'1874. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



question — well, as we said before, he forgot first was hatched; I took (hem all away and gave them 



'twas nearly dark and almost neglected to res- I a c £* m jl°*'} n ™ d A?,A" f. ,a ^ 8 ; PW reared about 20 

 i * t>i* t^ i *■ i i- i i i • i cells, about one third ot which hatched in s days, the 



pond to Bine Eyes crows ot delight which are majority on the 9th, and 2 or three on the 10th. Thev 

 invariably addressed to her Papa when he is'nt were all small, but little larger than a worker. 1 suc- 

 ceeded in getting 5 out ot the lot fertilized, one on the 

 16th day alter they were hatched, two the 17th, and 

 two the 19th. Xhey were as prolific as any Queens l 

 had as far as I could sec, but one died of old age in 3 

 months, 2 lived nearly 5 months, and the other 2 died 

 during the w inter. Queens usually are laying from 7 

 to 9 days after ihev are hatched, with us, and ii :i 

 Queen is not laying within 12 days we always kill her. 

 deeming her worthless. We Have repeated the ex- 

 periment alluded lo above once or twice since with 

 the same results, Bees getting but little honey as vet. 

 It rains nearly all the w hile— ground soaked— Bass-- 

 wood will not be open in a week yet. 



G. M. DooLirn.K, Borodino, N. Y. July 9th. 187*, 



too busy — now before going further 'twill real- 

 ly be necessary to state that Novice wears 

 linen trousers when extracting, for Mrs. N. 

 says if he must go down on his knees so much, 

 something must be worn that will wash ; and 

 as the young bees have quite a trick of crawl- 

 ing in inconvenient directions, he always tucks 

 i hese linen pants into his stockings when at 

 work. 



After the last comb was taken out he con- 

 cluded the Quinby smoker (none had been used 

 before) had better be lighted before replacing 

 them, and by the time this was done it was 

 just about dark enough for the bees to get into 

 that kind of a careless way of stinging promis- 

 cuously, when disturbed, any thing that they 

 •can see regardless of smoke or almost any 

 tiling else. Now these white stockings — for a 

 wonder they were tolerably white — seemed to 

 the bees just the thing to "go for," and they 

 did so and discovered a "break in the armor'' 



DEAR NOVICE :— !n answer to your problem No. 

 23 on the coyer of GLEANINGS, lor July, 1 see "no 

 difference between queens raised frcm the eggs, or 

 queens raised Horn grubs already three days old. Be- 

 sides 1 have very olten remarked that out of a lot of 

 queen cells, those that hatched last were generally 

 poorest. Every time 1 have had queens hatched lattr 

 than sixteen days, they were ot little value, while 

 those hatched in ten days proved to be the best. it. 

 seems that as soon as the colony finds it is queenless, 

 it gives a superabundance ot care to the grubs i hos« n 

 to be raised as queens. After a few days the care giH - 

 en the second chosen grubs is lessened, and "the 



Mes. 



Meanwhile P. G. has put the cappings in the 

 wax extractor, tied the cloth cover over the 

 honey extractor, wiped up the floor if any 

 honey had been dropped — by the way Novice 

 says that she too got enthusiastic and kept on 

 extracting long after the barrel was full, until 

 in fact a half gallon or more had run over on 

 the floor; but this was probably a little exag- 

 gerated on account of Ids "ankles" — and the 

 Apiary is now quiet. The bees are uniting in 

 a contented hum whose volume once more in 



prefer the grubs. 1 think bees know their business 

 better than we do. Besides it is to-day a well ascer- 

 tained tact, that the jelly given the grubs, for the Mr- 1 

 three days alter hatching, is the same as that given 

 the j oung queen; and that the grubs can eat ot it as 

 much as ihey want since they lay in a thick layer of 

 that jelly. Chas. Dadakt, Hamilton, ills-. 



We are much inclined to think eggs prefera- 

 ble, and we feel satisfied that the young larva- 

 should literally swim in the royal jelly just 

 as soon as hatched. That this is not usually 

 the case with the small worker larvae, observa- 

 tion will readily show. If we wish to grow a 



dicates life in the recently desolated Apiary; ! strong specimen of any plant or animal, plenty 

 Blue Eyes is sleeping the peaceful sleep df \ of food is the great desideratum. Even crant- 



childhood, and we, before dropping our pen 

 devoutly hope that all our readers have as 

 abundant cause for thankfulness during the 

 higbt of the basswood season as have we. 



ANSWER TO PROBLEM ETC. 



M;AS Problem No. 1.3 been solved yet ? 

 are bringing in pollen very fast now 

 1 the supply seems to be far in excess of the de- 

 mand ; and I could take from each of my hives one 

 frame completely tilled with it. But can it be kept in 

 good state until next spring, and how i 



s. w. Stevens, Ridgefield, Conn. 

 Pollen taken out late in the fall will keep 

 safely and will be used at once by bees in the 

 sp ring in this locality, but we should fear it 

 would get sour or mould if removed in warm 

 weather. Your hives may seem to have an ex- 

 cess to-day yet if examined a week later, when 

 brood is being reared largely, we sometimes 

 find it nearly all gone. We have recently seen 

 a frame emptied of pollen in so short a time 

 thai it seemed strange where it could have 

 gone. 



ANSWER TO PROBLEM NO. 23. 



Queens raised from eggs are longer lived but no 

 more prolific, for the time they live, than an 8 or 10 

 da\ Queen. A 10 day Queen will rarely live one year. 

 while an s day Queen is good for only about 4 months! 

 Bj the way, .Mr. Editor why is it that Queens sent out 

 by breeders are so invariably short lived? L have 

 had Queens from nearly every breeder in the Unite I 

 States, and with but one exception none of thei 

 lived to see 16 months. But to return, in 1870 1 raised 



tiling is sometimes necessary to get the desired 

 result, asdn fattening fowls for instance, and 

 if we wish Queens to Ave four years and to lay 

 eggs up to the figure fixed by Young America, 

 of modern times, she should have all the jelly 

 she can possibly use and a spoonful (or less) 

 J should be found in the cell after she is hatched. 

 Our bees : How is it brother bee-keepers, after your Queens 

 In fact I are hatched out do you find any food remain- 

 ing in the cell? Look carefully and report. 

 Again our recent troubles have really been 

 that our worker bees have been too short lived. 

 Now is it not possible that where so many 

 bees are kept in one locality they fail to find a 

 sufficiency of some one of the essentials needed 

 to give them perfection of vigor and constitu- 

 tion. Novice here suggests that the whole 

 trouble may be the want of salt ; some writers 

 on poultry now claim that salting the hens 

 regularly will surely prevent the Chicken 

 Cholera. 



FRIEND NOVICE: Double a woolen cloth and put 

 under your water bottle; and to one qt. add X table- 

 spoonful of common salt then your bees will have 

 salt water. My bees took about a gallon a day, when 

 breeding fast last summer. The cloth will soak with 

 water and gives bees a nice chance to suck it out. 

 Put sheared side of cloth up. When getting salt wat- 

 er they got fresh water at the same time so perhaps 

 you had better "rig"' two bottles, for each. 



J. D. Kruschke, Berlin, Wis. 



We have got a salt water jar "rigged" but 

 they don't take to it as yet. We have at times 



a set of cells from a strong colony and just before the noticed be< when they seemed eager for salt. 



