568 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Aug. 



FROM DIFFERENT FIELDS, 



BEES STEALING EGGS FROM ANOTHER HIVE. 



Friend Boot .-—On page 497, July 1, you say to Mr. 

 McGaughey that bees will sometimes transfer eggs 

 from one comb to another. Now I want to ask you 

 and others whether bees were ever known to trans- 

 fer eggs from one hive to another. Last season I 

 purchased of Mr. A. L. Swinson, of Goldsboro, 

 N. C, an albino Italian queen and two pounds of 

 bees, and put them on some frames of comb. This 

 was the first of June; and along late in July I had 

 an after-swarm of blacks. Not knowing from 

 which hive they came I put them into a hive and 

 set it near the hive of albinos. In the fall I put on 

 them a case of unfinished sections and packed them 

 in planer shavings, the same as I do all my bees. 

 They came out very weak this spring, and I paid 

 but very little attention to them till some four 

 weeks ago. I noticed some bright yellow bees go- 

 ing in and out of the hive. At first I thought they 

 were robbers, but I soon saw that they belonged 

 there. Now, there is no difference between them 

 and the bees I got of Mr. Swinson, and the drones 

 are fully as red as are the albinos. I examined 

 them a lew days since, and found four frames al- 

 most full of brood, and as nice and bright a queen 

 as I ever saw. Did they lose their queen, and bor- 

 row some eggs of their neighbors? P. L. Norton. 



Lanesboro, Pa., July 16. 



Friend N., we have bad several repoits 

 seeming to indicate that workev-bees do at 

 times steal eggs from a neighboring hive, 

 with which to raise a queen. Notwithstand- 

 ing, while there are other ways of explain- 

 ing most of the cases reported, I am inclined 

 to think it somewhat doubtful. In the 

 above case your hive must have become 

 queenless by some vicissitude. Now, dur- 

 ing swarming time the queen may have got 

 away from your albino hive, and got into 

 this one. They might raise another without 

 your knowing it. 



RAISING brood IN A FRAME LYING HORIZONTAL- 

 LY; THE SHALLOW SHIRLEY HIVE. 



I have just finished a curious experiment, such as 

 I never saw in print, or ever heard of. Perhaps 

 you would like to publish it. I should like to learn 

 whether any one else ever did the like. I put up 

 two colonies of bees, one on top of the other, last 

 fall, and lately (in the middle of June) I took them 

 apart, set them near together to equalize, and now 

 they are both working in sections. They were in 

 the new Shirley hive. It has closed-end frames, 

 and is only 5i< inches deep, and has single-story 

 case (or hive) made on purpose to tier up for win- 

 ter. I put a queen-excluder on top of the lower 

 hive, then laid a heavy Langstroth frame (of honey) 

 flat on top in a frame that made a rim to fit top of 

 lower set of frames, and then set the upper set of 

 frames, bees and honey, queen and all, on top of 

 said rim. Each bee could help itself to the flat 

 comb of honey, as they were both rather light in 

 the fall. They came through in tiptop order, one 

 of the best in the whole yard, out of 130 put up last 

 fall. Another hive, put up in the same way, with 

 an L. comb of honey between the two stories, came 

 out well, and had the comb that was lying flat, filled 

 with brood, top and bottom side as well— "head 



and tails." They also stored new honey in it, top 

 and bottom sides as well, rather ignoring the theo- 

 ry of cells sloping upward to better hold honey 

 from running out. J. O. Shearman. 



New Richmond, Mich., June 31, 1893. 



MORE BASSWOOD USED IN FURNITURE THAN IN 

 SECTIONS. 



I see a great deal in the bee-papers about using 

 so much basswood for sections, but nothing about 

 other places where it is used. I believe there is a 

 great deal more used in the furniture factories, as 

 I work in one. I believe we use as much if not 

 more than you do, and a small factory at that. I 

 believe friend Boardman says he will not buy any 

 sections of basswood. If he examines his furni- 

 ture I think he will find basswood in it; at least, we 

 put it in every suit we make, and some are almost 

 all basswood. 



WHITE-HONEY CROP SMALL. 



The white-honey crop will be small in this sec- 

 tion, or, at least, for me. I had thirty colonies in 

 the spring, and took the brood from ten and made 

 twenty good and strong. It commenced raining, 

 and we had bad weather from fruit-bloom till after 

 clover was half over, so when they should have 

 been swarming they were killing- otf their drones. 

 I had only six swarms, and other years I had more 

 than I wanted. F. S. Berry. 



Montoursville, Pa., July 13. 



WHY FLORIDA IS SOMETIMES LATE. 



Last spring I gave the reasons, at least apparent 

 to me, for which orange-tree blossoms gave honey; 

 the same cause is yet more striking this year, and 

 my bees have been rearing brood on orange-blos- 

 som honey for the past three or four weeks, with 

 good prospect for another month. 



But what a contrast with last year! by the 25th of 

 March all the bees had swarmed ; whereas so far 

 there has been, in this section at least, not one 

 swarm, and no prospect of any before two or three 

 weeks. What makes such a difference of two full 

 months? A continual drouth of six months that 

 has kept back the trees from their ordinary habits 

 of blooming in February and March. It is no won- 

 ner that we can not supply queens as early as some 

 parties would like to. 



THE RED ANTS OF FLORIDA AS DESTRUCTIVE ENE- 

 MIES TO BEES. 



In reading in your ABC about ants, I had to 

 smile. Our red ants here are Jumbos compared to 

 yours, and boiling water does not seem to affect 

 them. I have seen a whole swarm of bees decamp 

 from their hive in the middle of the night, and 

 crawl, beating their wings, to neighboring hives. 

 They had been overpowered and were slaughtered 

 unmercifully by their red foes. And the remedy? 

 Well, I have been experimenting on several, but I 

 won't tell just yet which is the best. 



Winter Park, Fla., May 19. J. B. LaMontaque. 



THE SUPERSEDURE OF QUEENS ; TWO QUEENS IN A 

 HIVE. 



In the superseding of queens I think it rarely 

 ever happens that the old queen ig killed by her 

 daughter; but when the old lady commences to 

 fail, the workers may not start a queen-cell at 

 once, and she may drop off very suddenly, leaving 

 them without any queen at all, and she may linger 

 on and lay a good many eggs, though very scatter-^ 

 ing, after the young queen commences to lay.- 

 Some four or five years ago I traded for a lot of 



