1880 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTU11E. 



207 



AN OLD FRIEND'S REPORT ON SEVE- 

 RAL, MATTERS. 



CHAFF niVES. 



E COMMENCED the season of 1878 here with nine 

 stocks of bees in common Langstroth hives, In- 

 tending- to make chaff hives and transfer nil the 

 stocks into them before the harvest commenced; 

 but sickness in the family, and other misfortunes, 

 prevented so far that I got only two stocks and their 

 two swarms into chaff hives, and got sections on, 

 and that late. However, I sold the honey from these 

 four hives to the amount of #:n.*J7. I managed to go 

 into winter quarters with 18 stocks, all in chaff hives, 

 and managed to winter them all successfully, which 

 seems a mystery to neighboring bee-keepers who 

 lost all, or nearly all, they had. All efforts to induce 

 them to adopt a new system and take a bee journal 

 are fruitless. 



The season of 1879 was almost an entire failure. 

 The season opened splendidly, had early swarms, 

 and all were doing well, and got nicely started in 

 sections, when the dry hot weather in the latter part 

 of June cut off all pasturage completely. I began to 

 have fears in the latter part of summer that my 

 bees would be short of stores for winter, but a fair 

 flow of honey in the fall put them into winter trim. 

 The nights being- cool, they could work in sections 

 but very little. 



QUEEN CELLS FKOM NATURAL SWARMING. 



1 have increased my 18 to 40, mostly natural queens; 

 that is, queens that were hatched from cells that 

 were built by stocks that had swarmed, or were 

 about to swarm. This is a very good way to raise 

 queens, but I can see no difference in the artificial 

 queens I have raised and natural ones. One kind 

 did as well as the other the past season, and always 

 have done so, in my nine years' experience. I have 

 never had any 8, 9, or 10 day queens. My plan of 

 raising queens is to insert an empty comb or frame 

 of foundation into the center of the stock from 

 which I wish to breed. On the third day, take it out 

 and give to a queenless full colony, or very strong 

 nucleus (which for the purpose is the same thing) 

 nut less than three or four ccnibs, with abundance 

 of young hatching bees. The queens raised on this 

 plan seem to be as large and as perfect and as fine 

 •color as any natural queens I ever saw. I have had 

 no queens hatch in less than 13 days after the comb 

 was given to the queenless stock. By the way, if 

 honey is not^plenty at the time. fdn. must not be 

 nsed, but empty comb. 



I see that G. M. Doolittle prefers natural queens. 

 I aiTi a great admirer of friend Doolittle, but I think 

 if he had his bees in chaff hives he would not be 

 bothered with so many weak stocks in the spring. I 

 made a chaff hive for a man in the fall of 1878. The | 

 lower story was for a frame similar to the (iallup. I 

 transferred an ordinary stock into it, and it was the i 

 first to swarm the next season; but, unfortunately 

 for him, they decamped. He ran down the creek 

 after them for about a mile, lost his hat, and lost 

 sight of the swarm. The excitement and disap- 

 pointment made him really sick for the jest of the 

 day, bo that he could not attend to bis business. He 

 is foreman of a tannery in a neighboring village. 

 The chaff hives I got of you in 1878 were ;i poor Jot, 

 but [suppose you are improving on your goods, as 

 the l 1 /; Slnry bi\ e i eot of you last = e.T=oii was well 

 made. 



C \si; FOB I 1 i STORY HIVE. 



1 think the combined shipping-case and honey- 

 crate is a humbug for this reason: In removing full 

 sections and replacing with empty ones, you are lia- 

 ble to kill bees on the supporting bars. It is all very 

 well to say smoke them out of the way; but if one 

 has many bees to attend to, it takes a good deal of 

 time. The broad frames suit me better, as then you 

 take the frame away from the main cluster; then all 

 you have to do is to keep the bees off the separators 

 in replacing sections, which is easily done. 



FLAT-BOTTOMED FOUNDATION. 



I have used some of the thin tlat-bottomed fdn. 

 this hist season, and it answers equally as well as tho 

 Root fdn., as long as there is plenty of honey coming 

 in; but if there is no honey coming in, the bees 

 are apt to gnaw it, which is not the case with thick 

 fdn. We shall see how your new thin fdn. goes this 

 season. 



One day last summer I left some sections with 

 Knot fdn. in them standing beside a hive. When I 

 came to take them away I noticed that bees were 

 busy at work gnawing at the fdn., and loading up 

 their baskets with the wax. It made jagged-looking 

 pellets. All the bees doing this were Italians — no 

 blacks or hybrids. John II. Umfleby. 



Derby. X. V . Feb. 0. 1880. 



It is true, friend l r ., that there is some dan- 

 ger of killing bees with the story and a half 

 case, but if you use smoke and work slowly, 

 you may get along very well with a little 

 practice. This crate is considerably cheap- 

 er than broad frames and upper stories, and 

 on this account, it is a great favorite, with 

 certain classes. Lift the case off, and take 

 it away from the hive, and you can then 

 work with about the same facility as with 

 broad frames. 



OUR OWN APIARY, HONEY FA ROT, AND 

 FACTORY. 



IMPROVEMENTS IN DIPPING WAX SHEETS. 



E have been much rejoiced within the 

 past few days by a very simple ar- 

 rangement for melting wax. candied 

 honey, grape sugar, etc., by steam. It is 

 done by simply conduct inn - a half-inch iron 

 pipe into a barrel partly filled with water, 

 where, by letting in steam gradually, by a 

 suitable cock, the water may be made to 

 boil in a very few minutes. To melt wax, 

 just set into the barrel a suitable tin can, 

 fastened so that the water may be all around 

 it. This is for holding the wax, and should 

 be sufficiently large to take cakes of any size. 

 For dipping the sheets, we have a similar ar- 

 rangement "placed a little lower, so that a 

 molasses gate, placed near the bottom of the 

 can in the barrel, will deliver the melted wax 

 into the top of the second can. The dipping- 

 can must have a steam pipe also, to conduct 

 steam into the water that surrounds it. 

 With this arrangement, the dipping can be 

 carried on from morning until night, without 

 any stopping and fussing with the lire. The 

 tank in which the sheets are cooled is filled 

 by a pipe which brings cold water right from 

 the bottom of our artesian well, while anoth- 

 er conducts the water away after it has be- 

 come too warm. By this means, we dispense 



