276 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



SMOKERS. 



Smokers to hand, all right, and in splendid condi- 

 tion. Have just tried one; it beats anything in the 

 smoker line I ever had. A. T. Doyle. 



Darksville, Mo., June 7, 1879. 



I received your smoker all right. What a beauty 

 it is ! I don't know as I can ever bring myself to use 

 it for fear of soiling it. Jennie Howard. 



Lawsville Centre, Tenn., June 7, 1879. 



My smoker came to hand all right, and works to a 

 charm. I use rotten wood and have to keep the 

 damper one half closed or the wood will blaze. Tell 

 your friends who can't make them burn to get good 

 fuel, and they will get all the smoke they want if 

 they do not blow too hard. J. J. C. Brown. 



North Sandwich, N. H., June 6, 1879. 



Many thanks for the prompt sending of the cone 

 for smoker. Can now almost see the smoke before 

 the match is touched, and afterwards it goes like a 

 house on Are. Mrs. C. Faville. 



So. Wales, N. Y., June 9, '79. 



Please send me one of your new cold blast 

 smokers. I borrowed one the other day, and, al- 

 though I had to use cobs not over dry, the smoker 

 worked splendidly. L. N. Holmes. 



Putnam, Ct., June 11, 1879. 



Sections are nice; the crate is a beauty. lam 

 well pleased. If you serve all customers in the 

 same way, and furnish as good goods to all, they 

 certainly ought all to be satisfied. That cold blas't 

 smoker I got of you, for a neighbor of mine, is just 

 the thing. I tell you it makes the bees "scoot." 



O. L. Roseman. 



Montezuma, Iowa, June 2, 1879. 



My smokers are already gone, and I have none for 

 myself. Please send me, for the six dollars en- 

 closed, one dozen cold blast Simplicity smokers, as 

 soon as you can, and oblige,— G. L. Hollenback. 



Noblesville, Ind., June 17, 1879. 



swarms alighting on the same spot. 



A plausible theory would be, that there was some 

 natural advantage in the location, which each suc- 

 cessive swarm appreciated, scent having little or 

 nothing to do with the matter. C. A. Lovell. 



Hartford, Ct., June 13, '79. 



[This would hardly answer, friend L. In our old 

 apiary, there were perhaps 20 trees, each one about 

 as eligible as another so far as one could see. One 

 season, the first swarm would choose a certain spot 

 on a certain limb of a certain tree, and all the rest 

 would choose that same spot. The next season, 

 another limb on another tree would be chosen, and 

 they would then all choose that one. Several times, 

 it seemed that the spot chosen was a most unfor- 

 tunate one, but, for all that, the succeeding swarms, 

 with but few exceptions, would always follow suit.] 



THE OLD WAY AND THE NEW. 



For the $1.00 which you have to my credit, please 



send ABC complete to . He is a man 



about 70 years of age, and has kept bees all his life. 

 He started in, last fall, with 22 swarms in boxes and 

 gums. All died but three, and they are not safe yet. 

 He never heard of fdn. or extractors until last 

 week, when he came to my house with a pail of 

 nasty, black, comb honey, full of dead bees and 

 heads and legs. I showed him a 1 lb. sample section 

 box with fdn. This took the old man's eye, and I 

 showed him my ABC book, which also took his 

 eye; so he fetched out the dollar, and said he would 

 learn his ABC before he wintered another 22 

 swarms. Aleck demons started in with 4 swarms 

 in boxes, lost three, and the fourth is weak. 



Geo H IVTcCtFF 



Marblehead, Light Station, O., April 21, 1879. 



AN A B C CHILD IN JUNE. 



White clover is now in full bloom, and there is a 

 very good prospect for a large crop of surplus honey. 

 My bees are all very strong. 1 had a large swarm 

 the 7th of May, which is the earliest ever known in 

 this locality. I have taken several frames of sealed 

 honey from them. Bees are doing their best in 

 boxes, trying to repay me for the labor bestowed 

 upon them. My enthusiasm is so great that I can 

 hardly leave them to do other work. 



