26 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



1 am one of your ABC class and a beginner, and 

 want some of your advice. We began last spring 

 with 3 stands in the old box hives. 



ANOTHER HIVE FULL OF HONEY AND DIDN'T KNOW IT. 



One was in an old tea chest. After they stopped 

 swarming, July 22d, I transferred them to an L. hive. 

 The neighbors all said that they would not store any 

 honey after the first of July, so we did not pay any 

 attention to them, and the first we knew they had all 

 of the upper story stored with comb and honey. 

 Shall we take it off this fall, or wait until next spring? 



Friend T., T should recommend you to 

 look to your bees, and see if they are getting 

 honey, no matter what the neighbors may 

 say. Take off the upper story, and take out 

 the honey. If the bees have not enough be- 

 low, give them what they need, and then fill 

 the upper story with chaff or the chaff cush- 

 ions as I have so often told you. 



WHAT TO DO WITH A BARREL OF BEES. 



I have bought a barrel of bees; what shall we do 

 with them? Shall we thatch th^m in straw and let 

 them stand, or brimstone them, as the neighbors do? 



If your barrel contains a strong colony of 

 bees, thatch them with straw, as you suggest. 

 If the colony is weak. I would manage to 

 get chaff cushions inside the barrel, in some 

 way, so as to fill the great amount of unoc- 

 cupied space around and near the bees. 



BRIMSTONING BEES, AN INFRINGEMENT OF 

 THE LAWS OF OUR LAND. 



At the last National Convention, the ed- 

 itor of the Magazine read a paper that shows 

 pretty conclusively that any one who brim- 

 stones bees is liable to prosecution by law 

 for needless cruelty to animals. I feel like 

 tendering thanks to friend King, for bring- 

 ing the subject prominently forward. Of 

 course, we do not claim that starvation is 

 any better. A man who would let a horse 

 or cow starve would probably be arrested in 

 almost any community. My friends, shall 

 the little bees, whose comfort and safety 

 seem to devolve particularly on us. be less 

 protected by the laws of our land than the 

 horses and cattle ? Go on, friend King, and 

 let us wake up the readers of the bee jour- 

 nals, at least. 



BEE HOUSES. 



I want to build a bee house. How large should it 

 be to hold from 50 to 100 stands? 



The term bee-house is rather indefinite. 

 If you mean the ordinary open sited, I do 

 not believe you want one. If you mean a 

 house to winter them in, a house 8 by 10 and 

 8 feet high inside will be about right, but I 

 do not feel sure that you want one of those 

 either. If you mean a house apiary, see page 

 38-4, last year's Gleanings, and A B C, part 

 I. I am not, at present, positively sure you 

 want a house apiary. They are nice to win- 

 ter in, and we get better crops of honey from 

 them than perhaps by any other method; 

 but, as yet, there has been no way devised 

 for making it as pleasant to work in them, 

 as with the out-door hives. 



Ten of our neighbors keep bees, and not one of 

 them has had any honey this year. They all keep 

 them in box hives. 1 am not quite ready to go into 

 blasted hopes yet. L.' Terrell. 



North Ridgeville, O., Nov. 22, 1879. 



ALIGHTING BUSHES AND TREES. 



In answer to friend Hasty (page 415, Oct. No.), I 

 would say that of 11 natural swarms which issued 

 lor me this season, 3 clustered on a lilac bush, 1 on 

 an elder berry bush, 3 ou peach trees, and 4 on a 



grape arbor (on the arbor not on the vine). Other 

 trees close by the hives were apple, pear, plum, 

 cherry, quince, and maple. 



ROOFS FOR HIVES. 



After reading W. E. Flower's letter, on page 451, 

 Nov. No., and your answer to it, I thought that per- 

 haps you might like to hear my experience with the 

 roof to the lk story hi% r e. I bought 50 from you last 

 spring, and, after a season's experience, I say un- 

 hesitatingly that it is an impossibility to put them 

 together so that they will turn water when exposed 

 to the weather. The trouble is that the roof boards 

 will "go and come." This breaks the paint where 

 they join the ridge board, and then a dashing rain 

 beats in at the joints in qunntities which would as- 

 tonish you. I kept the edges of the enameled sheet 

 raised all round a little, and have poured a half pint 

 of water off from it, that came through the roof 

 from one shower. I took the stuff for 10 covers and 

 dried it until it would not curl when exposed all day 

 to an August sun, then put them together with the 

 greatest care, filling the joint with white lead and 

 painting thoroughly ; but they all leaked in less than 

 a month. All my hives are now covered with old 

 boards, and have been for a long time. I must 

 make entirely new covers for them this winter, un- 

 less you can tell me some cheaper way to make the 

 old ones tight, for a leaky hive-roof is an abomina- 

 tion. I am not writing for the "Growlery," but be- 

 cause I presume you want to know the defects in 

 your hives. M. Frank Taber. 



Salem, O., Nov. 20, 1879. 



To be sure I want to know the defects, 

 and I am very much obliged to you for your 

 report of your faithful experiments. We 

 are now making all of our story and a half 

 covers in the way friend Baker described in 

 the last number ; that is, fastening the lap 

 with screws. We have credited him with 

 Gleanings for 1880 for the idea. What 

 shall we do with the leaky covers to hives 

 we have sold V 



In the spring, I commenced with 11 colonies of 

 bees, in Simplicity hives, and increased by natural 

 swarming to 22. The least comb h >ney obtained 

 from any one colony was 24 H>., and the most (J5tt>., 

 all ba«swood honey, in pound sections. 



Bees are all in good condition for winter, with plen- 

 ty of young bees and honev. Bees gathered honey 

 from aster bloom quite lively up to the 23d of Oct. 

 The queens I received of you, in Sept., have their 

 hives lined with nice, yellow Italians. When I order- 

 ed the extractor. I did not expect to have any use 

 for it this fall, but have extracted nearly sufficient 

 honey to pay for it. Wit. Pakmelee. 



Bean Blossom, Ind., Nov. IT, 1870. 



A CLEAR CASK OF BEES BALLING THEIR OWN QUEEN. 



A few weeks ago, I went to a nucleus hive, to take 

 away their queen, and introduce her to another 

 stock. It had not been opened before for more than 

 a week, and I at once found a ball of bees near the 

 lower edge of a comb, as if they were holding a 

 queen. I dropped the ball into a dish of water, and, 

 sure enough, they then released a queen, and I be- 

 lieve she belonged to that same hive, as I knew her 

 by her particular form and color. She was raised 

 from a cell I had put in that hive, and had been lay- 

 ing about two month*. She was very small but a 

 bright yellow. I had seen her quite a number of 

 times, and I just thought I would know for a cer- 

 tainty if she did belong there or not. I successfully 

 introduced her to the other stand, thon went back 

 and examined the combs of the nucleus. I found 

 some capped brood and a few newly laid eggs, but 

 no larva? or queen. I watched the hive closely, and 

 in an hour or two the bees were running about as if 

 hunting for their queen. I looked over the combs 

 twice after that for a queen, but in vain. After 3 

 da< s I united them with another stock. Now, why 

 did they ball her? All had been quiet, no robbers in 

 the hive, and they hud not had time to ball her from 

 any fright, by my opening the hive. I did not have 

 smoke, and it was not, probably, more than 5 sec- 

 onds from the time I got to the hive, until I saw the 

 ball. A. A. Fradenburg. 



Port Washington, O., Oct. 17, 1878. 



The bees balled her because they Avere dis- 

 satisfied with so small a cluster, I think; the 



