182 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



my money is 30 or 40 lbs. of sealed honey in 

 American frames, and a lot of kindling wood. 

 They died with dysentery. Had they been 

 pnt on a few combs, and packed all around 

 with chaff, I think it would have saved 

 them; but I had an idea, that very strong 

 colonies would do well any way, even if they 

 were in large open hives. It may be that it 

 was the stores they had, and I will write to- 

 day, and see if the man of whom they were 

 Purchased lost in a similar way. I know 

 fussing with bees after cold weather often 

 seems to have the effect of starting dysenter- 

 y. but as these were shipped me during nice 

 pleasant weather, I can hardly think that 

 the cause, in this case. The cheap fdn. 

 machine is in progress. 



"what killed 'em?" 



I see from April Gleanings that you have lost 

 heavily in bees. I, too, have lost heavily, 30 out of 

 150, more than I have lost in the previous 16 years 

 of my bee-keeping. I feel awfully guilty. I try to 

 ease my conscience by saying 1 to myself, "It's dysen- 

 tery and spring- dwindling," but 'tis no such thing; 

 it's pure carelessness. 1 took a trip off south, and 

 the big snow came and covered the little pets all up 

 (which was all right), and then my kind friends took 

 it off the hives, and opened up the entrances to give 

 them air, and they got it; and now, partly in conse- 

 quence, 30 are dead. Had I put them in the cellar 

 as I have done in former years, I have not a doubt 

 but 25 out of the 30 would now be alive. The old 

 double cased hive that I put bees into in 1868, again 

 wintered well. I used to write you about this hive; 

 your reply was that doubled cases had been tried 

 and were a failure, and now you advocate chaff 

 hives. T. G. McGaw. 



Monmouth, Ills., April 10, '79. 



FOOT AND HAND POWER SAWS. 



Having had some experience in making Simplicity 

 hives by hand, I concluded that I could make them 

 not only faster but better, with some kind of a foot- 

 power saw; so I went to work and made one partly 

 after the plan of Smith's and partly from Hutchin- 

 son's (described in Nov. and Dec. Gleanings), and 

 the rest of the ideas were my own and the carpen- 

 ter's that helped me build the machine. The tread- 

 le shaft has a crank on each end, and the treadle 

 was arranged the same as the Hutchinson saw, but, 

 as the machine was new and geared rather fast 

 (about 48 revolutions of the saw to one of the tread- 

 le), I concluded to apply the power in some other 

 manner, so that one could run the saw while anoth- 

 er did the feeding. I arranged two levers to come 

 up behind with a cross piece framed on about breast 

 high, then connected the pitmen two feet from the 

 bottom, to run forward to the cranks on the treadle 

 shaft, By taking hold of the cross piece and work- 

 ing it back and forth, it applies the power both ways 

 on the cranks, and is much nicer exercise than it 

 isto tread; itanswersthe place of dumb-bells admir- 

 adly. If all the machines run as hard as mine, and a 

 man would pump it 3 or 4 hours each day, for a few 

 months, it would develop his muscular powers 

 amazingly, and cure dyspepsia too. 



1 commenced wintering 10 colonies, but, alas! 8 are 

 dead. There is, however, no great loss without some 

 little gain; they have left me 8 sets of comb, and 

 lots of honey, so I think I can build up to 10 again by 

 using thrifty Italian queens, and giving them the 

 proper care during the summer. 



Pierpont, O., April 10, 1879. 



Jessie c. Thompson. 



RED BUD, CATCHING STRAY SWARMS, ETC. 



Will it be out of place to send in another bee re- 

 port? My bees are having a grand time on the red 

 bud now; 'all other bloom was killed by the frost 

 last week, I.wish you could see my R. Bud trees now, 

 (I have several hundred of them) all covered with 

 flowers and roaring with bees. I never saw bees 

 work better in May, even the robbers stopped nos- 

 ing about and went to work. If we can have a few 

 more days of fair weather I will be able to send you 

 a sample of Red Bud honey; I want to know what 

 you think of it. I wrote you in my last that I had 

 lost two olonies. A few days after that, three 



colonies came to me to be taken care of, and I did it. 

