30 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



STILL MORE ABOUT TWO QUEENS IN A HIVE. 



I made some bee-candy by the ABC receipt. It 

 was several days in hardening. I got a barrel of 

 grape-sugar, and want to do something in ihe spring. 



I had 4 hives this season, that had 2 queens in each. 

 I removed the black queen where I introduced the 

 one I got of you, and in about 10 days afterward, I 

 removed the Root queen, and looked for loyal cells, 

 but found none. Then, on examination I found a 

 black queen which 1 think was in the hive with the 

 Italian. 



I think it is not safe to introduce a good queen, 

 until the bees have commenced to build cells. 



I have lost 2 queens this season by taking one 

 queen out, and looking no further, and afterward 

 finding that there was one left in. I have never 

 found this trouble before this season. 



Jos. Harris. 



Moundsville, W. Va., Nov. 24, 1879. 



The candy is sometimes a day or two in 

 hardening, but the bees will take it much 

 faster, if it is rather soft and moist when 

 given them. Yon did not state how many 

 colonies you have, friend PL, so we cannot 

 tell whether your having 4 colonies with two 

 queens each is so very singular or not. If 

 you have only 4 hives, it is a little remarka- 

 ble ; but, if you have 50, 1 should expect to 

 find so many or more with two queens. Will 

 the friends, in making reports, keep this 

 point in view? 



Find enclosed $1.00. That Gleanings fellow told 

 me, if I didn't hunt around in my old clothes and 

 find him some stamps, he would forget me next 

 month; and I guess he would, because he said he 

 would. '• Curious critter," isn't he? I never have 

 seen him, but feel as though I were pretty well ac- 

 quainted through reading his Home Papers. 1 am 



not a professor of religion, no; not now do 't 



hold up both hands not even a believer in the 



Divine Revelation; but I do love to read those Home 

 Papers. Y\ hy? Because they are written, I believe, 

 by an honest, sincere man, striving to lead a Chris- 

 tan life. They have done me good. 



This has been a very poor season for surplus hon- 

 ey, in this locality. I have a neighbor who has ;J0 

 swarms in box hives, that did not get a pound of 

 surplus. My 9 swarms that I had last winter came 

 through all right until spring; they were in box 

 hives when they commenced swarming out, and they 

 dwindled so that I only saved 3 swarms, or rather 

 handfuls, out of the lot; audi have divided them 

 until now 1 have my old number, 9, in Simplicity 

 hives, which, by the aid of the grape sugar candy I 

 hope to bring through. The box of grape sugar that 

 I am using is what is called confectioners sugar, and 

 is very white, made by the Buffalo Grape Sugar Co. 

 Is that the right kind? W. P. Hall. 



Pembroke, Genesee Co., N. Y., Nov. 24, 1879. 



Thank you, friend II. If you will turn in 

 and help try to lead a Christian life, I shall 

 have no fears from your unbelief. God will 

 take care of that. 



I am very sorry you have done so poorly 

 with your bees, and 1 fear you are trusting 

 too much to grape sugar. The kind you 

 mention is right for bees. 



ANOTHER ABC SCHOLAR. 



If you are ready to hear my lesson, I'll recite. I 

 made a lot of L. hives last winter, and transferred 

 my 8 box hive colonies, about the last of April. I 

 succeeded, without the loss of ,a single queen. So 

 far, I was all right; but the colonies weie all very 

 weak, not able to cover the brood during a very cold 

 snap of weather that came soon after they were put 

 in their new hives. Consequently, the brood chilled 

 which gave them quite a set-back. I also had to 

 feed them before the white clover came to their re- 

 lief, bo you may guess they have made poor bead- 

 way. Bees are very little worked with, in this part 

 of the country. 



RED CLOVER HONEY. 



Will Italian bees gather honey from red clover? 

 If so, what quality of honey does it make? 



L. F. MOORE. 

 Morris Church, Campball Co., Va. 



You have recited very well, friend C. 



Had your transferred colonies been closed 



up with division boards into a small space, 



I hardly think the brood would have chilled. 



! Did you place the brood all of it close to- 



i aether, very nearly as it was in the old hives V 



Chaff hives, perhaps, are the surest remedy 



! for such mishaps. Italians always work on 



red clover in June and July, with us, but 



they do not work on it during the fall months 



| every season* The honey is very nearly like 



| that from white clover. The flavor is per- 



| haps a little more rank, and one who is nice 



in such matters would, perhaps, give the 



white clover honey a little preference. The 



white Dutch clover differs little, if any, from 



the common white clover, for honey. 



A SMALL SWARM COMING OUT OF A HEAVY NEW 

 SWARM. 



Last fall, I introduced an Italian queen to a heavy 



swarm of black bees. They wintered finely, and the 



19th of June, sent out a very large swarm, which I 



hived, and they went to work all right. On the 28th, 



| a little over a week afterward, about 2 qts. of bees 



came out of that hive, and lit on a small bush. I 



[ shook them into a box, gave them a little smoke, 



J and trit d to find the queen, but failed. 



1 had another colony of Italians which was rather 

 weak, and I put them all together, and have had no 

 trouble with them since. What was the cause of 

 their coming out? and was there any harm in put- 

 ting them with the other swarm? H. E. Spencer. 

 Center Village, N. Y., June. 3, 1879. 



It is a hard matter to account for the case 

 | you mention, friend S., without having an 

 ■ opportunity to examine the colony it came 

 1 from. I have never known a body of bees 

 : to thus emigrate, unless they had a queen, 

 I or at least started with one. In lieu of a 

 ! better explanation, I will suggest that they 

 undertook to swarm, but the old queen fail- 

 I ing to go with them, the greater part of the 

 i bees returned to the hive, and the two quarts 

 | you mention pushed on, and had not discov- 

 ered they were queenless, when you found 

 them. There was no harm in putting them 

 | with the other swarm if they were queenless, 

 and you watched to see that they did not 

 kill each other. 



A GOOD REPORT FROM THE BLACKS. 



A bee-keeper not more than a mile from here took 

 200 lb. of honey from a colony of black bees. Do 

 you not t hink t hat is very good for the blacks? Just 

 one question: Do you think it will pay, i his fall, to 

 give from $5.00 to &10.00 for black bees, well supplied 

 for winter, packed in chaff, etc.? 



Edwin Granger. 



Deer Park P. O., Ont., Can., Nov. 28, 1879. 



If you can get, for $10., the colony that 

 gave the 200 lb., I think it would pay ; but I 

 would not give over $5. for common bees or- 

 dinarily, and they should be in movable 

 frame hives, at that price. 



JUICE OF SUGARCANE FOR BEES. 



Will the juice of the common sugar-cane injure 

 bees? Wc have been making syrup for the last 

 week, and the bees swarmed around the mill all the 

 time. Let us know what ynu think about it, and 



then, next spring, well, I'll tell what I think a- 



bout it. We fed thenr syrup to keep them away 

 from the mill, but it did not keep more than 1 half 

 of them awav. D: S. Bethune. 



Snyder, Ark., Nov. 14, 1879. 



The juice will do them no harm (unless 

 they get drowned in it), if the weather is so 

 they can fly. For winter stores where the 

 winters are so cold they cannot fly almost 

 every day, it often produces dysentery. 



