206 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



June 



ter quarters, it was very populous and in a splendid 

 condition in every respect. The next fall, I had 4 

 colonies, which I wintered in the same way, with the 

 same success; the next fall, 11; the next, 18. After 

 four winter's experience, I am satisfied that this 

 plan is a success. I have lost but one colony since I 

 adopted this plan of wintering, and that had moldy 

 combs, and was in a very bad condition when put 

 into winter quarters. I have never been able to de- 

 tect any moisture about the sawdust at any time, 

 and I should be slow in exchanging- it for any other 

 material. By leaving the bees in their winter cover- 

 ing till warm weather has fairly set in, brood rear- 

 ing is not checked by cold snaps. If 1 wish to ex- 

 amine a oolony in early spring, I remove the saw- 

 dust from the top of the hive, and in its place use a 

 thick sawdust cushion. Boxes with movable tops 

 and no bottoms are preferable. Ch?.ff may be just 

 as good as sawdust, but I cannot conceive how it 

 can be any better in any respect. 



John S. Dewey. 

 Spring Lake, Mich., Apr. 25, 1879. 



So many have reported succeeding excel- 

 lently with saw dust in place of chaff, that I 

 think we shall have to consider it good, even 

 if it is not quite as good as chaff. One ob- 

 jection I have had to it is that it is ordinarily 

 rather heavier than chaff to handle, especial- 

 ly, when made into cushions. In its favor, 

 we can say that it lies in place better than 

 the chaff, and is doubtless a closer protec- 

 tion on that account. At first, I feared it 

 would not absorb moisture as well as the 

 chaff, but reports seem to indicate that it 

 keeps dry, and dries out when wet accident- 

 ally, quite as well as the chaff does. If pos- 

 sible, I think the saw dust should complete- 

 ly surround the cluster, without any sticks 

 or lumber running through it, along which 

 the frost might make its way. 



FROM TEXAS. 



TIGHT FITTING SECTIONS. 



jUR bees are doing finely, at present. We have 

 had a nice rain, the bees are getting honey, 

 and swarming has commenced. Our 1000 sec- 

 tions are half inhabited by the bees, and they are 

 filling them fast. We have but one objection to the 

 sections ; they are too hard to put together. We 

 have to drive them with a mallet and then they 

 splinter and burst considerably. 



NEW SWARMS ON PDN. 



The first big swarm, we hived on fdn. ; one sheet 

 pulled in two, one third the way from the top bar, 

 and fell down. All the balance has worked nicely 

 so far. 



SWARMS ALIGHTING ON THE SAME SPOT. 



In your "lecture" in Gleanings, last month, about 

 bees settling on the same spot where bees have 

 clustered before, you attribute the fact to the scent 

 of the queen, which you say clings to the spot for 

 weeks ; but according to my experience this can 

 Hot always be the cause. The first swarm we had 

 this spring came out and clustered on one of our 

 bee bobs, and they had no queen with them ; she 

 was a clipped queen, and I had her in my hand. 

 She never touched the bob, but every swarm that 

 has clustered since has chosen the very same spot. 

 I thiuk they will no more settle after the scent of a 

 queen that is not their own, than they will after the 

 scent of a worker. It is a little like this ; if you are 



moving along the highway, and find a g?od camping 

 place where some one has camped maybe weeks be- 

 fore, you will generally camp on the same spot, even 

 though it is not nearly night, and the bees do the 

 same way. If any scent causes them to choose the 

 same spot, it is the sweet smell of the whole swarm 

 calling their companions while they are settling. 

 Lancaster, Tex., May 1st, '79. E. J. Atchley. 



Now, friend A., those close fitting sections 

 are like a great many other things ; when 

 we made them loose, a great many complain- 

 ed that they were not strong enough, and 

 said they wanted them to drive together ; 

 now it transpires that others were exactly 

 pleased with them as they were at first. 

 The same is true of the fdn. ; a good many 

 wanted 8 or 10 sheets to the lb., but when 

 we made them so thin, we were very soon 

 told that the old kind, 5 or 6 sheets to the lb., 

 was just right because the thin broke down 

 as yours did. I try to please you all, but 

 when I do not succeed, please be lenient, 

 dear friends, and remember how differently 

 we think about many of these things. 



Thanks for your report in regard to swarm- 

 ing ; very likely you are right, but I confess 

 I can hardly see how the bees should pick 

 out a particular limb on a particular tree, 

 just after a hard storm, simply because some 

 swarm had rested there a week ago. 



MISSOURI VALLEY REE-KEEPERS' 

 CONVENTION. 



^ja^iURSUANT to adjournment, a large number of 

 rfp members of the convention and persons in- 

 ' terested in bee culture assembled at the Court 

 House in Kansas City, Mo., on the 2d. ingt., and were 

 called to order at 10 o'clock, A. M., by the president, 

 J. D. Meador. The minutes of the previous meeting, 

 of April 5th, were read and approved. 

 reports. 



J. D. Meador went into winter quarters with 215 

 colonies, had reported 175 colonies at last meeting, 

 but now has to correct his report, and say that he 

 has not to exceed 100 good colonies in his apiary, 

 some having dwindled to such an extent that he was 

 forced to unite 3 or 4 into one, or lose them entirely, 

 while others had swarmed out and either united 

 with other colonies or left. All had plenty of honey, 

 and most of them brood ; still they had dwindled 

 and perished, or left. He had wintered them on 

 summer stands, but thought them sufficiently pro- 

 tected. Some had dysentery, others not ; while 

 many that he had thought strong, with abundant 

 stores, had perished outright. He was undecided as 

 to the true cause of the unprecedented mortality, 

 but attributed it partly to his own neglect. 



P. Baldwin went into winter quarters with 140 

 stands, and had not lost a single colony. Some of 

 them to-day are lying out in front of hive, as if pre- 

 paring to swarm. He wintered them in cellar, but 

 placed them on their summer stands Jan. 25th. His 

 bees had good fall range of Spanish needle, and kept 

 up supply of brood till nearly winter. Not to exceed 

 a pint of bees per hive had to be removed from his 

 bottom boards, and these were evidently old bees. 

 Has no chaff hives. 



W. P. Hogarty of Wyandotte Co., Kas., went into 

 winter quarters with upwards of 100 colonies, and 

 has lost li of them. He uses the chaff hive, having 

 100 of them, but wants no more. His bees have suf- 



