1879 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



357 



%$ad§ of %vain f 



From Different Fields. 



REPORT FROM AN A B C SCHOLAR. 



AM now getting along nicely. I have made 5 

 new colonies, one a natural swarm. When I 

 removed one of the black queens, I put her in 

 the sample queen cage you sent me, and 2 or 3 bees 

 along with her, and, in less than 5 minutes, they had 

 stung her to death. I regretted this, as I wanted to 

 practice introducing with her, and try to make an- 

 other artificial swarm. Now, why did they sting her, 

 when they were of her own brood? 



I should be inclined to think you were 

 mistaken about the bees being her own ; but, 

 if not, the presence of the robbers, which 

 you mention further along, had probably so 

 excited and worked tliem up, that they stung 

 her by mistake. I have known bees so de- 

 moralized by robbers, that they would sting 

 inmates of their own hive. 



SHADE FROM GRAPE VINES THE FIRST SEASON. 



How would I better shade my Lives this summer, 

 as the grape vines won't be large enough to cover 

 the trellis this year? I can't use tomato plants, as 

 they would injure the growth of the young vines. 



If your vines are strong concords, they can 

 be trained so as to shade the hives very well 

 the first season. Train up a single shoot, 

 and when it is as high as the top of the hive, 

 or a little higher, pinch it off, and it will soon 

 form a heavy clump of foliage. Bring this 

 around on the west side of the stake or trel- 

 lis, so as to shade the hive during the hottest 

 part of the clay, say about 2 o'clock, and it 

 will do very well, even the first year. In our 

 apiary, we have 500 trained in just that way. 

 For the first season, stakes about 3 feet high 

 will do very well. 



HANDLING BEES OFTEN. 



Another thing; you say to your A B C scholars, 

 that they ought to look at their bees, by taking out 

 the frames, &c, at least once a week, and that if 

 they did so once a day you would have more confi- 

 dence that they would succeed, &c. Well, Sir, I am 

 so interested in mine that it is a real pleasure to 

 look at them every chance I have, any how, every 

 day or two; but they just dip into the honey for 

 dear life, every time I lift a frame, and seem to con- 

 sume a great amount of honey uselessly, and some 

 of them are as cross as ever, though others I can 

 handle without veil or smoker. Now, is it best to 

 handle them so often? I mean to succeed, but 1 

 want to go at it right. 



I think, friend F., if you handle your worst 

 colony every day for a week or more, you 

 will find that they soon stop "dipping into 

 the honey''' every time the hive is opened. 

 I have tried some very cross colonies, and I 

 never yet found one that would not become, 

 in time, accustomed to frequent handling. 

 It may depend some on what kind of a hive 

 you have, but, with the Simplicity hives and 

 metal corners, I say unhesitatingly handle 

 them every day or oftener. 



I find one drawback in the chaff hive, and that is, 

 you have to take out all the upper frames whenever 

 you divide or examine the brood chamber. Could 

 we not leave out the top frames except when put 

 on for surplus honey and cover with enameled cloth? 



But, friend F., do you not have to remove 

 the upper frames to get at the lower ones, in 

 any two story hive ? To be sure, you do not 

 want the frames in the upper story, when 

 they are gathering no honey. The chaff hive 

 is used exactly like a single story hive, only 



when surplus honey is being taken, and the 

 colony is strong. 



COAL CINDERS AND SAND AROUND THE ENTRANCES. 



I found out that sawdust blows away too fast, and 

 so I substituted coal cinders, and find them satisfac- 

 tory, when some sand is used immediately in front 

 and around the hive. The cinders keep the weeds 

 down nicely, but they are a little rough until stamp- 

 ed down well. 



I, too, am very much pleased with coal 

 cinders, and white sand over them, for the 

 ground around the entrances. 



HOW MUCH HONEY DOES A BASSWOOD TREE YIELD. 



By the way, about how much honey will a fair 

 sized basswood tree yield, in one season? or rather, 

 how many trees of good size are required to a colony, 

 to keep them busy during the period of its bloom? 



It is very difficult to say how much honey 

 a basswood tree, or, in fact, any other plant, 

 will yield. Seasons vary so greatly that it 

 may be from nothing all the way up. Al- 

 though we get some basswood honey almost 

 every year, we do not have a real good yield 

 one year in 5. To make a very rude guess, 

 I think I have seen trees that would yield a 

 quart of honey a day, for perhaps 10 days. 

 Small trees in the clearing yield more on an 

 average, than trees in the woods. 



NEWLY MADE FDN. 



I see that the bees work much more readily on 

 freshly made, soft fdn. than on the hard, or that 

 made sometime. I trust you may get many more 

 scholars as interested in bee culture as you have me. 



Belleville, 111., June 9, '79. E. T. Flanagan. 



It has been several times suggested that 

 bees accepted new fdn., with more willing- 

 ness, than old ; but, after trying that just 

 made, by the side of some that has hung in 

 frames not worked out, since last year, I am 

 unable to see any difference. 



FROM AN A B C SCHOLAR. 



I received the third part of A B C, and read it 

 through, finding it very interesting and instructive. 

 When I received my Italians, I made a hive like the 

 one they were in, and took three frames out of the 

 old one and put them in the new hive. In 16 days 

 they hatched out a queen. Well, for fear that the 

 bees would follow ber when she went out, I gave 

 them another frame of brood. That was on the 15th 

 of May, and now I have a large swarm of hybrids. 

 The queen is very prolific, but the full blood queen 

 is the most prolific of the two. Her bees are very 

 nicely marked, showing the three bands very plain- 

 ly. They are the best marked that I have ever seen. 

 They leave the hive in droves while the blacks go 

 out in two's and three's. Felix Cortes. 



Graniteville, S. C, July 24, 1879. 



HOW TO USE BLACK BEES IN AN APIARY. 



It seems as though you have too many black bees, 

 after buying so many this spring, to insure to the 

 purchaser of queens a fair prospect of getting pure 

 dollar queens (Italians). lam going to order some 

 soon of some one, but don't want hybrids. 



Bellows Falls, Va., July 9, '79. A Friend. 



I will tell you what we did with the black 

 bees, friend C. They were put immediately 

 on combs of Italian brood, and the queen, if 

 any came, used to till orders; for we have 

 always had more orders for black queens 

 than we could supply. At present, July 23d, 

 there is scarcely a black bee to be found in 

 our 250 colonies, and not a single queen we 

 have tested has proved hybrid as yet. 



HOW TO START AN APIARY WITHOUT ANY MONEY. 



A month ago, I had 4 swarms of bees; now I have 

 31 swarms, and I got them without money. 1 made 

 the one story L. hive, and went through the country, 

 and transferred, one hive for a hive with bees in. 1 

 furnished the hive for them, and brought mine 



