1 874. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



41 



act of the stables. Perhaps we might as well 

 admit that Novice has gone wild over the 

 project, and declares he never wants to put 

 bees ill-doors again to winter. It will be re- 

 membered the lower bar of the trellis is one 

 foot from the ground, and by setting the hive 

 si flout six inches back from them we can build 

 the manure from the hive to this bar, in such 

 a way that the entrance of the hive is nearly a 

 foot back in the heap; the sun shines in here 

 but no rain nor wind can enter, and the bees 

 "will come out and bask in the sunshine, ap- 

 pareutly as happy as kittens, during days that 

 are too cool for them to fly. 



March '3rd — To day we finished covering our 

 whole 50 hives with the exception of the 

 Quinby hive whose great size appals us; all 

 strong ones except that, are working merrily 

 •on the meal. 



March Atfi — We must have our Quinby hive 

 enjoy all the advantages of the rest, and so we 

 have taken away the hive entirely except the 

 bottom-board and frames ; have covered the 

 latter with shingles and were thus enabled to 

 get them in shape to be covered nicely. As 

 they occupy but a comparatively small com- 

 pass in this way, we should consider it an 

 excellent plan for wintering the Q. hive. 



We have found but one case of real dysen- 

 tery, and that is the hive that hung on the 

 Spring Balance. At the time of feeding them 

 they had more sealed stores than any of the 

 rest, but owing to the position they occupied 

 they had been passed by when we did the 

 regular Ext'ng preparatory to feeding, and as 

 our things were washed up we, "kind of con- 

 eluded" that it must have been mostly gath- 

 ered from the half barrel of dry sugar. Well, 

 we to day cleaned out the hive, covered the 

 frames with dry straw, put the cover over it 

 loosely a la Muth, and covered them up with 

 the rest. 



March 14th — We have had just two weeks 

 of bad weather, some of it extremely cold and 

 wintry. As most of the bees are out again to 

 day, we concluded to be out too, making ex- 

 aminations. Spring Balance colony is dead ; 

 frames, combs, and bottom-board badly soiled 

 with the disagreeable excrement nearly as 

 black as tar, although there was plenty of 

 bees, aud abundant ventilation arranged 

 through the straw. As there is nothing like 

 it any where else in the whole apiary, we hope 

 we may be excused for thinking if we had left 

 them all with their natural stores we should 

 have had many similar cases. 



'Tis true, many of the sugar fed colonies soil 

 the snow, and Mrs. N's. clothes on washing 

 day, (she says they are sure to fly on Monday 

 forenoons) but the spots are light colored and 

 of a yellowish hue, and even when fed late, on 

 their syrup, they never exhibited the symp- 

 toms of the colony just mentioned. 



'Tis our painful duty also, to chronicle the 

 loss of 4 other colonies; and a fifth that was 

 found with about a half dozen Italians guard- 

 ing the entrance from a series of such desper- 

 ate attacks made on them by robbers, that we 

 were led to look inside, and beheld the Queen 

 disconsolately trying to "keep house" alone. 

 This colony was the only one of the 13 put 

 under the manure heaps in Feb., but what are 

 in fine condition, ami in their case they were 



so well protected from the cold that their 

 numbers were thinned down, one by one, until 

 the last half dozen were actually doing duty as 

 lively as ever. We caged the Queen with her 

 few remaining subjects, proposing to send 

 them to "Cyula" (we hope you will all know 

 her bye aud bye) but "more troubles" inter- 

 rupted this neighborly plan. The day had 

 been unusually fine and the bees poured out in 

 such glee, that Ave several times feared for our 

 Queens, and sure enough shortly after noon 

 we heard the very unwelcome note of swarming. 

 We could with a good relish, have "taken a 

 shingle" to every individual bee, that started 

 the mania, but there was no help. One Queen 

 with a clipped wing we caught in a short 

 time, but one young undipped lass we found 

 just in time to get her out of a knot of bees at 

 the entrance to another hive ; tins one we rec- 

 ognized from her shape and color, and put her 

 in her own home forthwith. The other one — 

 well, she died, for no other reason that we 

 know of, unless she did it "just a purpose." 

 Although " Cyula's" Queenless colony received 

 no positive aid, they can take notice they are 

 remembered. 



As to the cause of the swarming out, we 

 found the colony of the Queeu that died, des- 

 titute of eggs and brood, although having 

 plenty of bees, and so think it likely she had 

 failed, as she was nearly 3 years old ; the 

 other was a remarkably prolific Queen, reared 

 last fall late, and had a fine family of bees, 

 with brood and plenty of everything. We can 

 only guess that the bees went out with such a 

 rush that she thought they wanted her to go 

 too, and she "go-ed" but we hope she will be 

 good now and won't any more. 



We have now lost 13 colonies out of 57 and 

 our only way of accounting for most of the 

 losses, is that there were too few bees in the 

 fall. This is not wholly satisfactory however, 

 for one of our most populous, are among the 

 missing, (see page 30 March No.) and three, 

 that were among the very weakest are doing 

 finely, in fact one of them had many more bees 

 this spring than when put into the house. 

 When Mr. Wilkin was here last Nov., we 

 showed him a colony with the remark that it 

 seemed folly to expect, such a handful of bees 

 to winter, to which he replied they might 

 nevertheless, and to our astonishment they are 

 to day one of our fairest. Why didn't they 

 dwindle down too? 



If we were going to make any deductions 

 'twould be about like this : Weak colonies 

 may build up, but the chances are greatly in 

 favor of their going the other way ; and the 

 worst feature about it is that, judging from a 

 great number of reports, we seem to have but 

 little power to control the matter. Also, 

 strong colonies may dwindle doten, but the 

 chances are rather in favor of their not doing 

 so, hence we must conclude after summing it 

 all up that, 



Stkono colonies are always safest, and 

 perhaps we might add, for all operations in 

 Bee Culture. 



March 18th — And the end is not yet. Two 

 more stocks failed on account of insufficient 

 numbers, in fact one colony hadn't " ary num- 

 bers" at all when we found 'em, but the combs 

 indicated they had dwindled down to a very 



