1874 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



143 



Italy For it, but we will stop now if we can only winter 

 those we have ; still our success in the past makes us 

 feel hopeful. 



Novice asks the question "caunot bees almost al- 

 ways gather pollen, when the weather is warm 

 •enough ? " I answer yes, our two colonies containing 

 •our best Italian Queens, which we have been feeding 

 to stimulate breeding, were gathering- pollen yester- 

 day and the day before, but 1 am afraid this is a bad 

 omen, they have used up all their supply of pollen I 

 fear, ami have none on hand for winter. And now I 

 shall propose a problem: Can bees be wintered suc- 

 cessfully without anv pollen ? Ila Michener. 



Low Banks, Ontario, Can. Nov. 9th, 1874. 



We will call above Problem 25. Who tells ? 



DEAR "NOVICE":— I suppose you must "mean 

 me," in your remarks on pictures in the Nov. No., no 

 matter which horn of the dilemma I take hold of ; I 

 therefore herewith send you my Photo. I also send 

 you Mrs. Lane's because", 1st, they were both on the 

 same card, and secondly, because she and I have run 

 this institution including the little "buzz" all by our- 

 selves, this season, and therefore I hope the pictures 

 may prove equally acceptable. 



Last spring we "had 34 colonies, and we now have 72 

 *'such as they are." We are such "old fogies" that we 

 run the Apiary exclusively for box honey, and we 

 have secured "only '2409 lbs. Whether these results 

 constitute a success or not "this deponent saith not." 

 D. P. Lane, Koshkonong, Wis. Nov. 7th, i874. 



The "Photo's" are coming in quite plentiful- 

 ly and 'tis amusing to see how differently our 

 friends look many of them, from what 

 we had judged by their letters. For instance : 

 who would suppose from the light boyish tone 

 of friend L's letters that he was so far on life's 

 road as to show streaks of gray. May we all 

 grow old as cheerfully. 



Send along the Photo's of the "better halves" 

 too, by all means, whenever they assist at bee- 

 keeping or bee-losing either, for that matter, 

 they are certainly entitled to join our throng. 



A trifle over 64 lbs. of box honey per colony 

 besides more than doubling the stock ought to 

 be success sufficient to satisfy almost any one. 



Several half barrels of Clover honey already crys- 

 talized. Do you know of any way to* get it out with- 

 out taking the barrel head oiit ? 



G. C. Miller, Mt. Hanley, Nova Scotia. Nov. 2nd. 



See page 60, May No. 



Mr. ROOT : — Please permit a humble "perusaler," 

 of your paper to bid you God speed in your task of 

 airing humbugs and "swindles. And great may be 

 your reward for taking right hold of mastifl's as "well 

 as little curs, is the prayer of one who appreciates 

 "Gleanings" and despises humbuggers. 



Yours truly, L. B. Hogue, Loydsville, O. 



FRIEND NOVICE :— Frank Langdon, of Kirkwood, 

 N. Y., had one stock of Italians that tilled two 50 lb. 

 cases of small frames, and he made one stock from it. 

 About the first of June I fixed up 4 stocks of hybrid 

 bees for Roswell Lump, Binghampton, N. Y., they 

 were in Langstroth hives, but many combs were built 

 crooked. I told the boys to take off the sticks in two 

 or three days, and I suppose they were never opened 

 after the sticks were removed. They tell me one hive 

 filled twenty three 6 lb. boxes, besides swarming once. 

 That beats me. 



As you seem to have had some trouble about divis- 

 ion boards, I will tell you how I made some to winter 

 two nuclei in one hive ; take some lath such as we use 

 to make small frames, k inch thick by \ l 4 wide, cut 

 two pieces (ends) long enough to reach from the bot- 

 tom of the hive up to the quilts, cut one piece (bottom) 

 the length of the hive inside; and one piece (top) the 

 length of the hive over the rabbet, and notch the 

 lower edge so as to lit the rabbet ; Now take some old 

 woolen cloth hard twisted and close woven, nail all 

 together with cigar box tacks and clinch and tack on 

 to the frame, and you have a division board, that the 

 bees will cluster up against, that will not warp or 

 shrink and will give each the benefit of the heat from 

 the other. J. P. Moore. 



