1879 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



407 



[I beg pardon, friend C, if I have omitted to cor- 

 rect any of my statements that need correcting; it 

 was an oversight, I assure yon. I have never seen 

 drone brood under the conditions you name, and I 

 cannot think it usual in the North. It would be 

 very convenient for us just now, for we cannot get 

 our queens, at this time of the year, to lay drone 

 eggs in any kind of comb.] 



WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THE BEES? 



As one of your ABC class and a beginner, I wish 

 a little information. My bees, apparently, have 

 some disease, the cause of which is entirely unknown 

 to me. 1 have in my apiary the blacks and hybrids, 

 as well as the beautiful Italians, the former of which 

 appear to be most affected. 1 find, each morning, in 

 the entrance and on the alighting board, from 5(1 to 

 100 bees, dead and dying. I have examined the 

 combs carefully, and find brood plenty, in all stages, 

 and in healthy condition, and brood combs looking 

 all-right with plenty of honey, and all the bees at 

 work with great energy through the day. Now, can 

 you give the cause of this mortality? H. Scott. 



Princeton, W. Va., Sept. 15, 1879. 



[The 50 or 100 bees that die daily might be bees 

 that die of old age, at this time of the year; but 1 

 hardly think there should be so many every day. If 

 this is not the case, perhaps it is the disease I describe 

 on page 55 of the A B C] 



SIMPSON HONEY PLANT. 



I have one < f these plants, growing and doing well> 

 that I can remember ever since 1 was a little boy, 

 and I am now forty four years old. How is that for 

 longevity? Each year, the stalk dies after the seed 

 ripens, and sprouts again in spring. 1 intend to 

 fence off a small piece of ground, transplant some 

 roots next spring, and cultivate it for honey and 

 seed, and will report. W. P. Irish. 



Norton Centre, Summit Co., O., Sept. 15, '79. 



QUEENS THAT STOP LAYING AND QUEENS THAT PHO- 

 HUCE ALL DRONE BROOD. 



I am in a quandary. I bought a dollar queen, and 

 safely introduced her July 18th. She went right to 

 work, and produced very handsome, two banded 

 workers. I looked her up Sept. 8th, and she appear- 

 ed quite small and had only a very small cluster of 

 brood on one comb, and that raised like drone bi-ood. 

 To-day, I looked her up, and she is very large, and 

 the drones are hatching out, but have only very 

 narrow rings (yellow), not bands at all, and I could 

 see no signs of other brood. The drone brood was 

 regularly laid, in a cluster, on 2 combs, but in a 

 small circle. I could not find her at first, and was 

 afraid I had got a fertile worker. I had on a veil, 

 and hence there may have been eggs which I did 

 not see. 1 have been feeding sugar syrup to stimu- 

 late brood rearing. What is the matter? 



Shirley, Mass., Sept. 16, "19. B. S. Binney. 



[Queens often stop laying in the fall, when the 

 yield of honey ceases, and then they, as well as the 

 bees, grow small and inferior looking. About the 

 drone brood, 1 hardly know what to say; are you 

 not mistaken in saying that all the brood "was drone 

 brood? If not, she has thus early turned to a drone 

 layer, and the colony will perish, unless she is re- 

 moved and a better queen given them. If she has 

 turned drone layer, her brood would not be apt to be 

 regularly placed as you say it is.] 



WHAT IS ROYAL JELLY? 



I would like very much to know where the bees 

 get the food for the young queen; 1 mean the white, 

 pasty looking stuff. Jos. Harris. 



Moundsville, \V. Va., Sept. 11, 1879. 



[It is the partly, or perhaps wholly, digested honey 

 and pollen which the bees have eaten, and which 

 they throw up and put in the cell, something as a 

 dove feeds her young. The food given the young 

 queen is just the same as that given constantly to 

 the young worker brood, as nearly as lean determine. 

 If 1 am wrong, 1 should be glad to be corrected.! 



[If there are no other houses like the one you 

 mention near, I think you can move it without tak- 

 ing the bees out at all. When you come to turn it 

 around, it may be best to turn it a little every day. 

