1S79 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



185 



saw, and am going- to mike th" "Simon pure" chaff 

 hive. Many bees have been lost in this vicinity. 

 One "old bee man" now has + stocks left from over 

 50. Geo. W. Jones. 



West Bend, Wis., Apr. 8, 1879. 



I began the summer of '78 with 11 good and 6 lig-ht 

 swarms, increased to 2">, s >id 2 and took 1100 li> -. comb 

 and 200 lbs. of extracted h >ney. 1 h i ve whit ered suc- 

 cessfully again in my Ion? b >x, s > the bees are all in 

 good shape, packed with chaff. They commenced 

 work on flowers on the 2.ith of Mar. Do yon think we 

 can afford to lose the good reputation of our honey, 

 .iust for th:' sake of using a little cheap, grape sugar? 

 1 do not think th it any of it gets into the honey, but 

 neither you n >r any on i el3e can make the public be- 

 lieve it. a< I mar a3 it is u s id to feed bees with. 



Bl00mingd.il:?, Mich., Apr. H, '79. 



John crowfoot. 



I shall ba sorry, friend C. to be obliged to 

 gauge my work by what people may say, 

 even while I am conscious of having done no 

 wrong, but if I am obliged to succumb I 

 will try to do it with a goad grace. The 

 sama reason will apply to cans sugar; can- 

 not we use that for feeding either, even 

 should it prove safer than honey? 



DIFFERENCE IN COLOR OF (1RAPE SUGAR. 



Somebody remarked that the grape sugar 

 sent out of lite by the Davenport Co. was 

 whiter than formerly. We wrote in re- 

 gard to it, anil received the following: 



As tothe difference in color, we would say that we 

 have been, and are, continually trying- to improve, 

 and want to furnish an article that cannot be sur- 

 passed. All the purifying- is done now by animal 

 charcoal, no bleacher or ehemic il of any description 

 entering- the process for producing- appearance. 

 The animal charcoal removes the color and all im- 

 purities, and cannot leave any thing- in the sugar 

 that can make it unhealthy. It is in this filtration 

 that we have improved, and hence the chang-ed ap- 

 pearance. Lours P. Best, Supt. 



D.ivenp>rt, Iowa, Feb. 1879. 



MAKING COLONIES WEAK NOT A PREVENTION OF 

 DRONE REARING, IN THE SOUTH. 



As far c.s this section is concerned, you are incor- 

 rect when, in last Glvaninqs, you say that one way 

 to prevent raising 1 drones is to weaken the stocks by 

 dividing-. I had drones hatched by the 12th of Feb., 

 in weak 2 and 3 frame nuclei, by queens hatched and 

 fertilized last Oct. and Nov. 



MAKING FDN. THICKER TO PREVENT SAGGING . 



I had from 800 to 1030 combs, built last summer, to 

 melt over on account of sag-ging- and drone raising- 

 in them. I shall make the base thicker hereafter, 

 as the thick fdn. does not sag- so much. 



TINNED WIRE FO R FDN. NOT A HINDRANCE TO BROOD 

 REARING. 



You suggest 1 hit a thick base of wax is nec- 

 essary for wired fdn., but I fail to se • the object, as 

 my bses clean the wax off from the wire on both sides, 

 and queens lay eggs touching the wire at the side, 

 and I find ^ome eggs laid on The wire. 



From whit I read, I think Betsinger did not mean 

 to say, as you give the impression in Gleanings, 

 that his copper rolls had anything to do with the 

 bees not accepting the wired fdn., but it was tin wire 

 that affected the brood after the fdn. was built out. 



With me, so far, tinned wire is a success. Bees 

 hatch as well in cells over the wire as in any of 

 my combs, and the cells are used again as well as at 

 first. Bees hatch all right even when the egg is laid 

 on the exposed wire. If the wired combs can be 

 kept in this season without affecting the wire, 1 

 shall consider the test complete, and shall use wire 

 in the brood chamber til.- all my Combs. ESigbl 

 wires to the frame is all 1 want, which takes about 7 

 ft. of wire lor each frame. 



