10 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



JAN, 



sudden change with rain raised the atmosphere 

 outside to 50 or more, and the stream of warm 

 damp air coming in the ventilator was con- 

 densed in dew all over the hives, wall, etc., and 

 even the quilts felt damp. Now under such 

 circumstances straw hives would be much the 

 most comfortable. 



Dec 10th, the following has just come to 

 hand : 



I am very glad my straw mats found your approba- 

 tion, and I supposed it would. I shall hot have time 

 enough to make mats for sale this winter, but Mr. M. 

 Nevins, of Cheviot, O., will always have plenty on 

 hand, and leave a lot at my store ready for shipment, 

 lie will sell them at 84.50 a doz. 



Any body wishing straw mats may address myself 

 or M. Nevins, Cheviot, Hamilton Co., O. 



I have imported from Germany, vetch and summer 

 rape seed, vetch— in German. IVickc — affords excel- 

 lent food for bees, and is besides, good food for horses 

 and cattle. It is sown like rape, and about the same 

 time, and grows like peas, with flowers in all colors. 

 Rape we all know already. It takes 50 lbs. vetch 

 seed and 4 lbs. of rape seed 'to sow an acre, at least, so 

 I am informed by my German correspondent. 



I can sell rape'seed at 35c. per lb., and vetch seed at 

 •20c. per lb.; or if sent by mail at an advance on the 

 above rate of 5c. per lb. 



C. F. Minn, 



Cincinnati, O. 



The mats at the price would be rather ex- 

 pensive for making the sides of hives, but will 

 well repay expense, to be used on top for out- 

 door wintering. As to whether they would be 

 beneficial where bees are housed, we are un- 

 prepared to say. As the expense is but a trifle 

 more than wire cloth, it would certainly be a 

 good idea to try them if they can be arranged 

 readily so as to confine the bees. 



We certainly must have some vetches next sea- 

 son. The "flowers in all colors," captivate our 

 fancy in anticipation already. 



Dear Gleanings:— The two pieces of comb that I 

 got, I positivelv think had no larva?, only eggs and a 

 lew bees just biting the caps open. I" had 19 cells 

 reared, 14 I could cut out, 4 destroyed. Ten good 

 queens for fifty cents. Mr. Crall built a bee-house and 

 I got my bees in it too; we have 92 colonies in it and 

 it is only a little more than half full, the house is 

 12x16 feet, wall 10 inches thick. We put our bees in 

 Nov. 13th. They appear all right, nice and quiet. 



S. H. Miller, 



Ashland, O. 



Is it not possible that those same hatching 

 bees kept the eggs warm, and thus contributed 

 to the unusual success of friend M ? See page 

 79, Vol. 1. 



I am a beginner in Bee Culture ; I have read 

 "Langstroth on the Honey Bee," "Mysteries of Bee 

 Keeping," by Quinby, and one volume* of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal. I am a subscriber for the A. B. J. 

 I commenced last spring with six stands, two Italian 

 and four Black ones, three of them wore very weak; 

 they swarmed out after they were set on their summer 

 stand. I have raised my own Queens and Italianized 

 all my bees. I have now twenty-two strong stands, 

 and they all have honey enough to winter. 1 am going 

 to follow Bee-Keeping,*and have read all of "iVbuiceV' 

 writing for a year and am interested. 



Mrs. D. M. Hall, Linn Center, 

 Rock Count.y, W r is. 



"We are particularly pleased with the above 

 report, principally because it comes from a 

 married woman; not that we have less sympa- 

 thy for the Misses, but that 'tis too often the 

 case, the former have too many cares to really 

 enjoy Bee Culture or anything else. We opine 

 many of the veterans would find it a task to 

 make a better summer's work with the same 

 start than has our friend, Mrs. II.; will she 

 please report again next season V 



WINTERING. 



