174 



GLEANIKGS IN BEE CULTUBE. 



Apr. 



QUEENS BY MAIL, FOUL BROOD IN ITALY, ETC. 



1 am glad queens can be sent by mail. Please in- 

 form me how soon you can send me Italian queens 

 and price. I notice by the newspapers that foul 

 brood is making great destruction among the bees 

 in Italy. How about the healthiness of queens from 

 there? John S. Calkins. 



Los Angeles, Cal., Feb. 13, 1880. 



We have already, March 3d, tried some 

 queens by mail, but without very good suc- 

 cess. If we are forbidden to use the bottles 

 of water, I am not very sure it is going to be 

 any great gain, after all; and I have to-day 

 been thinking I should not care to risk them 

 much before May, although we can send 

 them safely by express all winter. 



1 too have noticed, by the British Bee Jour- 

 nal, what is said of foul brood, and as we 

 have now about all the imported blood that 

 can be of any great benefit for the present, 

 perhaps it may be as well to work with what 

 stock we have for at least one season. Foul 

 brood has never been known any where in 

 our vicinity, and I am not at all anxious that 

 it ever shall be. The greater part of our 

 customers have, so far, expressed a prefer- 

 ence for queens from the stock that gathered 

 so much more honey than the rest, late in 

 the fall, and we shall probably breed largely 

 from its queen. She is a fine large queen, 

 rather light in color, but her bees are rather 

 dark Italians. Their tongues have been ex- 

 amined, and pronounced considerably longer 

 than the average Italians. 



FASTENING STARTERS, AND WATER FOR BEES IN 

 WINTER. 



You say, " Mix rosin with the wax, to fasten the 

 starters into the sections." I have fastened mine 

 in with melted beeswax alone, giving them what I 

 call a good stick. Will they be likely to hold? You 

 have been seeking for some way to water bees (hir- 

 ing winter. What do you think of the plan of put- 

 ting a small pane of glass right over the brood nest, 

 under the chaff cushion, to condense and gather the 

 moisture? I have tried this in 2 of my hives this 

 winter, laying the glass on sticks running across the 

 frames, so the bees can go from frame to frame. 

 Will it not be enough cooler to be covered with 

 drops for the bees to sip? and yet, with the cushion 

 tucked in closely above, will not the heat of the hive 

 be kept in? D. D. Marsh. 



Georgetown, Mass., Feb. 3, 1880. 



We put in the rosin, that the wax may be 

 tougher. This also enables us to use a 

 smaller quantity. Your pane of glass would 

 give the bees water, but I am not sure it 

 would be wholesome water, having been 

 condensed from their breath, and it would 

 also spoil the effect of the chaff cushions, 

 and might cause dampness and even frost, if 

 the colony was small and the weather very 

 severe. 



The tw r o following letters w r ere addressed 

 to our friend Townley, and his answers will 

 be found below them. 



ALSIKE CLOVER ; DOES IT PAY FOR HAY? 



Some years ago, you esteemed Alsike very highly 

 for cattle and bees. It would be a favor to the bee 

 keeping fraternity if, through some one of the bee 

 journals, you would give your present opinion of it. 

 So far 1 have not been very successful with it, and 



doubt if it yields as much hay as red clover. Per- 

 haps I don't treat it right. C. C. Miller. 

 Marengo, 111., Jan. 14, 1880. 



1 know of no better forage plant for bees than 

 Alsike clover, and none equal to it in quality for all 

 kinds of stock, either for pasture or hay. To yield 

 a large crop it requires a moist, warm soil, or a wet 

 season; and, as dry seasons are the rule and wet 

 ones the exception, it is not generally cultivated, al- 

 though in favored localities it is quite extensively 

 grown. J. H. Townley. 



FEEDING HONEY IN MARCH. 



Will it pay to feed honey to bees about March, if 

 they have plenty in store? Will they rear brood 

 sooner? and, if so, should it be fed pure or mixed 

 with rye flour? How much should be fed daily? If 

 flour is used, what proportions of each should be ta- 

 ken? Should it be fed on top of frames or between 

 them? I have 19 swarms and 3 nuclei, some Ital- 

 ians and some hybrids. Joel Ressler. 



Ypsilanti, Mich. 



In this latitude, it will not pay to feed bees honey 

 in March, merely to stimulate breeding. I am not 

 satisfied that any general feeding of honey to bees, 

 for that purpose, in the spring, will pay until after 

 fruit blossoms. There is no advantage in having 

 hives crowded with bees until there is honey to col- 

 lect, and there will not be much of that till white 

 clover is in blossom. Then, we not only want the 

 hives filled with bees, but we also want plenty of 

 brood in the combs, and, in large apiaries where 

 there is a scarcity of honey between fruit-blossoms 

 and clover, it will pay to feed bees honey to keep the 

 queen laying. Gleanings gives full directions for 

 feeding. I have not tried flour candy, but presume 

 it would answer every purpose; it is also cheaper 

 than honey. It will pay to feed meal in the 

 spring, as early as the bees will work at it, which is 

 sometimes the first warm day. I use meal made of 

 about two bushels of oats to one bushel of wheat 

 screenings, and direct the miller to grind it as fine 

 as he can. Last spring, the bees in my home apiary 

 worked all the soiling qualities out of about seven 

 bushels of it. J. H. Townley. 



Tompkins, Jackson Co., Mich. 



While I heartily agree with all that is said 

 of the Alsike, my experience has been rather 

 different so far as regards spring feeding. 

 That is, I have sometimes had excellent re- 

 sults follow from feeding liquid food in 

 March. At other times, I have been led to 

 believe that feeding, or trying to feed, liquid 

 food during cool weather did harm rather 

 than good. After the weather has become 

 pretty well settled and warm, there is no 

 question in regard to the advantage of feed- 

 ing when the bees are not getting a pretty 

 fair, supply from the fields. Feeding the 

 flour candy, if properly done, I believe, is al- 

 ways productive of good results, and I never 

 yet saw a colony too strong in March, and 

 do not know that I ever shall, unless a time 

 shall come when I have more bees than I 

 want, because I can sell neither them nor 

 their honey. 



FLOUR FEEDING, — ANOTHER OBJECTION TO IT. 



To know the cause of a disease is more than half 

 its prevention. The first indication of dysentery 

 among my bees was in the latter part of last month 