Shrevep irt. La., Mar. 17, '79. ('. It. Cari.in. 



his patent and read over with a good deal of confi- 

 dence his right patent, and the protection which the 

 law gives him ; but it seems that lie found me a little 

 better posted than he expected, as he did not stop 

 l Hi 1 .:' to talk bee interests with me, but got in a dread- 

 ful hurry, gathered up his papers ami models, and 

 "lit out." 



I t ild him th it A. 1. K >ot. of Medina, was infring- 

 ing upon his right, and asked why he did not g-o for 

 him. He said a judgment against him would be 

 worth nothing. I told him he edits a paper, keeps 

 I >t> of b »e3, employs a great many hands carries 

 on a large business &c , and asked in whose name he 

 d >es b i <iu >ss if he is n >t responsible. He had no 

 more t> say. I stoppad him at the door to engage 

 some Italian queens pure from Kelly's Island. He 

 replied that he bad found th it raising queens did 

 not pay, and had quit th it business; so you see 1 got 

 no in ore satisfacti in from the interview than he did. 



Orangeville, Ohi >, April 14, '79. N. Case. 



WIRES FOR THE PREVENTION OF SAGGING IN FDN. 



I found the p ist su timer, that one wire stuck into 

 the top bar with a square awl, and rolled into the 

 fdn. with a roller the thickness of a cent, would 

 stop sagging, and the bees worked over it well. 

 They raised brood and stored 

 honey seeemingly as well as 

 though it was not there. 

 The wire was very fine, such 

 as used for hair flowers. I 

 think 2 wires would be bet- 

 ter, thus: 



I have tried th?m across, but they don't do as well; 

 the bees throw or work it out. James McLay. 



Madison, Wis., Feb. 3, 1879. 



Your idea, is a good one, friend M., and 

 since having my attention called to the mat- 

 ter, it has occurred to me that narrow strips 

 of tin foil will answer the same purpose; 

 they c in b ■ easily rolled in the fdn., but I 

 fear it will injure the mills, unless it 

 is those that make the flat bottomed fdn. 

 If we want combs more secure for shipping 

 bees and for extracting, it will be better to 

 have them extended clear across to the bot- 

 tom bus, on the plan I have given. 



AGE OF DRONES. 



Ttvo or three years since, I had a colony which 

 was qucenless in the fall. Drones were plenty in 

 that hive during the winter, and even in Mar. As 

 we seldom have brood of any kind here in Oct., the 

 drones must have been aim )it, if not fully, six 

 months old. 



Last year. I took nearly 700 lbs. of honey, mostly 

 extracted, from 11 stocks, and sold it at 12' ; cts. 



Acton, hid., April 15, '79. W. C. Hutchinson. 



MACHINE FOR PUTTING TOGETHER SECTIONS. 



I enclose a drawing of a machine I had made for 

 pressing sections tog-ether. I find I can work faster 

 with it than by hammering the dovetails together, es- 

 pecially, if they are a little tight. 11 is a piece 2% in. 

 square and exactly 4'4 in. long, mortised into A;D 

 is the same length and mortised into C; C is hinged 



at E;Fisaw len spring-; G, a strap of leather. 



Stick the section together just so they will hold, place 

 as shown at H, press on the lever, I ', and your box 

 is done. Try one of these clamps and I think you 

 will like it. They are very easily made and "no pat- 

 ent" Cyrus McQueen. 



Buena Vista, Apr., ]S79. 



MITCHELL. 



1 had a c ill from N. C. Mitchell, and learned from 

 him, and from some others sine-, that he has sold 

 about lure some 3 or 4 farm, and one county, rignt 

 for his hive. After introducing- himself, he took out 



BEES ATTACKING THEIR QUEEN. 



Looking- at one of my hives of bees, on the 8th, I 

 noticed that they were killing the queen, which had 

 been introduced last summer. They were picking 

 her out of a ball of bees. Three times I had to smoke 

 them with tobacco smoke before I could get them 