 One, I doubled in with a weak one of my own; the 

 other two, I doubled up and gave some combs of 

 honey; now they are doing their best to repay me, 

 so you see I haven't lost much after all. 

 Jonesboro, Ills., April 9th, '79. W. J. Willard. 



ITALIANS AND COMMON BEES. 



I commenced keeping bees one year ago this 

 spring. I bought 2 swarms of black bees, sent to 

 friend Sayles of Hartford, Wis., for 2, dollar queens, 

 and introduced them all right. One was not as good 

 as he wished, so he sent me another; was not that 

 liberal? All proved good. I made a nucleus with 

 the extra queen and all are doing well. From my 

 2 old hives, I took 100 lbs. of nice honey. 



Give me Italian bees rather than blacks. Last 

 season was my first year, but I find that side by side, 

 Italians will work earlier and later, and make more 

 honey, and of a nicer quality, especially in the fall; 

 while my black bees were bringing in black honey, 

 the Italians were making a good quality of honey 

 but a shade darker than white clover honey. I in- 

 troduced my queens just after swarming; is not 

 that a good time to introduce Italian queens? 



Mindoro, Wis., Mar. 11, '78. O. A. Sisson. 



It is a very good time to introduce 

 queens after swarming, only that you have 

 to go through with the process with your 

 new swarms also. 



AMOUNT OF HONEY CONSUMED IN WINTERING, 

 GRAPE SUGAR, ETC. 



Out of the 80 stocks of bees reported last Nov. as 

 packed in chaff on their summer stands, but 2 were 

 lost in winter. Those contracted to 4 frames are 

 doing equally well with those having more room. 

 The average amount of honey consumed by them is 

 a little less than 14 lbs. Those supplied with grape 

 sugar in frames lived from September to the first 

 freezing weather in December, when they died. I 

 have experimented with grape sugar 2 years, and 

 now I believe it to be entirely valueless to apiarians 

 except, perhaps, for stimulative feeding in spring, 

 and even for that it is no cheaper than other sug-ars, 

 owing to the large quantity of water it contains. 

 On the whole, you may record my vote against its 

 use. J. B. Haines. 



Uedford, Ohio, April 12, '79. 



SWARMING OUT IN SPRING AND REMEDY. 



1 see that W. P. Turner and L. B. Wolf have been 

 troubled with their bees swarming out. In the 

 spring of '74, my bees swarmed out in the same way. 

 They had plenty of honey and brood, and I would 

 cage the queen, and they would swarm out and 

 leave her. I would give them new combs with hon- 

 ey and brood, and a new clean hive, and they would 

 swarm all the same. As for the cause, I cannot ac- 

 count for it, unless they were discouraged and left for 

 better quarters. The only way I could stop them was 

 to go to some populous stock and take a comb that 

 had some brood in it, with all the bees that were 

 clustered on the comb, being careful not to get the 

 queen with them, and unite them with the stock 

 that swarmed out, and then confine them for 48 

 hours, being careful not to smother them. After 

 that I never had any more trouble with their swarm- 

 ing out. 



I went into winter quarters with 37 stocks of bees 

 and now have 36 stocks in good condition. I have 

 wintered 2 stocks in chaff hives for two winters, 

 with good success. More than % of the bees around 

 here are dead. G. W. Siggins. 



East Hickory, Penn., April 14, '79. 



The above agrees exactly with my experi- 

 ence, and the remedy given is the only one 

 I have ever found effectual. 



FLORIDA AND HOW TO WINTER BEES THERE. 



An A B C i cfaolar in Florida desires to make his re- 

 port. 



Last October, I purchased, in Jacksonville, Fla., 

 6 swarms of Italians in the "Florida" hive. 8 frames 

 18x11 in. The frames were then partly filled with 

 comb, but there was not a pound of honey in the 6 

 hives. During the winter, whenever the weather 

 was favorable, the bees would be out gathering- 

 stores. On examining my hives I now find that 

 the frames are nearly all filled with brood and hon- 