 If moved to the cellar, the bees should stay there 10 

 days or two weeks, but I do not think this will be 

 necessary. You do not state how many colonies 

 there are in the house.] 



"CHUNK" HONEY. 



Another thing I want to know is this: this has 

 been a poor year for bees in this place, and I have a 

 great number of small section boxes partly filled, 

 having from a quarter to 3 4 of a lb. of honey. What 

 is best to do with them? What do you do with such? 

 One thing more; I have two hives that have not 

 killed their drones yet, and I have some fear that 

 they are queenless. 



[Cut out the honey carefully from the unfilled 

 sections, place it nicely on plates or in pans, and 

 sell it for "chunk" honey. \ ou will find it will sell 

 faster than your honey in sections, at the same 

 price per ft>., in a home market.] 



NORTH AND SOUTH ENTRANCES. 



My hives face the north and I am going to face 

 them south: for I find that, in winter and spring, 

 great numbers of bees fall down and get chilled, and 

 never rise again. The ground will be covered thick 

 with them. John Dawson. 



Pontiac, Mich., Sept. 13, 1879. 



[I have noticed the same thing you mention at 

 some seasons with the house apiary; but, as a gen- 

 eral thing, the bees on the north side do just as well 

 as those on the south side of the house.] 



"PEPPERY" HONEY. 



Please let me know what the bees gather pungent 

 honey from. Some of the handsomest, while comb 

 honey I have had this year has been so peppery as to 

 be uneatable. It was produced in the latter half of 

 July, this year, when 1 supposed bees were working 

 almost exclusively on verbenas. 



Chas. C. Bellows, and many others. 



Vermillion, Dak., Sept., 1879. 



[I do not know, friend B., unless it is the smart 

 weed, or its near relative, 1 he large kind called black 

 heart. A few days ago Will called my attention to 

 a hive that was so much better filled than its neigh- 

 bors, that it brought forth exclamations of surprise. 

 On tasting the honey, to see where they got it, i was 

 much amused to find it made one's mouth smart. 

 The sight of beautiful Italians, the same day, on 

 this large smart weed on the borders of the pond, 

 suggested that as its source, but it may be a mis- 

 take.] 



QUEENS WITH lib. OF BEES. 



The last ;( queens I received of you Aug. 8th, in lb. 

 boxes, were all in fine order. I made swarms for 

 them, and now have fine colored, 3 banded, young 

 bees from each of them. The first queen 1 got, 1 

 lost by being careless, and not smoking them. There 

 is nothing like smoke with me. E. S. Miner. 



Necedah, Wis., Sept. 15, 1879. 



RAPE, &C. 



I sowed '/a acre of rape, on the first of July. It 

 bloomed nicely, and gave the bees lots of work. I 

 sowed a second lot of :s acres, on the first of August, 

 but, not having rain, it is likely to be a failure alto- 

 gether. Bees do not work on sweet clover as they 

 did last year, by a long way. Basswood yielded hon- 

 ey extraordinarily well this year, H. Smith. 



New Hamburg-, (int., Ca., Sept. 2, 1879. 



MOVING BEES SHORT DISTANCES. 



I particularly want your opinion on a certain point. 

 I keep my bees in a kind of house or shed, which I 

 have to do on account of thieves. One of my houses 

 does not suit me. I want to shift it about :.' rods. 1 1 

 I put them in my cellar (it is damp) till I shift their 

 house, how long would they need to stay there be- 

 fore I put them back? 



HOW A PATENT RIGHT MAN CAME TO GRIEF. 



There has been a patent right man through here, 

 swindling the people, by selling a very poor pattern 

 for a gum, with the right to use it, for #10. This lady 

 that gave me the silver dollar to send for the smoker 

 is (me of the victims. But, right here, I must state 

 the funny part of this patent right man's experience. 

 This lady says he could tame bees so he could handle 

 them well, putting them in his mouth'and elsewhere, 

 without being stung; but, unfortunately, he got 

 oik little fellow mad, when he had taken a small 

 handful in his mouth, and he received a sting in the 

 mouth, which caused him to spit them out very 

 suddenly (probably they needed ventilation). 



Wheeler Station, Ala., June M, '79. A. Cox. 



