 in the crack or opening. If this opening is 

 large enough to allow a bee to pass clear 

 through, it would not be so bad; but the 

 space left where the tongue of the T tin 

 goes up through is j ust right to get the sec- 

 tions badly propolized. Of course, this can 

 be scraped off, but the labor is very much 

 greater. We have in our apiaries obviated 

 the trouble by turning the T tin over so the 

 tongue is downward. This, however, ne- 

 cessitates having the bee-space of the T su- 

 per at the bottom instead of on top— an ar- 

 rangement which has been pretty universal- 

 ly decided to be objectionable. I should be 

 glad of facts from experience, in regard to 

 the matter. 



.TAPANESE BUCKWHEAT. 



Very large yields were reported, both of 

 honey and grain. One report was given of 



2'.>0 bushels from 18 acres of ground. There 

 was quite a discussion in regard to Japan- 

 ese buckwheat for flour. Several millers 

 had complained because it was so much 

 larger than any buckwheat they had ever 

 heard of before, it would not go through 

 their screens ; ard some of them made flour 

 of it by sifting out all the largest and plump- 

 est kernels. These best kernels were called 

 ''screenings." Beekeepers were advised 

 to look into the matter whenever they take 

 Japanese buckwheat to mill. A miller at 

 Lansing, Mich., however, pronounced it the 

 finest buckwheat he ever ground. Very 

 likely he had screens adapted to it. Thirty- 

 one pounds of flour were obtained from a 

 bushel of grain. As the flour is quoted at 2 

 cts. per lb., it would seem that the grain 

 ought to be worth from 60 to 75 cts. per bush- 

 el, for making into flour. 



TAYLOR'S METHOD OF FINDING QUEENS. 



Our friend K. L. Taylor gave the follow- 

 ing method of getting a queen quickly from 

 a powerful colony. If I remember correct- 

 ly, it was to provide your hives with some 

 sort of perforated zinc honey-board ; then 

 when you wish to find the queen, smoke the 

 bees at the entrance, and drum on the back 

 of hive just enough to alarm them, so they 

 will commence going up through the honey- 

 board. It seems that the queen starts very 

 quickly under the influence of an alarm like 

 this ; "therefore all we have to do to find her 

 is to pry up the honey-board and turn it 

 over. She will be found on the under side, 

 trying to get through. Friend Taylor, in 

 order to prove the feasibility of this method, 

 took 25 colonies, one after another, and 

 found the queens of every one of them as 

 quickly as he could go over them, in the way 

 I have described. Our friends will recog- 

 nize this as somewhat similar to friend Iled- 

 don's plan for finding queens by turning 

 over a section of his divisible brood-cham- 

 ber. I have often secured queens from box 

 hives by drumming say a pint of bees into a 

 super or empty box placed over the hive. 

 As soon as a pint have collected in this up- 

 per receptacle, you will be almost certain to 

 find the queen among them. By friend Tay- 

 lor's method she starts out to go up in the 

 same way. The worker-bees, of course, 

 pass through the zinc readily. She, being 

 prevented, however, will be found on the 

 under side. 



SHALL WE USE BASSWOOD FOR SECTIONS V 



This matter was very thoroughly discuss- 

 ed. Several members present told us that 

 both basswood and white poplar were being 

 gathered up, for use in the paper-mills ; and 

 one statement was made, to the effect that 

 more basswood was being cut from one lo- 

 cality for the above purpose than all the 

 bee-keepers in the United States together 

 were using ; therefore should we decide 

 with friend P.oardman and friend Manum 

 not to use basswood any more for sections, 

 these other fellows would probably cut it all 

 off for their use. This is not very good rea- 

 soning, I know ; but is it worth while for us 

 to stop using basswood just to let other in- 

 dustries take it from us ? White poplar 

 seems to be found in considerable quantities 



