532 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



me how to do this. I am very much interested in 

 bees. I like to work with them, and am very fond 

 of the honey. We think that 50 lbs. per colony is a 

 big yield. We have no artificial pasturage, except 

 a little buckwheat. There are a few colonies upon 

 almost every farm, but nearly all are blacks, and 

 in box gums. The owners seem to think these 

 boxes as good as any movable-comb hive. That 

 corn you sent me in the spring is line for early use. 

 I shall save seed from it. C. C. Polk. 



Bradford, Ala., July 5. 



0ai^ 0WN T^nnw^ 



CONDFCTED BY KKNKST R. ROOT. 



THE HONEY YIELD. 



EOK the last few days we have had an un- 

 usually heavy yield of nectar. The busy 

 toilers have been coming in and dropping 

 on the entrance by the score. At night the 

 whole apiary has been one continual roar, 

 and the fragrance of newly gathered honey 

 is as apparent to the nose as the roar is to 

 the ears. If this state of affairs should be 

 general, and continue, there will be a good 

 yield throughout the United States. 



Later. — The weather has turned cool and 

 honey has stopped short off, and robbers, 

 especially from the hybrid colonies, are be- 

 ginning to nose about. When we had hot 

 days and hot nights the How of nectar seem- 

 ed to be very heavy; but now, the 11th, 

 none seems to be coming in. 



THE ALLEY DI!ONE-TRAP. 



1'his year we were oDliged to buy a good 

 mauy colonies, and there were not a few 

 hybrids among this number. As we were 

 rearing queens right along, it would not do 

 to let the half-blood drones have libeity in 

 the air. All undesirable drone brood was 

 uncapped after the hybrid queens had been 

 removed, and then the Alley drone-traps 

 were attached to the entrances. Two or 

 three times the upstairs apartment of the 

 trap was full of drones, that had gone up 

 through the cone, and, being imprisoned, 

 died. 



IS THE TKAP A IIINDKANCEV 



The question has naturally come up as to 

 whether a trap is a hindrance to the work- 

 ers. For a few days it does disconcert them 

 a little ; but after they have become accus- 

 tomed to it, they pass readily through the 

 zinc. Bees have to learn a little knack in 

 getting through the zinc, and, after having 

 acquired it, they slip through in a twink- 

 ling. 



There is just one improvement that I 

 woula suggest to friend Alley. He has al- 

 ready obviated the difficulty somewhat in 

 his automatic swarming arrangement. The 

 trap is too small. As the perforations can 

 not be any larger, there should be more of 

 them. With the ordinary size of trap, dur- 

 ing night, when bees are evaporating hon- 

 ey, a good many of the bees will get around 

 the openings, and very materiallv retard 

 rapid evaporation. If the night is at all 

 warm, the bees cluster out and cover the 

 trap almost entirely—making the matter 



somewhat worse. During the honey-season,, 

 bees ought to have the full-width entrance 

 of the hive. 



FOUNDATION, AND WHAT DKAWS OUT 



BEST. 



I have been making quite a number of 

 experiments on different kinds of founda- 

 tion. For the brood-nest, I And that the 

 heavy brood (so styled in our price list), 

 running 5 feet to the pound, gives altogeth- 

 er the best results. The cell-walls in this 

 are heavier, and are circular, leaving a lit- 

 tle more wax in the corners of the hexagons. 

 The light brood (7 ft. to the lb.) which we or- 

 dinarily use for the wired frames, has a ten- 

 dency to be wavy on being built out, and 

 on horizontal wiring it would not do at all. 

 Now, may this not account for the differ- 

 ence in the reported results of horizontal 

 wiring as to whether foundation will bow 

 out or not? If heavy brood foundation is 

 used with the horizontal wires, no trouble 

 will be experienced. Even on a perpendic- 

 ular plan, light brood foundation, when 

 drawn out, has a wavy appearance, because 

 the bees will stretch the cells a little in 

 drawing it out. 



KEENEY'S METHOD OF WIRING. 



This works very satisfactorily. Even 

 with light brood it does as well as with the 

 perpendicular plan ; but with the heavy 

 brood it is just perfect. 



THICK TOP-BARS. 



They are working very successfully. Burr- 

 combs have been built up above thin top- 

 bars, but the thick ones are free so far. 

 They do not seem to sag very much yet, 

 either. 



THE HOFFMAN FRAME. 



The modified Hoffman frame, as describ- 

 ed recently in Gleanings, has been put 

 into the apiary for testing. It certainly 

 has some very desirable features about it, 

 and the bees do not gum them together 

 nearly as bad as one would imagine, and 

 they are in a hybrid colony at that. By the 

 way, is it not a fact that 



HYBRIDS ARE WORSE ON ACCOUNT OF 

 PROPOLIS V 



We have quite a number of half-bloods 

 that have tilled their tin rabbets level full 

 with propolis. With this kind of bees, met- 

 al rabbets are no better, nor as good, as the 

 plain wood bearing. I do not know, how- 

 ever, that I have noticed Italians propolize 

 things up in this way. Perhaps this is one 

 of the reasons why the majority of bee-keep- 

 ers prefer plain wood bearings in preference 

 to tin rests. 



HYBRIDS. 



Oh dear ! I wish there weren't a hybrid in 

 the apiary. It has been several years since 

 we had so many colonies in the yard at 

 once ; and during the intervening time we 

 have had almost exclusively Italians. Then 

 we could work a greater part of the time 

 without a veil ; but now a veil is an abso- 

 lute necessity. On hot days, when it is 

 hard enough at best to keep cool, a veil 

 around the head is any thing but pleasant. 

 Perhaps I should remark, that all the hy- 

 brid colonies above mentioned had their old 



