1880 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



123 



expense, something turns up so that we want 

 a hive made differently ; who would take the 

 machine Off onv hands? This is one of the 

 great troubles in making expensive, auto- 

 matic machinery. 



THE FIELD OF GLEANINGS. 



1 find it does not do to make much noise in GLEAN- 

 INGS about any thing- In the bee-lino, except one is 

 prepared to supply applications. My notice of the 

 Symphoricarpus brought me inquiries and orders 

 from the extremes of our own country, from British 

 and continental Europe, and even from Australia. 

 Although away down at the bottom of the " class" I 

 had to respond in a fraternal way, as best I could, 

 with seeds or plants. 



Perhaps it is not the circulation of Glean- 

 ings so much as it is that all who read it, 

 read it so intensely, if that is the proper ex- 

 pression. It is something like a live pray- 

 er meeting; all are interested in every thing 

 that is said, and most all of us have some- 

 thing to say. I hardly know how it comes, 

 for it does not seem to he my doing. 



SECOND GENERATION FROM IMPORTED MOTHERS. 



I lost the queen you sent me, and find that one 

 raised in the same hive, from her eggs, produces 

 more highly colored workers and drones than the 

 original did. Whether this is common or not I do 

 not know. 



The second or third generation seem, al- 

 most invariably, to he lighter colored and 

 prettier hees. 



The winter here is very mild. Not more than two 

 weeks at a time, I think, were bees without a fly, 

 and, after the worry of last summer in Italianizing, 

 it just makes me feel good to see my yellow pets go 

 for water in January. My reconstructed dry-goods 

 boxes seem to answer all the purposes of a chaff 

 hive, both summer and winter. 



VENTILATION FOB SIMl'LICITV COVERS. 



I have been troubled for want of top ventilation in 

 Simplicity hive; in fact, I have been obliged to throw 

 the cover on one side, and use chaff cushions instead. 

 As cold weather came on, the warm air would con- 

 dense inside the cover. I wish you or Mr. Gray or 

 some other of the "class leaders " would point a way 

 out of that trouble. 



Use the story and a half covers, friend T., 

 if hees are to he kept in the Simplicity hives 

 in cool or cold weather: this is just what 

 those covers are intended for. 



MAKING THE WATER TO RUN OFF FROM SIMl'LICITV 

 COVERS. 



We have overcome the difficulty of Inning rain- 

 water lying on the outside of the top, by having a 

 sort of clamp, in which we put the top so as to have 

 the shoulder groove on the end of the top a little 

 shallower in the middle, so that when nailed down it 

 rounds off to both sides, and no water lies on the 

 c iver outside, and I think it quite a desideratum. 



Q. w. Thompson. 



BtClton Nurseries, Middlesex Co., N. .J., Jan. '8). 



1 have often made covers slightly round- 

 ing, as vou suggest, hy waipin^ them a lit- 

 tle, just before we cut the rabbets around 

 the edge. By setting the back end of the 

 hive a little higher than the front, we can 

 have the water run off , and still have a Hat 

 cover. I have several times thought it was 

 much harder on the paint, where the water 

 remained sometime on hives that blood ex- 



actly level. The chaff-hive covers have so 

 little surface that is exactly level, I suppose 

 it will not matter. 



DRONES IN JANUARY. 



1 was very agreeably surprised yesterday, while 

 overhauling my bees, to find drones and about 160 

 cells of drone brood partly capped. The hive con- 

 tains a large amount of worker brood. If I had 

 known I had drones, 1 would have had some queens 

 ready. 1 shall experiment soon, if the weather keeps 

 warm. It is pleasant now. and the bees have been 

 out in force nearly every day this month. Get your 

 queens ready, and I will give you a dozen or two 

 drones, if it keeps warm. The queen is a hybrid, and 

 very prolific; she was reared in August. My bees, 

 tit) stocks, are in good order, and I expect to winter 

 without loss. I always rear queens from the stocks 

 that winter best, and have not lost a single colony in 

 over four years. F. L. Wright. 



Plainfleld, Mich , Jan. IS, 1SKJ. 



It is nothing so very strange, friend W., 

 that you have drones now, with this very 

 mild winter, but I think perhaps we would 

 better not start any queens just yet, for the 

 ground is now covered with snow, and it is 

 winter after all. 



EGGS REMAINING DORMANT; DOOLITTLE'S THEORY. 



I have often noticed very young larva?, in colonies 

 that had been queeuless !) days or more. Said larvie 

 was generally confined to one comb, near the center 

 of the hive, with very young queen cells started 

 thereon, while the adjoining combs contained sealed 

 queen cells, nearly ready to hatch. Now, whence 

 cometh this larva 1 , unless friend Doolittle's theory 

 be correct? I have noticed it alike in warm, as well 

 as cool, weather, but generally in times of scarcity. 



Santa Paula, Cal.. Jan. I-', '80. R. Touchton. 



At first, I Avas inclined to suggest a fertile 

 worker; hut, after giving the matter more 

 thought, I remember having seen the same 

 thing myself, quite a number of times, and 

 wondering if they did not. by some means, 

 hold hack, as it were, a few of the eggs, that 

 they might be able to rear another queen, if 

 their first one was lost. I have given the 

 matter some serious study, since friend D. 

 advanced the idea, and the more I think of 

 it, the more ami inclined to think that he is, 

 at least partially, right. Xow how do the 

 hees manage this matter? AVe can't do it 

 when we send eggs by mail; or, at least, we 

 have not been able to do it heretofore. 



A FEW REMARKS ON QUEEN-REARING, ETC. 



Our friend Doolittle gives us a few interesting and 

 valuable ideas on queen-rearing, in which he does 

 not very highly approve of artificially " started" 

 cells. I would like to offer a few remarks for your 

 criticism as well as friend Doolittle'8. Of course, we 

 know if we have the natural cell from which to rear 

 our queens, we have all that can be desired; and one 

 like Mr. I>., who has his bees all in one yard, can 

 easily use natural cells; hut as I have had bees in as 

 many as 6 or 8 different places, I must use other 

 means than natural swarming, and proceed as i- pos- 

 sible. Deprive a stock from which you wish to rear 

 cells, of all unsealed brood. The stock must contain 

 many young as well as old bees. Insert in its center 

 a comb, containing 6008 onlu, from your breeding 

 stock, in this case they have only newly laid eggs 