E. JAS. HlNSHAW. 



Lynn, Ind., June 4, 1879. 



wired fdn. 



I received a sample of Nellis' flat, wired fdn., at 

 Wi o'clock, P. M., on the 12th, and to-day it has eggs 

 in it. A larger proportion of the eggs are in cells 

 through which the wire passes, than in the other 

 cells. The queeu prefers them. She is a last year's 

 tested Italian. S. Morrison, M. D. 



Oxford, Pa., June 14, 1879. 



I take great pleasure in writing to let you know 

 .that I had splendid luck with my queen. I hunted 

 the black queen out of a strong skip of black bees, 

 and after leaving the queen cage on the racks 12 

 hours, I released the new queen with her bees, and, 

 in 3 hours, I saw some of the yellow bees carrying in 

 pollen. I am well pleased. Isaac Rummell. 



Warren, O., June 9, 1879. 



THIEVES IN THE APIARY. 



I am in great trouble about my bees. The other 

 night, a thief was at them and opened every hive, 

 both Simplicity and chaff. In the morning, I found 

 the covers pushed aside, the mats nearly off from 

 the frames, and, from a nucleus, one frame of 

 hatching bees and a very little honey was stolen. 

 Now, wnat do you say I should do? build a house 

 like the one engraved in last Gleanings, or make a 

 lock on every hive, or make a high fence around 

 the apiary? Do you think the house apiary is as 

 good for increasing by artificial means as the open 

 air? John Dieffenbach. 



Crosskill Mills, Pa., June 19, 1879. 



[I should build the high fence, to keep off the 

 high winds, as well as to keep away thieves, and I 

 would have the whole as near the house as possible. 

 The house apiary is better for raising bees, because 

 it protects them better from the effects of chilly 

 nights.] 



BROWN sugar for wintering. 



The swarm 1 wintered over was in an old box hive, 

 and only had about % of the hive filled with comb. 

 By putting them in chaff and feeding them brown 

 sugar, I brought them out strong this spring and 

 had the earliest swarm in our neighborhood which 

 is doing well. The 2d swarm went to the woods. 

 W. I. Richardson. 



Steubenville, Ohio, June 14, 1879. 



[Brown sugar seems to answer sometimes, all 

 right; but it cannot be depended on, because it al- 

 ways induces a strong disposition to dysentery. 

 Chaff packing would do very much to remedy this.] 



strengthening weak colonies by exchanging 



STANDS. 



Would it not be a good plan to move weak swarms 

 in frame hives into places occupied by large swarms 

 in box hives, thus getting most of the bees into 

 frame hives, where I want them ? Can I not make 

 artificial swarms by moving box hives, and giving 

 the new colony a frame of brood and queen cells ? 



James A. Green. 



Dayton, 111., May 28, 1879. 



[You can easily do this while honey is coming in, 

 but it is always well to keep a lookout, and see that 

 the queens are not balled. The plan of making ar- 

 tificial swarms by moving heavy stocks is, as you 

 will see, the principal one I have advised in the A B C] 



do bees weigh more or less after a journey 

 than before. 



I send one case of bees as an experiment, and if 

 they should go all right, I will send some more. 



Wm. C. Humphrey. 



Redfield, Iowa, June 11, 1879. 



[The above mentioned package, provisioned with 

 candy, and an ink bottle filled with water, came 

 through without the loss of a single bee; but the 

 little fellows looked wonderfully spare and thin, 

 and when we came to weigh them, there were just 

 2141b. instead of '&V»Va. They looked so short and 

 stubbed, that I began to wonder if they had not 

 really gorged themselves with honey, to the extent 

 of a lb., when first weighed, thinking, if this was the 

 case, it would be rather a hard feature on the send- 

 er. Well, the day after, Mr. J. P. Stearns, Sheakley- 

 ville, Pa., sent us a large box of beautiful Italians, 

 weighing, as he said, 7M;lb.; but when we weighed 

 them, there was 8J4lb. Who is right ? I am sorry 

 to say that they have generally fallen short a little, 

 even when no dead ones have been found.] 



