1SS0 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



159 



plan I have latterly adopted is this: Make a cage 

 such as Novice described several years ago for cag- 

 ing- queen-cells, only have it at least two inches 

 square. Remove the queen you wish to supersede, 

 shake the bees from the comb, and place your que°n 

 on it where' there is some honey, and then place the 

 cage over her, pressing the edges of the wire cloth 

 into the comb till the cage does not project beyond 

 the surface of the comb more than half an inch. 

 Hang the comb In the hive, leaving % of an inch be- 

 tween it and its fellows, so the bees can go all 

 around it. In a few hours, open the hive; and, if 

 the queen is reconciled to the strange colony, she 

 will be quiet, and the bees quiet on the cage, when 

 you can lift the cage, and she will go quietly among 

 the bees, as she would have done in her own hive. 

 If, on the contrary, she is running around, and the 

 bees are biting at the cvgo, don't let her out till 

 such conditions cease to exist. The above are the 

 conclusions I have arrived at, which may uot be en- 

 tirely correct, but I think are mainly so. 



G. M. Doolittle. 

 Borodino, N. V., March, 1880. 



I agree with your premises, in the main, 

 friend I)., that the queen is often more to 

 blame than the bees, when she is not well 

 received, but I can hardly accept your reme- 

 dy, for I do not see how its conditions differ 

 materially from those of an ordinary cage 

 for introducing. I have experimented with, 

 and described in print, such cages, for more 

 than ten years past ; but, after finding a 

 number of them dug out of the comb, and 

 the queen killed, I gave it up. Putting a 

 similar cage on the opposite side of the 

 comb held her, of course, but it did not pre- 

 vent the bees from cutting the comb and 

 marring it badly, in their vehement attempts 

 to get rid of the obnoxious foreign body in- 

 serted in the midst of their brood-nest. It 

 is true, the plan is having quite a revival, 

 and many times succeeds nicely, but so does 

 letting the queen go without any introduc- 

 tion at all often succeed. 



OIR OWN APIARY AMD HONEY FARM. 



CHAFF FOR KEEPING THE BEES FROM GET- 

 TING ABOVE THE MATS. 



/f%N page 62 I spoke of putting a little 

 HJj) loose chaff over the mats and enam- 

 ^-^ eled sheets, that the bees might by no 

 possibility get above and be chilled while 

 trying to get through the ventilating holes 

 in the covers of the chaff hives. Now, after 

 having handled the hives prepared in this 

 way, I am so well pleased with it that I shall 

 certainly adopt it permanently. I do not 

 like to be obliged to get smoke every time I 

 wish to open a hive. With the loose chaff , 

 it is an easy matter to scrape it all up into 

 the corners of the hive when you wish to 

 look in. ■ If some of the chaff gets down on 

 the bees, it does no harm ; and. when you 

 are putting the mat down, if they should 

 keep poking through the last crack (as they 

 sometimes do), just sprinkle sonic chaff 

 right on them, right into their eyes, for that 

 matter, and they will quickly hack out and 

 go down on the combs. You can shut them 

 down without hurting them in the least, and 

 no bee can over push through afterward. 



Fix your chaff, press down the cushion, and 

 then they are all snug and warm for the next 

 frosty night. Our bees in chaff hives thus 

 prepared have pleased me the, most of any 

 bees I ever before had the care of in winter. 

 A peck of light chaff under the cushion will 

 not be at all in the way, and then there are 

 no open cracks and crevices. I rather think 

 we shall let the chaff and cushions remain 

 until surplus receptacles are to be put on. b 

 The bees in the house apiary not prepared' 

 thus have not wintered nearly as well. 



CHAFF HIVES VS. TENEMENT HIVES AND 

 HOUSE APIARIES. 



Mar. 6.— Of course we sold queens in Feb- 

 ruary, as we have done all winter, and when 

 one was wanted we chose it, as far as possi- 

 ble, from some of the weakest colonies, and 

 then united the bees with another. The re- 

 sult of this has been to nearly depopulate the 

 lower story of the house apiary. It seems as 

 if house apiaries and tenement hives are bet- 

 ter for severe winters than mild ones. The 

 reason is, that a single chaff hive will be 

 quickly warmed up all through, because the 

 sun and wind can strike it on all sides, while 

 the compound structures keep cold and damp 

 for a much longer period. All things con- 

 sidered, it seems as if the chaff hives were 

 to meet all requirements better ihan anything 

 else, and, since reports have so much favor- 

 ed them for summer use as well as winter, I 

 think it behooves us to consider well, if it 

 will not be best to have a less number of 

 stocks, and have them better cared for. 



WEAK COLONIES FOR WINTER. 



T have told you how I came to undertake 

 again to carry weak colonies through, — to 

 save the imported queens our friends across 

 the water sent us so late last fail. Well, I 

 came through much better than I had any 

 right to expect, and, although but very few 

 have been lost outright, we have at present 

 so many weak colonies that I am more de- 

 termined than ever before to attempt to win- 

 ter only strong stocks, and perhaps I would 

 better say powerful stocks. I know there 

 are many who say they would not have colo- 

 nies for winter over strong, if they could ; 

 and our neighbor II., who is getting to be 

 pretty good authority, said, on looking at 

 one of my colonies in the, fall , — 



" There ! I would not give a cent to have 

 any more bees in a colony for winter than 

 you have there." 



I told him at the time, that I should prefer 

 twice as many. Well, I think just so yet. I 

 do not know that I ever saw too many bees 

 in any hive, at any time of year, to suit my 

 ideas ; of course, I mean as the progeny of a 

 single queen. 



THE SIMPSON' HONEY-PLANTS IN MARCH. 



You know we planted 1000 roots of the 

 above, last fall. Mr. Gray and myself were 

 very much pleased indeed to find this spring 

 that almost every root had long sprouts on 

 it and that the plants which bore so many 

 blossoms last season are sending out most 

 beautiful, strong shoots, giving promise of 

 still greater things this year. 



OUR GREENHOUSE. 



For the purpose of getting an abundant 



