1890 



GLEANINGS IX BEE CULTUKE. 



637 



gathering lionoy. Tlio ahov(> is v<>ry old to tho 

 vot(^rans, hut now to the A B C"s. 



I seo miK'li in tho hoc-jjapcrs ahout ijhaiiting 

 for hcos. Almost all say it doesn't pay. I have 

 been experimenting a litthMin that line. I got 

 lialf a bushel of white-clover seed of you. I 

 sowed it in February and Marcli. 1889. " Not a 

 seed has been seen since. Wliite clover does 

 grow here. Bees work a great deal on mustaixl. 

 It is almost a constant bloomer, if {)lanted. say. 

 every 1.5 days. J. \V. Pai'.k. 



Columbia. Tex.. Aug. 14. 



like the willow as the ros(> is like the milkweed 

 family. Prof. Asa (Jray says, that in the West 

 the tulip-tree is wrongly called the poplar. 

 There is no tree named wl'iitewood, but it would 

 seem as if all trees whos(> wood is white are in 

 certain places called whitewood. 

 Geneva. N. V.. .July 25. Pattik INIason. 



FKOM 2 TO 7. AND 100 I.BS. OF HOXEV. 



I received the queen in good condition. She 

 now has the hive full of brood and eggs. I was 

 much surprised to find I had sent too much for 

 liei'. I liave never had a pun? Italian before. I 

 started last year with t\^() colonies of blacks in 

 rack hives. I got from them 7 swarms and 100 

 pounds of box honey. They wintered w ell, but 

 I lost one this spring. I have had 12 new 

 swarms this year, but will get no surplus, on 

 account of the dry weather. It has been very 

 dry. I had to feed during white clover. I 

 think they will winter if we get some rain. My 

 bees, both blacks and hybrids, are very gentle. 

 They hardly ever sting unless I pinch them. If 

 my queen lives I am going to try Italians an- 

 other summer. I hear them praised so highly I 

 will report how I like them. E. J. BAiir.Ei:. 



Corinth, Miss.. Aug. 13. 



ARE BLACK BEES I.ESS LIABLE TO DISEASE? 



I liave 100 hives of black bees. I don't doubt 

 but that the Italians would make more honey. 

 I have never seen a case of foul brood, nor heard 

 of any in this part of the country. Possibly 

 there is no connection between having all black 

 bees and no foul brood. Won't you please an- 

 swer briefly the following questions'? 



Are not black bees proof against foul brood, 

 sometimes, when Italians are not? 



If Italians are more prolific than blacks, are 

 they not also more inclined to swarm frequent- 

 ly? J. S. Caeebkeath. 



Rock Rift, N. Y., July 4. 



Black bees are no more proof against foul 

 brood than Italians. In England and tTermany. 

 where black bees are the prevailing race, foul 

 brood has made its mischief for many years. 



As Italians often get honey when common 

 bees do not, they sometimes swarm when com- 

 mon bees do not. 



\ correction IX NOMENCEATI'RE. 



I have just been reading Gleanings, and I 

 notice an article on page 526 upon "Apicultural 

 Nomenclature," in which the writer, in trying 

 to correct one error, has fallen into another. 

 The writer states that " cottonwood, balm of 

 Gilead, and quaking aspen, are all different 

 trees, though very nearly allied to each other. 

 The poplar is of another and distinct type." 

 Partly right and partly wrong. Botanists, for 

 convenience, have grouped all plants, including 

 trees, into families; and again some of these 

 families are divided into sub-families. The 

 willow family is one which has a division, 

 and one of the parts, or sub-families, is called 

 Populus. In this division are found several 

 members — two aspcms, the American and large- 

 toothed; five poplars, the downy, balsam, white. 

 Lombardy, and necklace (the last of which is 

 called Cottonwood), and tin? balm of Gilead. 

 These are all different trees, but closely allied, 

 as Mr. T. states, only he should have included 

 the poplar. He says th(» poplar and tulip-tree 

 are the same. Now, the tulip-tree belongs to 

 the magnolia family, and that is about as near 



making hives and fixtx'hes by hand; best 



HONEY season. 



I have made 100 hives, all of the frames, and 

 2000 sections and Itioo separatoi's, all sawed by 

 hand power, so you can see that I wished I had 

 a good engine more than once. I have now 118 

 stands of bees. I took off 340 lbs. of lioney, and 

 have about 1000 lbs. to take oft' this week, all in 

 1-lb. sections. The hon(>y is the whitest I have 

 had since I have had bees, and the best honey 

 season so far. 



the work of bad boys, again. 



I had to go out and fix up a hive that two 

 boys were trying to steal honey from abo\it an 

 hour ago. It is 12 o'clock at night now. I hope 

 you have not any boys of that sort out there. 

 If they had wanted honey, and had come to the 

 housed I would give them all they wanted to 

 eat. As it was. the bees were not asleep, and 

 they lost their honey, and had a lively run. 



Dover. Mich., July 28. A. N. Whitlock. 



QUEENS LOST ON RETURNING FROM THEIR WED- 

 I)IN(i FLIGHT. 



I have 1 ei'u losing a good many virgin queens 

 during mating this summer. I had a nucleus 

 in an observatory hive, and saw the queen take 

 a flight about four o'clock. She came back in 

 about five minutes, successful. Immediately on 

 entering the hive she was balled; and as I did 

 not suspect any thing wrong she was killed in a 

 few minutes. Is it a common occurrence, and 

 is that the reason I have been losing so many 

 virgin queens? 



The horizontal bee-escape has worked well 

 with me this season, nearly all the bees being 

 out of the sections in the morning, if put on at 

 night — perhaps a few in ont? or two sections. 

 Lloyd Sechrist. 



Pleasant Home, O., Aug. 6. 



Friend S., such things are not very common, 

 although they do happen, especially when 

 there is a dearth of honey. I have never known 

 it to continue long enough to do much harm. I 

 have sometimes thought it was caused by plac- 

 ing hives so close together that the bees were in 

 the habit of mixing, until they get into a quar- 

 i-elsome frame of mind. 



CATCHING QUEENS BY MEANS OF THE PERFO- 

 r.ATED ZINC. 



Here is a quick way to catch black queens, 

 and it will work equally well on any kind of 

 queens. Take one sheet of your queen-exclud- 

 er, say 13x20. make a box two inches deep, with 

 bottom and sides of thin stuff— no cover. Now 

 make one the same size out of 1^4 stutt', X wide; 

 now nail on zinc excluder for the bottom, and 

 the thing is made. Take? it out into your bee- 

 yard; set it down about a foot in front of a 

 hive, the deepest part first; then put on the 

 zinc with th(> rim up, to keep the bees from run- 

 ning off the sides; then use a little smoke. 

 Pick up the frames with the bees all on. Now. 

 do not stop to look for the queen, but give it a 

 quick shak(> in the box on the zinc, then take 

 another the same, and so on, as fast as you 

 wish to, and you will soon see the queen on the 

 zinc. The bees have gone througn as fast as 

 shaken on in the box below, leaving the queen 

 in plain sight. Pick her up. shut up your hive. 