Binghampton, N. Y. Nov. 3rd, 1874. 



Thankn for the suggestion. We think such 

 a division board might be made to "keep tight," 



and they would be light and neat to handle. 

 Another thing, in using these for strong stocks 

 they could not be gummed down so firmly as 

 to be almost a fixture. We have never known 

 bees to s;naw woolen cloth. 



REPORT OF MICHIGAN APIARY FOR 1874. 



Began with 48 stocks in good condition. Have in- 

 creased to 55 and taken not less than 8500 lbs. of sur- 

 plus, only 1000 of which was comb honey. I have, as 

 you well know, started a "Honey House" on a small 

 scale for the purpose of selling my own crop, but have 

 met with such good success, that I shall handle about 

 20.000 lbs. before next season. Have already bought 

 the crop of several Michigan bee-keepers, but shall 

 try in future to raise all the honey I can handle. Hope 

 all bee-keepers will retail their own honey, thus cre- 

 ating a greater demand for it. Our home demand has 

 increased fivefold since I started an Apiary here. 



James Heddon, Dowagiac, Mich. Nov. 5th, 1874. 



Mr. ROOT, Dear Sir:- 1 will send you by to-mor- 

 row's mail, a Queen. I would like your opinion as to 

 purity and value. I bought her (a dollar Queen) of a 

 breeder well known to you and re commended by you. 

 She may be pure but I would't give away such a Queen 

 if I cared for my reputation. Iliad her in a strong 

 colony about a week and as she didn't lay any I re- 

 moved her to a nucleus. She laid a few eggs soon 

 after that. I don't wish to spoil a stock by using her. 

 You can oo what you please with her. I presume she 

 will be dead, but you can judge something about her, 

 she is the smallest Queen I ever saw. 



E. Kimpton, Cedar Creek, N. Y. Nov. 6th, 1S74. 



The Queen came to hand alive and is cer- 

 tainly small, but our friend should remember 

 that all Queens generally look small and in- 

 significant in Nov., also that they usually lay 

 but few if any eggs either in Oct. or Nov. 

 Please remember also that selling Queens for 

 $1.00 is pretty close business, and if occasion- 

 ally one should prove poor it is no more than 

 we might expect. When orders are crowding, 

 we often ship a Queen as soon as she has laid 

 her first dozen eggs, and consequently we have 

 no means of knowing what they will prove to 

 be. At the same time we hope none of our 

 Queen rearers have been guilty of selling 

 Queens from other than choice pure mothers, 

 and from cells that were well supplied with 

 royal jelly. The Queen in question was so te- 

 nacious of life that she lived several clays 

 in the green house after the bees with her had 

 died. She might have lived longer had we not 

 (regretfully) pinched her life away. 



A. I. ROOT & Co., Sirs :— The Wormwood has been 

 of great service to me this season, especially in those 

 hives used for extracting. A little of the smoke blown 

 among the combs drives nearly all the bees down into 

 the lower story, then by the use of a brush made of 

 White Cedar boughs tied together, the combs are 

 ready for the extractor as soon as one could wish ; the 

 smoke does not seem to stupify or injure them in the 

 least. One brush of Cedar boughs has lasted through 

 the honey season. This has been a poor season for 

 box honey but have had a good yield from a few hives 

 on which the extractor was used. I do not know that 

 anv of your readers feel as I do about the reports of 

 such large yields of box honey from J. P. Moore, 

 Binghampton, N. Y., ami others in his vicinity. I am 

 very anxious to know what kind of hives are used and 

 how managed to secure such results. Perhaps he is 

 flooded with Inquiries and I am waiting and hoping 

 that all the particulars will come before the pub- 

 lic without making him too much trouble. We cannot 

 all go there to get the information but it might be 

 worth many dollars to some of us, if we knew all the 

 particulars", such as size of hives, size of brood cham- 

 ber, comb frames, honey boxes, and way of access to 

 boxes etc. A. C. Hooker, Middlebury, Vt. 



Friend Moore we think will be happy to as- 

 sist in any way he can, but we fear 'tis not 

 every one who can succeed as do he and 

 Doolittle, even had they their locality. 



