1880 



GLEANLNGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



19 



page 431, that has her house supplied with stores 

 while her neighbors have none. I shall not want 

 many queens, however, — only two or three. — but 

 would like the very best without regard to recent 

 importation. The fact is, I won't have many Italian 

 queens of any sort around my shanty until I can lirst 

 see them decisively beat our blacks at honey-gath- 

 ering—a little trick which they have so far omitted 

 tu do. 



THE CLOVER EXPERIMENT. 



Those late-sown clovers which were to be made to 

 bloom this fall did, three of them, show bloom. They 

 were all from clover No. 4. A little description of 

 this plant in my last clover article was omitted, by a 

 printer's "out," probably. It has pure white blooms, 

 not even turning pink in fading, as other white- 

 bloomed clovers do, but fading to yellow. Red-clover 

 honey is tinted somewhat, usually, but we could 

 hope for a snow-white article from such as No. 4. 

 Not only is the bloom white, but the seed is of a 

 creamy white. Quite desirable it would be, for an 

 improved clover to be recognizable at once by the 

 seed. The young plants of this sort make nearly 

 twice as rapid growth as any other sample of clover 

 I have. Although large, the stalks are not coarse 

 and bean-poley, but rather finer than usual. But 

 the crowning quality of No. 4 is its readiness to come 

 up. All my other samples, nine in number, make 

 me trouble by their unreadiness to sprout. Every 

 seed of No. 4 seems as prompt to start as good sound 

 corn would be. Hundreds of thousands of dollars 

 being lost to the farming community every year by 

 the failure of clover seed to "catch," this quality of 

 No. 4 is a very attractive one. But alack-a- day ! all 

 good is not given to one. No. 4, at present, is rather 

 lunger tubed than ordinary clovers. I perceived this 

 when selecting it, but resolved to give it a trial nev- 

 ertheless. Shall we gain a clover that will give 

 more hay to the acre, always catch when it has a de- 

 cent chance, prove its own purity in spite of tricky 

 seedsmen, and, withal, expose snow-white treasures 

 to our delighted bees without !et or hindrance? Ah, 

 shall we? I had a disagreeable feeling that this must 

 be from a stray seed of an already established varie- 

 ty of clover; but no, it is a genuine variant, or 

 sport, as is fully proved by the three young plants 

 that have bloomed. All three of them revert to the 

 ordinary red of clover blossoms. If I do not get a 

 young plant to continue the parent characteristics, 

 it will be queer. E. E. Hasty. 



Bodley, Lucas Co., O., Nov. 16, 1879. 



In regard to the shade, I think the grape- 

 vines will prove least trouhlesome, ;ill things 

 considered, and with chaff hives no shade at 

 all will he needed, unless you choose. The 

 plan of condensing the moisture may be in- 

 genious, but, if I am correct, in a properly 

 constructed hive there should be no moisture 

 to condense. We are all interested in the 

 clover that is going to bloom the season it is 

 sowed, and, in fact, in any improvement in 

 clover; for clover is a great staple, aside 



from bee culture. 



— —»-••«»- 



MORE ABOIT THE HONFY THAT 



plka>ei» QUK.EN victoria 



SO WELL. 



For practical use, I think the 5 inch foundation 

 preferable rather than that made by the 12 inch mill, 

 from the fact that two pieces of the 5 in. welded to- 

 gether will not sag in the frames. This is not my 

 experience only, but that of several very practical 

 apiarians. 



We have used it for the past 3 years, made by the 

 mill I purchased from you, and hived new swarms 

 on the same, in hot weather, with no trouble from 

 sagging. 



FOUNDATION STARTERS FOR COMB HONEY. 



The honey furnished by Thurber & Co., for the 

 Queen's table, was from my lot, in my fancy boxes, 

 and built upon foundation made by the mill I pur- 

 chased from you. Is not this making the use of 

 foundation in surplus boxes a "grand success"? 



I was about the only person who advocated its use 

 for surplus honey, at the New York National Con- 

 vention, and last spring received a letter from Capt. 

 Hetherington, of Cherry Valley, wishing to know 

 my particular method of using it. 



The thin flat bottomed fdu. is far superior to use 

 for surplus honey. C. K. I SHAM. 



Peoria, Wyoming Co., N. Y., Nor. 22, 1879. 



BALLING THE QIEEN. 



ALSO SOMETHING AROUT WINTERING BEES. 



ALSO SOMETHING ABOUT THE 5 IN. FDN. MILLS. 



SHAVE been using comb foundation for the past 

 three seasons, and llnd it a great success. I also 

 ~~ have sold considerable quantities of it. I pur- 

 chased, I believe, the first 5 inch machine you sold. 



^Jrjk.0 bees ball any other than a strange queen? 

 JXjJ ) and what are their motives for so doing? 

 The followingoccurred with me, in an attempt 

 to reinforce a colony of bees, Sept. 20, 1879: The col- 

 ony was weak; cause, an unfertile queen. I obtain- 

 ed ten quarts of bees of a neighbor, and dumped 

 them in the hive; about thirty minutes later, I look- 

 ed at them and found a perfect slaughter going on 

 inside the hive. I at once opened the hive, and 

 found that I had added a black queen with the bees. 

 The black queen was balled to the size of a goose 

 egg, and by the same bees that I put in with her. 

 I removed her at once and severed her head from 

 her body, with my knife. I also found my yellow 

 queen completely balled up, between two combs, 

 and not a black bee could I find among those sur- 

 rounding her. I then raised one side of the hive 

 and brushed out about one quai't of dead bees; the 

 number was about equally divided between the 

 black and yellow bees. This loss occurred within a 

 period of 35 minutes after reinforcing them. 



In about one half hour more, I looked again, and 

 found that not over a score of bees had perished 

 since the removal of one of the queens. 



Will some one better acquainted than myself tell 

 why such a deadly conflict should ensue during the 

 presence of both queens in the hive, and subside so 

 suddenly upon the removal of one? 



I have had a somewhat similar occurrence since. 

 Nov. 8th, my little boy called me, and said the bees 

 were swarming. This I was certain was not the 

 case, as I had put all my bees in good shape some 

 time before. 1 repaired immediately to the apiary, 

 and found a swarm of black bees settling down to 

 one of my hives. As the new comers began to alight 

 about the entrance, my bees rushed out in goodly- 

 numbers to drive them off. Witt open pocket-knife, 

 I took my place beside the hive to watch for the 

 queen. Very shortly, she lit, and attempted to en- 

 ter, but the sentinal on guard soon put her to flight 

 again. By this time, the bees had begun to alight 

 promiscuously upon everything within reach. The 

 queen shortly made her appearance again, alighting 



