340 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



projection be up and the other down; and every 

 time he takes it off, just turn it upside down for a 

 while, and old Sol seems by and by to let it alone. 

 I have used them thus a long time, and I like them 

 well. You see there are four ways to put them on, 

 which ought to suit people who love to reverse. 



D. McKenzie. 

 Camp Parapet, N. O., La., Apr. 9, 1890. 

 We can use our covers for the Dovetailed 

 hive in the same way. It is true, old Sol 

 melts down the bits of burr-combs, but it 

 makes both sides of the cover unsightly. 



SPACING OF BROOD-FRAMES. 



Is there any need of spacing our brood-frames 

 further apart than the bees ordinarily leave them 

 when they fill and cap them with honey or brood? 

 If there is an advantage, please state what it is. 



TWO COLONIES IN THE SAME HIVE. 



Is there any serious objection to having two full 

 colonies of bees in the same hive, separated by a 

 close-fltting division-board, and having their re- 

 spective entrances in opposite directions? 



Dallas, Tex., Feb. 20. C. J. Weatherford. 



For winter we have spaced our frames in 

 chaff hives further apart. We are not sure 

 that it is necessary, however. Eor cellar 

 wintering, and at all other times, wider 

 spacing is unnecessary. There is no seri- 

 ous objection to having two colonies in the 

 same hive, as you state, but some advan- 

 tage in point of heat. Why such hives are 

 not more generally adopted is because they 

 are larger and more cumbersome, and are 

 not as well adapted for hauling. 



bees DYING ON THE GROUND ; STARVATION NOT 

 THE CAUSE. 



I see by the report on page 168, Mar. 1, that the 

 Wisconsin bee-keepers made up their minds that 

 lack of stores was the reason of their bees dying on 

 the ground in June. I had 55 stocks on my yard 

 last spring, and there was not a hive short of stores 

 from the time bees began to fly in the spring until 

 they stopped flying in the fall, and have not been 

 since. I lost only one stock in wintering, and that 

 was my fault. They did not die from lack of stores. 

 In the midst of the white-clover harvest, when they 

 were storing honey as fast as at any time during 

 the season, there were days when the ground was 

 full of bees crawling around. You could scrape 

 dead bees up in the paths— lots of them. I should 

 think there would be bees enough on the ground to 

 make a couple of good swarms. There always 

 seemed to be more of them when the sun came out 

 hot after a day's rain. I have had one hive affected 

 that way all winter. I have noticed it every time 

 the bees could fly. They were flying yesterday, 

 and I noticed quite a number of bees on the ground 

 in front of the hive. Bees have been able to fly 

 here every two or three weeks all winter, and some- 

 times two or three times, a week. I thought the 

 trouble was one form of the nameless bee-disease. 

 I have had that among my bees, and have noticed 

 that bees in the same hive are not all affected alike 

 by it. Some of them seem to dry up, and get black 

 and shiny— look as it they were only skin and bones, 

 and others swtUupand look like bees that have 

 been long confined to the hives by cold weather; 

 but both^have the same nervous twitching of the 

 wings, and motion of the head. There were but 

 two or three days when there were so very many 



bees on the ground, and that was always after a 

 rain; but for nearly two weeks they were afl'ected 

 in that way. I hope some cure can be found for 

 the trouble. 



DEAD-AIR vs. PACKED HIVES. 



In last Gleanings the answers in regard to va- 

 cant space or chaff packing interested me. I think 

 Mr. J. A. Green's reasons are correct. I never 

 tried hives with no packing, but I have several 

 with seven thicknesses of heavy building paper 

 around them, with a '4-inch space between the 

 sheets. Bottoms and sides are covered alike. The 

 bottom and side sheets have joints, so as to prevent 

 circulation of air as much as possible. The bees in 

 the chaff and sawdust packed hives always winter 

 better than in those covered with paper. 



The winter has been easy on the bees here, but it 

 looks now as if the spring were going to be hard 

 enough to make up for it. It snows almost every 

 day, and the nights are quite cold. 1 saw one load 

 of pollen come in yesterday. E. D. Howell. 



New Hampton, N. Y., Apr. 1. 



Friend II., we are much obliged to you 

 for letting us know that there is something 

 about bees dying around the hives in June 

 that we did not ''know" all about. We 

 thank you, too, for letting us know that a 

 dead-air space made with building-paper is 

 not as good as chaff. Our house-apiary 

 was built thus with much pains and at large 

 expense, that it might be absolutely imper- 

 vious to frost. We succeeded in this ; but 

 it is damp and cold, and I should very much 

 rather have a house made with narrow 

 strips of wood inclosing sawdust— that is, 

 for almost any kind of work, unless you 

 want a damp cellar for roots, potatoes, etc. 



A PECULIAR season IN NAPA CO., CAL. 



This has been a very peculiar season In our locali- 

 ty, and some have called it quite phenominal. Sev- 

 enty-two inches of rain has fallen thus far, and we 

 have even had six little snowstorms in the coast 

 range of mountains— one of eleven inches. Bees 

 are in fair condition at this altitude, 1750 ft.; but 

 the little fellows have had a very lonesome time of 

 it. I notice some wild black bees flying to-day, and 

 I picked up several dead ones from off a snowdrift 

 recently. The manzanita has nearly finished blos- 

 soming, and has yielded little honey on account of 

 the wet. The willows are out now, and a number 

 of wild flowers, which a little later will number al- 

 most a thousand and one— figuratively. There are 

 only five bee-keepers in the whole of this county of 

 Napa, with a total of less than 200 hives of Italians. 



St. Helena, Cal., Feb. 25. Will C. Aiken. 



CORRECTION ON THE OHIO CONVENTION. 



It seems that I was unfortunate in making my- 

 self understood at the convention, for I was re- 

 ported in the Ohio Farmc}- as saying that I had 40 

 swarms from reversible frames, when the 40 

 swarms mentioned were hived on reversible frames 

 five years ago, and, of course, came out of hives 

 with non-reversible frames, as it was the first year 

 that I used reversible frames. In answer to a 

 question, I said that I had about 3J swarms the 

 past season, which did not contradict the claims 

 made in ray paper, as stated in tbe Farmer. And 

 now comes Gleanings, with j-our report that I did 

 not think reversing killed the imago queen, when, 

 in fact, I think in docs, unless they are nearly 



