novice's 1 ' gleanings in bee culture. 



46 



HEADS OF CiRAIN FROM DIFFER- 

 ENT FIELDS. 



M'O. 64.— Is dissolved sugar as good for 

 raising young bees as honey? You ap- 

 -. i>ear to "go strong" on wintering bees 

 on sugar. In this country, where honey is 

 high, I would like to put as much on sugar as 

 I can. Daniel Ford, Floral, Kansas. 



We think it certainly as good and with- 

 out question, cheaper. Reports from 

 many sources justify us in saying that the 

 addition of cream of Tartar, vinegar, 

 glycerine, &c, are entirely useless. Mr. 

 Johnson informs us (see Heads No. 59) 

 that his bees did not winter well after 

 brood-rearing in February and March, and 

 that he considers the vinegar injurious al- 

 though his great loss was occasioned 

 mainly from large amounts of honey dew 

 gathered last fall. A single comb of 

 such honey, heavy and completely sealed 

 would kill a strong colony in a week that 

 that had been heretofore healthy; and, 

 strange to say, the bees seemed to winter 

 on it well enough until they commenced 

 brood-rearing. Is there not a connecting 

 link between this fact and the idea in 

 Problems of this No. ? To go back ; for 

 spring feeding use sugar and water in 

 whatever form is most convenient, so that 

 bees will take it without waste, and it may 

 be dissolved in hot or cold water, as is 

 convenient ; and the same can be said of 

 feeding to prepare colonies for winter, on- 

 ly it must be scaled tip before add weath- 

 er. 



65,-1 put 10 stocks of bees into a clump 

 made by piling the hives in a pyramid, cover- 

 ing with straw, then earth, with no ventila- 

 tion. One died from lack of stores and one 

 from having nothing but candied honey. The 

 rest came out in splendid condition, with the 

 exception of j, few mouldy combs. Most of 

 the stocks were weak when put in and had 

 very little honey. I think the clamp is a good 

 way to winter weak stocks. I put them in 

 Nov. 12 and took them out March 25th. 



Apis. 



Will Apis tell us if the candied honey 

 was sealed over? It is our impression 

 that neither honey nor sugar syrup is in- 

 jured by being candied if sealed over. 

 The objections to clamps are the necessa- 

 ry litter and untidiness generally, besides 

 inconvenience of access. 



t:6. — It has been a principle with me for sev- 

 eral years in market gardening to raise the 

 largest possible amount from the smallest 

 amount of land, and to sell so cheaply that 

 those who had heretofore bought articles at 

 high prices as luxuries could now buy so low 

 that in time they would consider them as a 

 necessity, and by this means create a perma- 

 nent market. I think that to be the drift of 

 "Gleanings," and if so I'm with you. You 

 elaim to be aNovice, but I am a "novicc-er" 

 fellow than you, and when I read the article, 

 "Italian Queens for Twenty-live Cents." the 

 idea occurred to me that pure bred drones 

 could be shipped cheaper than either queens 

 or eggs. What think you of the idea? Would 

 it, not revolutionize things somewhat ! Stock 

 breeders tell us that by using the rough bred 

 males always we can soon obtain all the 

 desirable points we wish. Following out the 

 idea, I do not see why pure drones, of which 

 there are always plenty, could not be used to 

 fertilize our black queens by Mrs. Tupper's 

 method, andinashort time our colonies could 

 become Italianized. I do not know why a lot 

 of drones cannot be kept by themselves on 



hand for use whenever wanted through th» 

 season. J. M. Hill, Greenville, 111. 



In our locality black drones outnumber 

 Italians so greatly that we fear the use of 

 drone eggs will be of little use. So very 

 few have succeeded with Mrs. Tupper's 

 method that we fear it will have to be 

 abandoned, and can't help thinking that 

 there might have been some mistake in 

 the original experiments. Until we can 

 have some process by which others can 

 succeed at least occasionally, we should 

 advise not spending more time or money 

 on the subject. 



67.— How would it do to paralyze bees with 

 puff-ball and commence transferring immedi- 

 ately in a warm room ? I think I will try it. 

 N. E. Prentice, Castalia, 0. 



We would much rather have live bees 

 to deal with than paralyzed ones, for they 

 would then get out of the way and cluster 

 around their brood. Turn over any box 

 hive and give them a little smoke, and 

 they are almost as harmless as flies. Dur- 

 ing the bloom of the apple trees weshould 

 even omit the smoke. 



68.— For the past two winters I have left my 

 strongest stocks on their summer stands 

 protected from the north wind, and they have 

 died. While I have saved most of those put 

 in the cellar and some of them are very light. 

 M. G. Palmer, Portland, Maine. 



Such seems to be the general report, 

 although a few report directly to the con- 

 trary. 



69.— 1st. How can you raise bees and grapes 

 together? Our Congressman, Hon. R. T. W. 

 Duke, refused to receive as a gift one of your 

 papers, saying he intended to destroy his 

 bees because they destroyed his grapes. 

 Send the Journal to him at Charlottesville 

 containing your answer. 



2d Is the wintering house for bees advisa- 

 ble in middle Virginia? Not a month passes 

 but the bees can fly out, no disease, no loss 

 except from starvation or loss of queen, late 

 swarms useless, and no pasturage after the 

 15th of July. 



M. How can I remedy the defect? want 

 of late pasturage. 



4th. I want to make five Italian swarms 

 out of the 25cts. of comb. How am I to do 

 it? I have a lot of comb on hand in Langs- 

 troth frames and some 20 stands of bees 

 mostly in Langstroth's hives. Season bad 

 for 12 or 15 days past— cold and wet. Apple 

 tree blossoms lost. I once wintered a late 

 swarm in a dampish cellar on 5 lbs- of honey ; 

 combs very moldy, no upward ventilation, 

 little loss in hces. 15th Nov. to 1st March. 

 John 13. Townley. Red Hill Depot, Va» 



1st. After giving the matter consider- 

 able attention at different times we fail to 

 discover that bees ever notice grapes of 

 any kind unless they are broken open by 

 birds, fowls or insects, they then gather 

 the juice as they do from sweet apples, 

 etc. We have always raised a line crop 

 of Concord's and some Iona's, Catawbas, 

 Isabellas, etc., but never had them in- 

 jured in the least, by the bees, although 

 our hives have clusters of grapes all 

 about them. When common fowls had 

 access to our apiary the bees seemed 

 quite active on the clusters they had 

 broken and destroyed ; but when they 

 were fenced out, the bees ceased to notice 

 the grapes although many of I hem hung 

 on the vines until after frost. 



2d. Having had no opportunity to test 



