1874. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



keeper could as well afford to sell 50 colonics 

 at $12.00 each as to furnish a single one at 

 .$18.00, taking into account trouble of prepar- 

 ing them for shipping etc., etc. 



Just as we are finishing, friend Patterson, of 

 Freestone, writes to know how many combs a 

 colony should cover in Oct., for instance, to 

 enable them to winter. Now to give a careful 

 yness at it we would say that if you do not see 

 bees clustered in at least three spaces during a 

 cool day, you had better not undertake to win- 

 ter them. If they can be seen in four spaces, 

 call them fair; five spaces good, six spaces tine, 

 and seven, "tip top." More bees than the latter 

 avc should not consider desirable for one queen. 



PROBLEM .\0. 1». 



HAT are the necessary conditions to in- 

 sure healthy brood-raising in winter, 

 should it lie desirable'-' It is pretty generally 

 agreed we believe that full colonies winter much 

 safer than Nuclei and many times we have col- 

 onies that have been weakened by different 

 causes in the fall to such an extent that the at- 

 tempt to winter is unsafe to say the least, and 

 yet they have valuable queens. Now where 

 we have many such it would well repay the ex- 

 pense of a room artificially wanned and all 

 cost of food could we thereby get them up into 

 good trim to stand it until spring opens. 

 There seems to be adifficulty in the matter of 

 brood rearing during confinement to the hives, 

 but little understood. Our experiments given 

 on another page as yet (Dec. 12,) have produced 

 nothing very encouraging. To be able to 

 build up a colony at pleasure during any month 

 in the year (as we do in June for instance) and 

 thus have a lull Apiary of extra strength inde- 

 pendently of the weather whenever we choose to 

 invest the necessary amount to acomplish it, 

 Novice estimates, would be an acquisition cal- 

 culated to give Bee-keeping a great start, and 

 that the desired information would be worth 

 $100 at least to us alone. We cannot raise 

 good queens in winter 'tis true (or at least we 

 suppose it is) but if it is really true Florists 

 and Market Gardeners have become able to 

 rear almost everything in the vegetable king- 

 dom at pleasure regardless of season, why can- 

 not we rear bees in stocks where we have good 

 queens? P. G. fears 'tis almost an impossibility, 

 but Novice remarks "we have ultimately suc- 

 ceeded with so many difficult points during the 

 past season, why may not careful study and 

 experiment vouchsafe us a similar reward in 

 this"; and may not such research at the same 

 time un vail the mystery of the Pee disease?" 

 Who among our readers will help? We shall be 

 very glad of reports. 



honey after all. We really hope Mr. Q.'s sug- 

 gestion of keeping the bees in a room warmed 

 artificially to a temperature of 50<> or there- 

 abouts, may be practically a success, as bees 

 never sutler thus in warm weather. 



Could they be allowed to fly out there would 

 be no trouble, but we fear it would not do to 

 fasten them in at that temperature, more es- 

 pecially toward spring. Darkness trill nut keep 

 them in at such times, for we have had them 

 'buzzing about our ears when the room was 

 dark as "ink in a stone bottle," and the worst 

 trouble with dysentery we ever had was in the 

 winter of 1868, when February was almost as 

 warm as April. The bees were in a cellar and 

 had natural stores. We could not keep the 

 cellar cool even by opening the doors and win- 

 dows nights. As Mr. Q. says, a good strong, 

 healthy colony of bees seem to be almost obliv- 

 ious of any degree of cold, yet after they get 

 thinned down or weakened by disease, cold 

 seems to operate disastrously, and a room 

 warmed artificially for such, we think might 

 save them. We have one just such, now near 

 us; the bees seem bright and healthy, but the 

 queen looks very small and thin, and we find 

 no eggs in the combs. We have (to-day, Dec. 

 l,)just inserted a comb containing pollen, to 

 see whether it will start brood-rearing. 



Dec. 4th. — We find the queen has deposited 

 eggs quite plentifully, although the pollen giv- 

 en them did not fill more than 2 doz. cells. 



Dec. 9th. — Found eggs in combs as before, 

 but nothing more. Placed the pollen next the 

 eggs and improvised a wire house for them to" 

 fly in, which they did, but few of them not 

 back to the hive without help. 



Dec. 10th. — Gave them flying room in an up- 

 per story with wire cloth on top; with one 

 corner of the quilt turned up they got back to 

 the cluster without trouble. Kept the temper- 

 ature to-day 10" or more higher by placing the 

 hive over a stream of air warmed up to about 

 TO-. 



Dec. IHth — No eggs, but the bees look quite 

 healthy, and have died very little since last ex- 

 amination. Pollen remains in the comb, all, 

 or nearly all of it. 



Wk entirely agree with the Agriculturist's 

 view of selling receipts. Of those offered for 

 sale at prices ranging from 25c. to $10, or more, 

 we have never found one yet so offered of any 

 value, and the same thing is almost invariably 

 found more intelligently given, free in our Re- 

 ceipt Books or through our Scientific Journals . 



Mr. Quinby's excellent article in the Agri- 

 culturist for Dec. on wintering bees, contains 

 the following : 



••That syrup of sugar floes not prevent it in such 

 weather was proved in many cases the past winter 

 where the combs were filled with it and nothing else, 

 and were badly soiled before the bees failed." 



Now in the great number of reports we have 

 received, no such have ever come to hand 

 where the bees were \\:A in time to seal their 

 Mi;ivs. Thin, unsealed syrup lias in some 

 cases seemed to be unwholesome, yet not like 



Should the bees get uneasy during warm 

 spells of weather in winter, the doors or win- 

 dows of the Bee House or cellar should be open- 

 ed during the night. If they are confined to the 

 hives by wire cloth this is all the more import- 

 ant. After they have been once quieted down 

 and induced to go back on the combs the temper- 

 ature may usually be allowed to come up to 40 

 or even 50 degrees without again making them 

 uneasy. 



