1879 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



371 



mindly 



Pertaining to Bee Cnltxire. 



[We respectfully solicit the aid of our friends in 

 conducting this department, and would consider it a 

 favor to have them send us all circulars that have a 

 deceptive appearance. The greatest care will be at 

 all times maintained to prevent injustice being done 

 any one.] 



PpHE notorious Gillespie, who demands 

 J[jl black-mail from every body using a 

 — ' two story hive, is now reported as be- 

 ing in Butler Co., Mo. lie has not only 

 swindled the public by his common sense 

 bee hive, but he has swindled the patentee 

 himself. I low sad ! Is there indeed no 

 honor among thieves? 



There seems to be no limit to the audaci- 

 ty and presumption of Mrs. Lizzie Cotton 

 and her husband, for it appears that both 

 are engaged in the business, she doing all or 

 the greater part of the advertising and cor- 

 respondence. Even the signature of the ex- 

 press agent at West Gorham, Maine, was ob- 

 tained by fraudulent means, and attached to 

 a letter of her own writing, which she pub- 

 lishes in her circular. I have taken pains to 

 get letters from both the -postmaster and 

 express agent at her place of residence. 

 Wherever she or Mitchell can lind a locality 

 which the bee journals have not reached, 

 they are sure to find victims. Complaints of 

 his division board fraud keep coming 

 through almost every mail ; we cannot take 

 the time to go over this ground by letter, so 

 many times, so you will have to take this 

 for your answer. 



Mrs. Cotton's statements are utterly false 

 from beginning to end. She will either 

 keep your money, as she has that I have sent 

 for her goods, or she will send a worthless 

 hive that will do nothing at all like what 

 she claims. Mitchell has no patent at all 

 on the hive he sells, neither is it even his 

 invention. Neither he nor any one else has 

 a patent on division boards as he claims ; 

 the idea is as absurd as it would be to patent 

 putting bees into a hollow log. A copy of 

 his patent claims was given in our July No., 

 1878. 



BEES THAT DID NOT SWARM, AND 

 WHAT TO DO WITH THEM. 



ALSO SOMETHING AHOUT THE WINTERING EPIDEMIC. 



fRIEND N. :— Many of our friends complain 

 that their bees did not swarm as often as 

 usual, or as much as their owners wished, the 

 present season, and this is, perhaps, the case 

 wherever bees were weak last spring. Many stocks 

 that were weak early in the season have filled up 

 with honey and brood, and are now almost running 

 over with bees. Where such is the case and an in- 

 crease of stock is desired, it can easily be had I >y 

 taking from one up to several frames (whatever 

 uumber can be spared) of bees and brood, from sev- 

 eral hives, and filling up an empty hive with them. 

 By giving the new swarm, thus made, a laying queen, 

 they are ready for winter at once. The hives from 

 which the bees and brood were taken should be filled 

 with frames of empty comb or fdn. Care must also 

 be taken not to rob the old stocks of their queens 



and to leave honey enough for winter, as we cannot 

 depend much on the yield of honey during the re- 

 mainder of the season. If I could prevent it, I 

 would not have any natural swarms, but would ob- 

 tain all my increase in the above way, after taking 

 off the surplus honey. 



It is true, friend N., carrying our bees into the 

 house in the fall and out again in the spring is con- 

 siderable trouble, but is it any more than it is to 

 prepare them for wintering on the summer stand? 

 I think not. And then we know they are safe from 

 .Arctic waves, if not from epidemics. 



I never carried my bees out for a fly during the 

 winter, but once, and that was one year ago last 

 winter, when I carried them out Jan. 1st, and in 

 again about the 15th, and was paid for my trouble 

 by saving all my stocks in my home apiary, while, in 

 my northern one, where they were wintered on the 

 summer stand, packed in chaff, I lost several swarms. 



I do not think spring dwindling deserves the name 

 of a disease. It is caused by the old bees dying off 

 before enough young ones are reared to take their 

 places. No one ever saw a colony that was full of 

 young bees the first of March, dwindle away and die. 

 By keeping our bees warm during the winter, they 

 will rear plenty of young bees and be safe, even in 

 such springs as the last one. 



The bee chi ilera, or dysentery, is no doubt a disease; 

 but it is simply the effect produced by certain causes, 

 prominent among which, I would mention cold, dis- 

 turbance during confinement, &c., all of which may, 

 in my opinion, be remedied. 



I, too, am going to make a chaff, or rather a saw- 

 dust, tenement hive, as 1 have rather more bees in 

 my home apiary than is best to put in one room to 

 winter. 1 think I will make a slight improvement 

 on the one shown in the Aug. No. of Gleanings, by 

 having the entrances at the ends instead of the 

 sides, so that the bees will not have to fly through 

 the drip from the eaves, when they come in during 

 showers as they often do. James Bolin. 



West Lodi, Ohio, Aug. 18, 1879. 



Thanks, friend 13. Your ideas in regard 

 to the dwindling are sound and sensible, but 

 are you not mistaken when you say, "no one 

 ever saw a colony that was full of young 

 bees the first of March dwindle away and 

 die*'? I had some die, that had a '"'good 

 lot" of young bees on the first of March, but 

 I should hardly call them "full;" they were 

 so strong that I selected them to build out 

 fdn. stamped on paper, but they died. 

 What do the rest who have had the dwind- 

 ling say to it? 



REMOVING WAX AND PROPOLIS BY STEAM. 



A friend sends us the following which 

 will prove very serviceable when one has a 

 steam boiler convenient. 



I have tried all the formulas for cleaning wax 

 from utensils, and, in my experience, have found 

 that concentrated lye cleans it off faster and more 

 thoroughly than anything else. All the methods are 

 troublesome, and it takes time to clean, especially 

 the perforations. My plan of cleaning wax from the 

 perforated basket of the wax extractor is, to have 

 two pieces of gas pipe, each one foot long, just large 

 enough to screw into the sprinkler of the fountain 

 pump. Attach the sprinkler to one end of the pipe, 

 procure a globe valve, and screw this on the other 

 end, screw one end of the other piece of pipe on the 

 globe valve, and the other end into the steam boiler, 

 about one or two inches below the water line. Open 

 the valve, and spray the articles covered with wax, 

 with steam and hot water. Vou will be astonished 

 to find how quickly it makes things look like new. 



Iberville, La., Aug. 8, '79. James A. Pritchard. 



Cheap brown sugar (and maple sugar) does nicely 

 to feed bees for building up in the fall, but while it 

 is more expensive, it is not as safe even, as grape 

 sugar for winter stores. For their winter food, use 

 nothing cheaper than coffee A. 



