1115 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE - . 



Oter 



Thirdly, did they all come through to the 

 month of May in good condition? This last 

 item may be unimportant, and he like Gallup 

 and Adair may think it trivial and beneath him 

 to count his hives and allow his pupils to make 

 an estimate of the per cent that was probably 

 saved, and thus decide whether they can afford 

 to build Conservatories for bees alone. 



Our readers can rest assured that we shall 

 give the matter a careful test and report from 

 month to month. If it enables us to feed meal 

 in the spring without the usual loss by cold 

 winds etc., we shall think it of much more mo- 

 ment than simply getting them through the 



winter. 



— m H i ^ — 



POLLEN. 

 ITS JIELATION TO BKOOD-BEABIIV«. 



Jfi 



|R1KNP NOVICE:— As you put me in "Blasted 

 4 hopes" department, in "the July No., I must sup- 

 plement it by sending you "Reports Encoura- 

 ging.''' 



From my six puny swarms I have increased to 25, 

 all strong. 1 could have possibly made 30 but I am 

 learning to move slowly. Our main yield of honey 

 came from basswood and buckwheat, "Linden Ave- 

 nue" had a few blossoms this season. Besides our 

 increase I have taken almost 250 lbs. of honey. A bee 

 house was to have been built and several other things 

 purchased for the apiary, but 250 lbs. of honey wont 

 make both ends meet and we must wait another year. 

 It is said, and truly, that "adversity enables us to 

 wear out all of our old clothes.'' So, it will make us 

 rigure close in the apiary. Our cellar is being put in I 

 prime order for wintering now. We shall try natural 

 stores and we are going to keep an eye on friend Bo- | 

 lin, meantime thanking him for the instructive article i 

 on page 105. Mr B. is evidently ready to forestall his J 

 "Waterloo" and to such a person it will never come, | 

 we trust. 



Now Mr. Novice we wish to consult a little in rela- 

 tion to pollen. Will it do to keep the Queen breeding ■ 

 until late in the season ? In nearly all our colonies in . 

 seasons past, the Queen generally ceases to lay j 

 almost entirely in Sept. or Oct. Now if we force j 

 brood-rearing at this season much pollen is used that 

 would be of use in the spring, the old bees will live 

 until siuing, if the pollen is preserved, a quantity of j 

 of brood will be capped over quite early, and by the 

 time the old bees die on" an army of young ones will I 

 be ready to take their places ; furthermore may not | 

 the forced laying produce unproliticness in the Queen 

 during the next season ? 



These thoughts present themselves as we perambu- 

 late our apiary ; we would like to hear from others on 

 the subject. It was very evident that bees hatched 

 late in the fall of '73 died as rapidly in the spring of 

 '74 as the old bees. J. H. Martin, Hartford, N. Y. 

 Linden Avenue Apiary. Sept. 3rd, 1S74. 



You may be right friend M., in thinking late 

 brood-rearing may deprive a colony of the pol- 

 len needed in the spring, but we are inclined 

 to think otherwise. 



We have made a greater number of artificial 

 colonies this season than ever before, and in 

 carefully watching the process of building up, 

 we were surprised to find that an artificial 

 colony, started with two frames of hatching 

 brood and bees would in about ten days, or as 

 soon as the Queens began to lay, gather more 

 pollen than any old colony in the Apiary. 

 This has been the case invariably, and even 

 now Sept. 11th, we find our late nuclei "spark- 

 ling" with heavily pollen laden bees passing in 

 at the entrance, while our strong heavy colo- 

 nies seem bringing scarcely any pollen at all. 

 What is the reason? they can certainly And it 

 as well as the others, if they thought it was 

 needed. An examination shows that these old 

 Queens have quite a tendency to cease laying. 

 Is not some stimulus or excitement needed to 

 stir them up? Natural swarms are frequently 



mentioned as working with greater energy;, 

 gathering stores when old colonies were al 

 most idle; now this is precisely the case with, 

 our artificial colonies, in fact they even com 

 mence comb building out of season, if a spat •< 

 can be found in which to do it. 



While we were rearing Queens last fall in 

 the upper stories, these Queen colonies brought 

 in pollen, while the old colonies below, appar- 

 ently did nothing; had we fed them during 

 Aug. and Sept., as we have done this season, 

 perhaps they might have gathered pollen too. 

 Is there not pollen to be had almost always 

 during warm weather if they can only be in- 

 duced to gather it ? We have noted precisely 

 the state of affairs you mention, viz.: an ab- 

 sence of sealed brood or larva, but plenty ot 

 eggs during weather in the spring in which no 

 pollen could be gathered ; we also succeeded 

 perfectly (see page 48 Vol. 1.) in getting larva- 

 by giving pollen gathered the year before 

 fuund stored in an occasional surplus comb. 

 These combs were kept in the barn over win- 

 ter. If put in a cold room we have no doubt 

 but that pollen can be kept over safely ; we; 

 should fear however keeping it away from tin- 

 bees in very warm weather. If covered with 

 honey and sealed over, 'twould probably be 

 safe, but if unsealed and damp it frequently 

 moulds. We succeeded in getting them to 

 work on rye to some extent last season in Oct., 

 see page 87, Vol. 1. We do not think the 

 Queen's fertility in spring will be in any 

 way impaired by keeping her busy during 

 Sept. and Oct. In localities where buckwheat 

 swarms and fall pasturage are common in the 

 fall, we cannot find that the old Queens are in 

 spring any less prolific than in other localities. 

 Attain, is absence of brood in the spring the 

 fault of the Queen, or the fault of the bees in 

 not using the eggs laid? We think the latter, 

 for we have rarely found a Queen unable to 

 lay as many eggs in March and April as could 

 be cared for. 



PROBLEM NO. 25. 



^jpOVICE :— Will you please tell me what it costs a 



comb to feed bees to build them? Will it pay 



to feed sugar to build combs when you can buy 



combs at 25c each ? Mrs. L. Hakrisun'", Peoria, III. 



My bees were in good condition when the honey 

 harvest came, and 1 intended to take a nice quantity 

 of honey but when it was too late I found 1 had no 

 place for them to store it in, so I have to put up with 

 what box honey 1 can get, but I shall have more 

 combs another year. I had extra combs for two hives 

 and have taken "693 lbs. from them already and think 

 I will get a 100 more. Lewis Kelley, Sinyrnia. Mich. 



We wrote Mrs. H. that we though it might 

 cost about 50c each to get combs built by fee- 

 ding, which would make it cheapest to pur- 

 chase, but in that case we generally have the 

 trouble of transferring. An accurate solution 

 of this problem is attended with no little diffi- 

 culty, for whenever comb is built to advantage 

 we have brood-rearing and the syrup will be 

 stored in the comb more or less also. Besides, 

 if the bees are gathering nothing at all, they 

 decrease in weight a little every day, accord- 

 ingly enough for their support must be 

 taken into consideration. Who can report an 

 experiment that will give us approximately, 

 the expense per square foot of comb built by 

 bees feci on sugar? 