"|rf|RIEXD NOVICE : -Gleanings for August is at 

 jSfJ hand, and if you could have seen the smile of 

 =-»j satisfaction with which its arrival was greeted, 

 you would have been repaid in part, at least, for the 

 disagreeable things some of the patent right men say 

 about yon for pitching into them. 



On this subject I would only say ; "Keep on in well 

 doing," and "give 'em fits." 



I cannot, however, subscribe to all the teachings 

 contained in Gleanings. For instance: I do not be- 

 lieve it will pay a majority of our bee-keepers to ex- 

 tract the honey and try to winter their bees on syrup, 

 in order to escape dysentery, for I believe the severity 

 of the winter had more to do with the loss of bees in 

 this section at least, than the quality of their honey 

 had; and in proof of this I will give' you a few fact's 

 that occurred in this neighborhood. 



A neighbor living half a mile south of here hail 

 eight swarms that he undertook to winter in a cold 

 shed, and lost six of them by dysentery. Another liv- 

 ing half a mile west wintered his on their summer 

 stands, and lost all he had by the same disease. A 

 friend living one-fourth of a" mile east brought his 

 bees, consisting of four swarms, and put them in my 

 beo-honse. One of them, a late swarm, died of star- 

 vation. The other three were in splendid condition 

 when he took them away, about the first of March ; 

 but after that date he lost two of them, having no 

 warm place in which to put them during the severe 

 cold that occurred in March. Another friend living 

 5 or 6 miles west undertook to winter his bees, con- 

 sisting of 38 swarms, out doors. He had lost 7 up to 

 Jan. 1st.; and then came and told me that a number of 

 the remaining stocks were so reduced that he thought 

 they could not live until spring, and asked me what to 

 do with them. I advised him to put them in his cel- 

 lar. He did so, and now tells me he only lost one 

 stuck after putting them in the cellar, and he now 

 thinks that perhaps the bees were nearly all dead in 

 that before they were carried in. 



1 put 88 swarms in the house to winter. Three of 

 these consisted of bees taken out of my nucleus hives. 

 One of the three was put in as an experiment, being 

 queenless; and the other two hail young queens that 

 had not laid any eggs when winter'set in, and I do not 

 know that they ever did. I lost the above three, and 

 one of my regular swarms by some unknown cause. 

 probably old age, as the bees from the nucleus hives 

 were nearly all old ; and two swarms by starvation, 

 leaving from 15 to 30 lbs. of honej r ; the bees having 

 clustered at one side of the hive, their stores being at 

 the other. 



My bees were put on their summer stands Feb. 19th, 

 but when the weather turned cold all the weakest 

 stocks were put back in the house again, and remain- 

 ed there until we had pleasant weather. As a conse- 

 quence, I ilid not lose a swarm by dysentery, the 

 combs of those that died being as clean as thev" were 

 in the fall. 



You will please notice that in the above case, the 

 bees that were lost had been kept near to and almost 

 all around me, so that their honey could differ but lit- 

 tle in quality from what my bees* had, and if it does 

 not indicate that cold was the main cause of the losses 

 bee-keepers sustained ; I shall have to conclude that 

 straws do not always show which way the wind 

 blows. 



James Bolin, West Lodi, O. 



Thanks, friend B., you have given us an ex- 

 cellent proof of the advantage of a good frost- 

 proof repository, and as Mr. Quinby says : (see 

 notice of his article,) Cold must be one part of 

 the trouble, as bees do not die thus in summer. 



Now we should be very sorry indeed to 

 have our friends think we were so firmly astride 

 of our "sugar" hobby that we were incapable 

 of accepting proper proof that we were in error. 

 'Tis not the winters alone that have produced 

 the trouble, we believe all admit, and if it shall 

 be found' necessary to combine the sugar diet 

 with careful housing, providing we can thus 

 get through the winter safely, we think few 

 will complain. We have not personally made 

 the experiment of out door wintering with 

 sugar stores, but a neighbor has, and the dif- 

 ference was too marked to admit a doubt of 

 which diet was healthiest. 



