132 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Not. 



DEAR NOVICE :— Last year I bought two young 

 colonies of hybrids, bringing each home in the eve- 

 ning of the day on which it swarmed. One staved, 

 the other "cut sticks" for the woods, next day. The 

 contented one nearly tilled its hive by fall, when I 

 took out one frame of honey ami equalised the distan- 

 ces between the others, 'and laying two grooved 

 sticks across them for passages for the bees, put on 

 the quilt, leaving off the cap, and put them in the 

 cellar. They came out in good condition in the spring, 

 ami a large swarm issued on the 18th of June; ami 

 supposing that to be glory enough for one vear, I es- 

 sayed t<> destroy all but one; of the Queen "cells, but 

 found the "sell" to be the other way, as another swarm 

 rushed out in due time, when I again examined all 

 the frames while the swarm hung from a bough, find- 

 ing several cells more, and thinking it a sure thing 

 this time, returned the swarm to the old hive. But in 

 a day or two a swarm sallied forth somewhat larger 

 than the other, when I gave up "beat"' and hived 

 them. They vied with the other colonies in numbers 

 and industry. 



On the 13th of July, finding the old hive pretty well 

 tilled, I took out the frame which was returned in the 

 spring empty, but now filled with white clover honey, 

 replaced it again empty, and adjusted a set of small 

 frames for surplus, made according to directions of 

 Mr. Burch in B. K. M., of last year. And as the first 

 -warm had almost kept pace with the old one, I pla- 

 ced boxes the same way over that, furnished with 

 pieces of nice comb by wav of a gentle hint for the 

 bees, expecting both frames and boxes to be tilled 

 with the sweets of clover, as the pastures and road- 

 side were profusely be-decked with its nectar-bearing 

 flowers. It was confidently believed at any rate, as 

 both colonies had atreadv so nearly filled the bodies 

 of their hives, that when Buckwheat burst into bloom 

 the receptacles would no longer remain empty, as 

 some two acres of that melliferous plant had "been 

 sown within 100 rods, while no other bees were nearer 

 than a mile, and but 5 or stands within bee distance. 



Hut no signs of labor had appeared in the consecra- 

 ted receptacles when your Aug. number came to 

 hand containing the following sentence: "if our 

 friend will excuse the liberty, we would advise him to 

 put his surplus receptacles where neither he nor his 

 bees will ever see them more." This had reference to 

 a verdant question of mine about receptacles, ami 

 was a severe damper on my faith, but which I lind to 

 have been sound advice, as the receptacles are still 

 empty, Sept. 15, and the buckwheat nearly played out; 

 but as what we call Spanish needles— the pest of the 

 corn field-are in full blast and the bees after them, 1 

 will let the frames and boxes alone a few days longer, 

 that the bees may remain the party found wanting. 



The bees have persisted in lounging about the en- 

 trances in large numbers, a few have been moping 

 through the frames and boxes, and 1 know not how 

 many have been inside, sanctimoniously "loafing 

 around the throne." 



Should my bees survive the coming wiuter, I intend 

 to transfer the old colony to a hive like those occu- 

 pied by the young ones, thus having all frames of 

 a uniform size and shape, and send to you for an ex- 

 tractor to match. 



Stephen Young, Mechanicsville, Iowa. 



From the dollar Queen I got of you last fall, I have 

 raised 60 Queens the last seafron, and each one 

 is a duplicate of its mother, and not one of 

 them produces a black bee. with thousands of black 

 and hybrid drones around. The same Queen produ- 

 ced 1-26 lbs. of box honey the past season besides. 

 Also add for Adair's special benefit that all her wings 

 are cut close to her body and that she has five legs, as 

 the bees "hugged" her in June so she drew one leg 

 behind her and I cut it oft' to have it out of the wav. 

 Would not take 325.00 for her to-day. 



G. M. Doouttlk, Borodino, N. Y. Oct. 5th, 1874. 



Some of the Journals, (the World especially) 

 seem to have had grave doubts of the possibility 

 of the dollar Queens proving equal to the high- 

 er priced ones, and considerable pains has been 

 taken to caution the public against them. 

 That Queens hatched by artificial heat would 

 prove fully equal to others, of course we had 

 no means of determining only by experiment; 

 accordingly we have anxiously awaited reports 

 from them. Not a single unfavorable one has 

 come* to hand that we know of, and the one 

 mentioned by Mr. Quinby in Sept. No., as well 

 as the one above, were both hatched in the 



Lamp nursery, for we sold no others. 



Eighty-eight stocks Italians, all full, from 17. June 

 1st. Every Queen's wing clipped. Kaise Queen . - 

 soon as she lays, fill up with combs— brood Iron 

 strong hives —Champion hives. 



E. l). Godfrey, Red Oak, Iowa. 



The above came on half a postal card, but 

 we presume our practical beekeepers will find 

 it perfectly intelligible. Pretty well done even 

 if there was no surplus, was it not? 



C. Wurster of Kleinbuvg, Ontario, Canada, 

 writes quite a lengthy article detailing his loss 

 of Queens, while extracting, and in spite of 

 various precautions. He says : 



I lost one or two Queens from 15 stocks at every 

 operation. I extract every three days; in the midst 

 of a flow of honey giving from 5 to 15 lbs. per hive, pet- 

 day, this is no small loss as you well knew. 



We certainly do know, for in our earlier ex- 

 periments we did lose a few, perhaps three or 

 four in a season, out of 40 colonies. The sea- 

 son after, we made up our mind that this must 

 be remedied, and accordingly, put our hives 

 directly on the ground, cleaned away all grass 

 and turf, and with sawdust, fixed each hive so 

 that no crack or crevice remained that a Queen 

 or young bee could by any mistake crawl into. 

 Since then we have lost almost none at all 

 while extracting, and yet we never see the 

 Queen while handling the combs for this pur- 

 pose unless by accident. Opening hives when 

 there is a great disposition to rob, is liable 

 to cause demoralization of the colony and even 

 loss of the Queen ; so of late we have only 

 worked our extractor when the bees seemed 

 peaceable. When much robbing is going on. 

 you can take it for granted that "but little hon- 

 ey is being gathered, and therefore 'tis as well 

 to give up extracting for the time being. 



Friend W. inquires why it is that others say 

 nothing of similar troubles; we opine 'tis be- 

 cause they have their hives arranged as we 

 have mentioned. Having hives very close 

 together, will often result in loss of Queens, 

 simply because in extracting, some bees will 

 crawl into the wrong hive, and attack the 

 Queen before being aware that their unusual 

 upsetting has changed their locality. 



We have been inclined the past season to 

 decide that nearly all the parricidal attacks 

 which have been so frequently mentioned in 

 the Journals, have been caused by bees from 

 hives that were placed too near, getting in by 

 mistake, and that the stinging is after all not 

 parricide. 



We remarked this, on finding Queens thus 

 attacked most frequentlj r , where we used doub- 

 le hives with the entrances near each other, 

 and especially where we used wire cloth divis- 

 ion boards. We are inclined to think the 

 trouble with friend Ws bees much owing to 

 his having placed his hives too near each oth- 

 erf; we judge this because he says the trouble 

 was the same, even when the frame contain- 

 ing the Queen was left in the hive without 

 extracting. With hives arranged as far apart 

 as the}' are given in the Hexagonal Apiary, we 

 think no such trouble will be experienced. 



When they are first set out in the spring, 

 there is quite a tendency for them to get into 

 neighboring hives, and accordingly we fre- 

 quently hear of bees hugging or killing their 

 Queens at such seasons. 



