102 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 



few hives for years, and I have taken, on an aver- 

 age, 100 lbs. to a hive in the season, and in the mid- 

 dle of a township situated on the sea coast. 



Isaac Hopkins. 

 Grahamstown, New Zealand, Jan. 5, 1879. 



NAILING HIVES WITHOUT CJAUGE FRAMES; FDN. 

 BREAKING DOWN, KOBBING, ETC. 



The hives I sent for last season, came to hand in 

 just the right time. The bees were swarming-, and i 

 had got down to the list hive, when they came. I 

 put up the 10 in one day and had no gauge frames to 

 hold them while I nailed them. I nailed 2 cleats to 

 the floor to hold one end. and had a clamp to hold the 

 top or other end. I am no carpenter, and your all- 

 wood frames had to be nailed to make them stick 

 together. The express charges on 10 hives were 

 $4,10; high, I thought. 



The fdn. in the brood chamber broke down badly, 

 and put my bees back instead of helping them. 

 First swarms, hot weather, and honey coming fast 

 was the reason. I took platefuls of broken down 

 combs from hives. 



1 put 2 queen cells in the upper story, above the 

 brood frames, and they hatched all rig-tit. One of 

 the best queens I have, was raised from larvae that 

 you sent me. 



How to stop robbing-: I put a sheet over the hive 

 and tuck it around, which keeps all in that are in, 

 and those out that are out, and those inside can 

 not feed honey through it. I keep them there until 

 evening with no danger of smothering the bees. 

 You can feed a weak stock inside of a sheet, on the 

 alighting board. Thomas Bickerton. 



West Elizabeth, Pa., Feb. 6, 18T9. 



Your plan of nailing the hives, unless you 

 are very careful, will not insure them all of 

 an exact size and shape, so certainly as will 

 the gauge frames. 



If your fdn. was securely fastened to the 

 top bars, and then broke down, it must have 

 been made of a rather soft lot of wax. Dark 

 wax from old combs, of a greenish shade, 

 we have found to stand the hot sun rather 

 better than the light yellow wax. We now 

 sort our wax so as to have the lightest made 

 into drone comb for the sections, and the 

 darker for brood combs. 



Hives in the flat should always be ordered 

 by freight. A similar plan to stop robbing 

 is given in another place. I would not trust 

 too much to it. Where they are robbing fee- 

 bly, grass or bushes put around the hive, or 

 a pane of glass set up before the entrance, 

 will often induce the robbers to go home. 



A MINISTER'S trials. 



Brother Whitman (who had 23 hives of bees) gave 

 me one of his best swarms in an old fashioned box 

 hive. After he had taken out a number of the plugs 

 on top, he covered the holes with tine wire, and also 

 covered a space above the entrance holes in the 

 same manner. He then brought the bees and my 

 wife and myself home, 28 miles. We cam- in a very 

 easy spring wagon, and when we reached home the 

 bees were very active, and to all appearance doing 

 as well as possible. 



I put them in my cellar, and examined them care- 

 fully. Bro. W. told me to leave the wires on the 

 ventilating holes, as he thought they would have an 

 abundance of air. They were put in the cellar Sat- 

 urday night; on Monday, they were very busy hum- 

 ming in the hive; on examining them on Wednes- 

 day, alas! they were dead! the air holes all closed up 

 with their little bodies! 



Be sure, my brother, this was a sad disappoint- 

 ment to us, and as wife said, it was hard to keep the 

 tears back. On opening the hive, I found them all 

 wet and black; no combs were broken; they were 

 smothered. There was a peck of bees, a good deal 

 of young brood, and many young bees that would 

 have come out in a few days, and honey to keep 

 them till spring. They had made 116 lbs. of section 

 honev last season. Rev. C. Smith. 



Plover, Wis., Feb. 6, 18T9. 



We give the above as a warning to our 

 readers to be careful about giving too little 

 ventilation. With a strong colony of bees, 

 such as the one described, either the whole 

 top or the whole bottom of the hive should 

 have been covered with wire cloth, even in 

 cold weather. 



"OOING IT BLIND." 



1 went it blind last yenr, and got 1200 lbs. of box 

 honey, from 25 stocks. They increased to 31 only, 

 and are all in good condition. I have 3 Italian 

 queens, but my former lot are all hybrids. I bought 

 1 queen some 4 years ago, and paid $10. I found 

 that was too high for bees, quit all that foolishness, 

 and am trying to live a more moderate life. I do 

 not doubt but the Italians are best, but I find, if you 

 keep stocks strong, that there's where the secret 

 lies. 



EXTRACTING FROM BROOD COMBS. 



Do you think it best to use the extractor on the 

 brood combs? O. L. Magkuder. 



Bardstown, Ky., Jan. 31, 1879. 



I do not know, my friend, but I should "go 

 it blind" again, as you seem to have done 

 so well. 



I would not, as a general thing, extract 

 from the brood combs at all, and if I did, I 

 would do so only in the fore part of the sea- 

 son. If your hive has but one story, extract 

 from the outside frames, where there is gen- 

 erally no brood, and from those containing 

 but little brood. If the hive is broad enough, 

 the outside frames take the place, in a meas- 

 ure, of the frames in the upper story. 



INTRODUCING QUEENS TO ARTIFICIAL COLONIES. 



Mr. West, author of a "Guide to Bee-Keeping," 



says he never knew a queen to be lo-sf, if introduced 

 to an artificial swarm, in the following way. Take 

 as many frames as you want, with the adhering 

 bees, from the same number of hives; put them in 

 anew hive, and then introduce the queen to the 

 new colony. I think it would work well. Let me 

 have your opinion or judgment on it, in March 

 Gle*nino<5. J.F.Edwards. 



Sebree, Ky., Feb. 12, 1879. 



In consequence of our buying so many 

 queens last season from our Southern 

 friends, we had, perhaps, a better opportu- 

 nity than any other apiarist has ever had, of 

 giving the different modes of introducing 

 queens a very thorough test. We intro- 

 duced them in our own apiary, by several 

 different methods, one of which was the one 

 you have described. While we found it 

 generally successful, it sometimes seemed 

 to give more trouble than any other. We 

 remember once keeping a queen caged four 

 weeks, before the colony, made up of frames 

 from different hives, would accept her. 



As I have said before, I know of no infal- 

 lible method, without- close watching both 

 before and after the queen is released. 



CUTTING BEE-TREES AND TRANSFERRING IN WINTER, 

 AND HOW A BEE CARRIES PROPOLIS. 



I helped to cut a bee-tree on the 16th of Jan.. and 

 got some honey and a fine swarm of bees. After 

 losing a pint or more that fell in the snow, I brought 

 the little fellows home, and put them on 5 American 

 frames partly filled with their own comb. I then 

 gave them a box containing about 6 lbs. of sealed 

 honey. 



About the first of this month, I examined them 

 to see what they were doing, and found all the hon- 

 ey and most of the comb gone out of the box. I 

 lifted one of the frames out, and was surprised at 

 the work they had done, in repairing old and build- 

 ing new combs. The wax came from the box given 

 them, I suppose. 



I found larvae all the way from the egg to sealed 

 brood, proving the presence of the queen, which I 

 was glad to know, as I saw nothing of her in trans- 

 ferring. 



