314 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



Aug. 



WHITEWOOD OR TULIP TREE— CORRECTIONS. 



I have just been reading Gleanings for July. Al- 

 low me to say that sonic of the statements in the 

 extracts from "Fuller's Forest Tree Culture" are 

 very wrong. I live in the poplar (Tulip) tree region, 

 and we have no other building 1 lumber. All of our 

 houses, fences, bee hives, etc., etc., are built of this 

 lumber. Millions of feet of it are shipped from this 

 part of the state every year. The tree blooms here 

 in April and May. 



Mistake 1st.— The seed ripens in late autumn, not 

 "late summer or early autumn," as stated. The seed 

 falls the next spring-, when the buds begin to swell. 

 It is much sought for by squirrels. 



2nd.— The wood is greenish blue, white, and bright 

 yellow. It is classed as hard and soft poplar. The 

 blue and white is used for flooring, outside work, &c. 

 The yellow, being- very soft, is used for inside work, 

 moulding-, &c. It makes splendid bee hives. I have 

 used 2,000 feet of it for that purpose, frames and all. 

 I would not give it for pine, and have tried both 

 kinds. 



It shrinks 5 per cent sideways, none endways. 

 Trees are usually 3 to 6 feet in diameter, 10 feet in 

 diameter being not uncommon. The balance of the 

 extract is about correct, when we consider the 

 many different parts of the country in which the 

 tree is found. W. J. Willard. 



Jonesboro, Ills., July 6, 1879. 



Iii our locality, friend W., whitewood 

 does shrink endwise ; and, after having 

 used it for several years side by side with 

 white pine, I unhesitatingly give preference 

 to the pine for hives. It is true that pine 

 splits much worse, and, for some things, 

 whitewood is on this account much better ; 

 but as far as keeping its place is concerned, 

 we give the preference to pine, by consider- 

 able odds. Thanks for your corrections, 

 notwithstanding. 



DO QUEENS LAY CONTINUOUSLY? 



I have an observatory hive in the parlor, and, yes- 

 terday, saw a queen on the outside comb, laying for 

 at least one half hour. She would lay 8 or 10 eggs, 

 and then walk off and take a rest, apparently, of a 

 few minutes, and then commence again and Lay 8 or 

 ten more. She did the same thing- over and over. 

 Do all queens work the same way? She is a very 

 nice Italian, only laying- about 2 weeks. 



Moberly, Mo., July 7, '79. D. T. Kimmell. 



I think all queens work much in the same 

 way. If you will time a queen by the watch, 

 and see how many eggs she lays m a minute, 

 then figure up how many are found in a 

 comb that has been used a day, or a week, 

 you can estimate how much loafing time she 

 has. You will find a wonderful difference 

 in queens, in this respect. 



stings; are they the cause of skin diseases, 



ETC? 



I have been afflicted with a bad skin disease, 

 breaking out in blotches with bad itching and burn- 

 ing, and making me almost a cripple. The doctor 

 thinks it is aggravated^ if not caused, by being- stung- 

 so much for the last 2 years. Stings have not swelled 

 on me, but perhaps poisoned the blood. I find every 

 time I get stung- lately, I am worse. What is your 

 opinion about it? N. A. Prudden. 



Tour idea, or a similar one, has been ad- 

 vanced several times, friend P., and I have 

 given place to the letter, that we may have 

 all bad features of the bee business brought 

 out, if possible, and not be accused of hav- 

 ing enticed beginners into it, by showing 

 only the bright side. Although doctors 

 have suggested it might be the accumulated 

 poison of the stings, I think careful attention 

 to the facts have shown it to be a mistake. 

 A bee sting will make any such difficulty 

 more acute, or aggravate it, it is true ; but I 

 think it is seldom, if ever, the first cause. 



If it troubles you only during the honey 

 season, and subsides when you are, for a 

 time, engaged in other business, it would be 

 pretty fair evidence; but, as I have said, 

 cases that have been carefully tested in that 

 way, so far as I know, have shown that the 

 stings are not t he cause. 



SECTION CASE STICKING TO FRAMES, QUEEN CELLS 



WITH NOTHING IN THEM, QUEEN CELLS NOT 



ALWAYS AN INDICATION OF SWARMING. 



Is there not some remedy for the trouble of section 

 eases sticking; to top of frames? It prevents us 

 from looking- for queen cells or for the queen, unless 

 we pry them up and go to a great deal of trouble 

 every time. Do bees ever build queen cells and cap 

 them without any bee inside? Will they certainly 

 swarm when we find queen cells? If not, what be- 

 comes of them. I. H. C. 



Chillicothe, O., July 14, 1879. 



The matter in regard to the section case, 

 as well as any surplus arrangement above 

 the frames, is one that has troubled a great 

 deal. With not more than i inch space, 

 there will usually be little or no comb built 

 between them, but some colonies seem de- 

 termined to build it all up solid and fill it 

 with honey, no matter what the space may 

 be. A closed top frame, or a similar arrange- 

 ment, will do, it is true; but generally, I be- 

 lieve, the remedy is considered worse than 

 the disease. 



A weak nucleus will sometimes nurse and 

 care for a cell containing nothing, but sel- 

 dom a good, healthy colony or nucleus. 

 Queen cells are not a certain indication of 

 swarming, but usually, unless change of 

 weather or cessation of the honey yield or 

 something of that kind ensues, it will result 

 in swarming. If they give it up, the queen 

 cells are torn down just as they destroy 

 drone brood. 



Last March, I put cloth feeders, % as deep as 

 frames, in two hives, and fed a little extracted honey 

 each day, for three weeks, when worker comb was 

 built from each bag nearly to the bottom of the hive. 

 There was a little honey in each comb, but next to 

 the feeders they were empty. There was some brood 

 in the centre of the frames. Both were good stocks, 

 and had plenty of room. Why did they build extra 

 comb in March ? J. H. Bemis. 



Mt. Airy, Surry Co., N. C, June 25, '79. 



You have given the principal objection 

 to the cloth bag feeders ; viz., that the bees 

 will build combs under them ; and they will 

 not only do it in March, but even in winter, 

 if they are fed regularly during a warm spell. 

 The bees build the combs directly under the 

 feeders in preference to any other place in 

 the hive, because it is so much nearer the 

 feeder. 



SUGAR SYRUP IN PREFERENCE TO NATURAL STORES, 

 ABOUT CLOSED TOP FRAMES, ETC. 



I notice in Gleanings that bee men in all parts of 

 the country are complaining of losses last winter 

 and spring, and each gives his opinion of the cause. 

 I claim the right to express my opinion, as I think 

 last winter should teach us all a lesson. To start 

 the winter with, in our locality, I am satisfied that 

 the stores were impure and unhealthy. I thought 

 so in the fall; and, in Oct., 1 extracted nearly all the 

 honey from 3 hives, about X from 2, and left 2 with 

 all their honey, and fed all up with A sugar syrup, 

 and packed all alike with chatf division boards and 

 chaff cushions on top. The result was, in Feb., that 

 the 3 were all in good condition, with plenty of brood; 

 the 2 from which I extracted }-i of their stores had 

 slight attacks of dysentery; the other 2 from which 

 I extracted none were just about as good as none, 

 the last week in Feb., and I put them into other 

 hives, cleaned up their hives, put in some good 



