136 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Not. 



S^aiVUIEN OKCHARUS. 



■srii^VlOAll XOVICE:— It is too bad to tlnow (.-old 

 jsjl [Sjj water on any of your blight aulieipatioiip, but 1 

 ^~f am moved to undertake the thankless task. 

 Vol! are liuilding upon the jirospect ol' a speedy yield 

 from your basswood orciiard from the fact that there 

 were a few Ijlossoms this year. Now any old horti- 

 '.ultiirist will tell you iliat"u-raong a large number of 

 treeb there will an* occasional one blossom, and per- 

 haps fruit (luite young, and yet the majoriiy show no 

 signs of bUioni foV several years. In a pear orcliard ot 

 .i50 trees 1 liad one blossom two years ago, and the 

 two succeeding summers not a blossom. Another 

 iiore truit last year and this year, but no other tree 

 has borne. Thc'probability is that some local 'cause 

 lias acted to hasten maturity in the lew trees which 

 bloomed, if you will go out this week and dig a cir- 

 cle around one of your young basswoods, and cut olf 

 ail the roots with a sharp spade, not near enough of 

 lourre to destroy the tree, you will be likely to find 

 blossoms on that tree next year. 



If your orchard is planted close, as I think it is, 

 with "a view of thinning out as the trees grow, you 

 can make a practical use of this knowledge, as is 

 sometimes done with large commercial fruit orchards, 

 yuppose the trees are jilanted thus: 



with the view of eventually tliinning out all the o's 

 and ii'aving only the i's standing. The o's can liave 

 ilieir growth checked by root jiruning and be thus 

 tiirowii into bearing sooner than they otherwise 

 woidd, whilst the i"s are growing and getting ready 

 t(i occupy the ground. This root pruning can be done 

 most cheaply by running a sharp plow along the row 

 ilirowioga couple of furrows from the trees and then 

 )-,inniug the inow in the Ijottom of the last furrow 

 next the trees. By taUmg every other row in this 

 wav both north and south, and east and west, you will 

 see" that all the trees but the i's will ue root pruned. 

 Now I don't say that 1 ever saw a basswood orchard 

 treated in this way, but 1 know it works with ajjple 

 tree-, and 1 tJihik it would with uasswood. 



Tiie two swarms 1 got trom Adam Urimm have not 

 had a very lair chance, but have shown themselves 

 good stock. One young swarm made from one of 

 iheiu, having raised its own <Jueen and being sup- 

 plied with empty comb and some brood, tilled a two 

 story hive aii<t sent out a swarm. Wo a young l^ueen 

 IS mj preventive of swarming with tJiat breed of bees. 



The '"Novice" honey kniie works very nicely and 

 saveo time where there is a large Hat surlace to un- 

 cap. 



An unusual amount of buckwheat in my locality 

 has made my bees rather wild on the swarming ques- 

 tion, so in spite of me I now have 40 colonies. 



IJ. !ji:NUKi;r;i:, Chicago, Ills., Aug. ISth, '75. 

 . Very likely yoti are right, fviciKl "L.," for 

 we «Vri employ a masi to spade around the trees 

 a year ago last spring, aud he did it so well 

 that he actually killed one of them. 



As the principal part of our linden honey 

 comes from the vicinity of our plantation, we 

 liave good rettsons for starting a house Apiary 

 there, even before it is in l^loom. Our 

 trees were planted with a view of thinning out 

 as you suggest, but they are planted hexagon- 

 ally, like tiie hives in the plan of the Apiary as 

 given on page 25, Vol. 1. ; this arrangement 

 occupies all the space to much better advan- 

 tage than planting them in stiuares. 



OVK MWN AS-^IAKY. 



'T. ith. — The yellow C. sugar, fed in tlie 

 open air, works beautifully so far as 



keeping robbers employed, is concerned. It i 

 a great relief indeed to be able to work righ 



along withotit smoke when preparing tliem for 

 winter. The dry sugar steins to work precise- 

 ly as does meal feeding; they hum as merrily 

 over it as if it were clover blossoms, and are 

 so intent on it that they will hover over it 

 when a handful is held out to them with as 

 peaceful a lium as one might wish to hear, but 

 if a. single cujjful of water be sprinkleil on It, 

 the tune is changed at once, and robbers pour 

 In from all sides In an Incredibly short space 

 of time, indicating by the raised note that 

 peaceful industry is at an end ; the fierce pas- 

 sion for rapid accumulation of gains, it may 

 be at the expense of the downfall and some- 

 times even the death of their fellows, is stri- 

 kingly human, and affords a fair illustration 

 of the depravity that results from making 

 riches the sole end aud aim in life. 



Although we keep the sugar covered, the 

 dampness occasioned by the night air is sufh- 

 cient to start the rol)bing note, and even a sin- 

 gle spoonful of honey will, after they have 

 once been started, cause such a commotion 

 that many bees will be Jiilled in trying to gel. 

 into other hives. In the house Apiary we 

 have the feeders placed next the wall, aud all 

 we have to do in feeding is to go arouud with 

 our coffee-pot — no covers or anything of the 

 kind in the way. Well, we have once or twice 

 incautiously left the door open, and the rob- 

 bers evidently consider this house Apiary a 

 "mine of sweetness," by the way they now 

 attempt to crowd in, and try to force d way 

 through those same "auger-holes," when any 

 robbing is afoot. 



The very best workers we have had this sea- 

 son aud last, have been the hybrids from the 

 daughters of our imported Queen. Every one 

 of them has ample stores for winter without 

 feeding, and yet they had so many bees that 

 we divided them all about Sept. 1st. Now 

 some of the new colonies reared Queens of 

 their own as we have mentioned on page 124, 

 and we had decided to kill these Queens and • 

 unite the stocks with others, but to-day on 

 looking them over — these hybrids always have 

 had a way of intimating that they did uot re- 

 quire any of our assistance in their house- 

 keeping aftairs — we were astonished to liud 

 Iheni large colonies of bees with abundant 

 stores, and an amount of brood that was as- 

 tonishing, and this at a time when we liud- 

 hives full of bees of the old yellow stock that 

 have not an ounce of honey. Now if we were 

 to make a business of rearing Queeus for sale, 

 we should probably do wrong to keep such 

 stock, but as we do not, but rather are trying 

 to raise bees that will stand our winters, we 

 shall keep such colonies as gather most hon- 

 ey, even if they are dark, and as cross as the 

 Egyptians, when there is nothing for them 

 to do. 



Oct. oth.—Wc have had several line days 

 since the frosts, and now the bees are aban- 

 iloning the sugar and are bringing in loads of 

 different colored pollen, particularly the dark 

 green, which we think must be from the red 

 clover, for we tasted it and it certainly is noc 

 propolis this tiiue, any way. 



We are sure now that bees can get pollen 

 nniny times when they will uot. Colonies 

 haviiig young late Queens are bringing it in 

 briskly,\vhilc the old stocks are bringing none. 



