1SS0 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTU11E. 



217 



same queen, but it looks probable, to say the least. 

 Sept. 4th, I caged a queen which was very yellow in 

 swarm 71. She was taken from nucleus II. I let the 

 queen out the 5th, and every thing- seemed all right; 

 but, the tith, she could not be found. I gave the 

 swarm young- larvae, and they raised queens; but, 

 on going- back to H, I found the queen all right. On 

 the 12th, I cag-ed her in :>::, irad let her out the 13th. 

 A little while afterward I went to see how she was 

 g-etting- along-. When I discovered her she was 

 going up to the top of the frame as lively a3 you 

 please, but she did not stop there; before I could 

 set the frame down, she tlew away. This time she 

 did not return to nucleus II. On the same day (the 

 i:>th), I opened a swarm which stood some 20 ft. in 

 front of ;jr!. This swarm had rather a dark queen 

 with her wing cut. Now my supposition is that, 

 while the bees were excited on account of my dis- 

 turbing them, the yellow queen (which Hew from 38) 

 entered this swarm, and the old queen was de- 

 stroyed. In just a week, I went to the same swarm 

 again, and was surprised to fiud queen cells nearly 

 ready to seal over. On looking a little further, I 

 found a bright yellow, laying queen, which turned 

 out to be a pure queen; also her brood in nucleus II 

 was pure. This fly-away queen behaves herself very 

 nicely at present writing, and is mother of as nice 

 a swarm as there is in the yard. So I conclude that 

 not all the queens which fly away when being intro- 

 duced are lost. We had several other cases; but I 

 must not take up too much of your valuable time. 

 It was the worst time tor introducing queens last 

 fall, that I ever saw. Bees gathered very little hon- 

 ey here, although there were acres of buckwheat in 

 bloom near by. I usually introduce the new queen 

 when I take away the old one, by stopping up the 

 mouth of the queen cage with soft comb; the bees 

 will gnaw it away, and in a few hours the new queen 

 will be at work. But this would not do last fall, 

 some of the swarms would ball a queen a half dozen 

 times before they would accept her, so we had to re- 

 sort to the Quinby method, and keep them queenless 

 a few days. I lost several nice queens before I re- 

 alized that a little more care was necessary. 



A re not sister queens marked alike? In several 

 cases, I could tell queens from a particular mother, 

 as soon as I saw them. I did not think about it at 

 first but mean to take particular notice this season; 

 for instance, the queens from one mother were all 

 very loDg, slim, and yellow; from another, they 

 were a little darker and very large; from still 

 another they were medium sized and quite dark. 



Putnam, Ct., March 21, 1880. Thomas R. 



I am glad you have brought out this point 

 in regard to purity of blood, friend 11., for I 

 have often thought if we were purposely to 

 raise some queens that we knew were three- 

 fourths Italian, we should find many of them 

 producing bees whose markings would indi- 

 cate them full blood. In attempting to raise 

 queens from them, however, the impure 

 blood will quickly show. I too have seen 

 queens so disposed to take wing, that they 

 would start off almost every time the hive 

 was opened ; do such queens ever start out 

 when the hive is not opened? If they do, it 

 might explain many hitherto unexplained 

 things about bees changing from black to 

 Italian, and the reverse. It is quite certain, 

 that a queen often goes into a strange hive, 

 and supersedes the proper inmate. 



BEES AND GRAPES. 



^jf? J RAISE fruit and keep bees, but have never had 

 j'|[ Concord or Delaware grapes burst on the vines 

 by wet weather, or had them punctured by 

 bees. That bees ever do puncture fruit, I deny. I 

 have been considerably annoyed by birds snipping 

 mv fruit, and, when the skin of sweet fruit is once 

 broken in any manner, the bees will go for the juice, 

 and will suck it all out clean, provided the weather 

 is sufficiently dry to prevent its souring too soon for 

 them. If the weather is wet, the juice will soon 

 sour and spoil the fruit for anything. 



The black-header, or rose-breasted grossbeak, Gon- 

 iaphea ludovtciana (not an oriole at alb, is the princi- 

 pal offender. "Male with head, neck, and upper 

 parts mostly black, with white on rump, wings, and 

 tail; belly white; breast and under wing covers of 

 an exquisite red: female, olive brown, with under 

 wing covers saffron-yellow: abundant in Europe and 

 U. S.; perhaps our handsomest bird, and one of our 

 most brilliant songsters." 



It certainly is altogether too lovely for destruc- 

 tion. They are rather shy and stealthyin their hab- 

 its, and, besides snipping open your grapes and 

 plums, they will get away with a share of your green 

 peas. But they are the only bird that I know of 

 which consumes the larvtv of the Colorado, or ten- 

 striped potato beetle. 



The presence of bees on the fruit necessitates care 

 in picking and handling, otherwise you may feel 

 1heir poisoned javelins; but blowing upon them 

 with the breath will drive them off and send them 

 away. 1). W. C. Bacon. 



Oneida, 111., Feb. U, 18S0. 



HOW TO SAVE YOUR GRAPES. 



Mr. Editor:— I notice an inquiry in the Feb. No., as 

 to whether or not bees will eat grapes. Many locali- 

 ties are very poorly provided with fall flowers or 

 honey resources, and about the time the grapes be- 

 gin to ripen, the honey season is almost, if not en- 

 tirely, past, and the air is full of bees in search of 

 anything they can find. Then, if the ripening- 

 grapes are disturbed, or any of them punctured or 

 broken by any bird or insect, the bees are at once at- 

 tracted by the smell, and when once at work on the 

 grapes, they are not satisfied to stop when they have 

 finished up all the wounded ones, but will examine 

 every sound grape over and over until they find a 

 weak or tender spot on the skin, which they can cut 

 more easily than a strip of muslin tied around a 

 comb. I have watched them do it. But another 

 thing I have noticed: bees prefer going a little dis- 

 tance, rather than committing such depredations 

 close around their homes. Notwithstanding all that 

 has been said, I know of but one remedy, and that 

 is, sow buckwheat at two different times, so that the 

 last sowing will bloom until the frost comes, and 

 your grapes are safe, and the grain of your buck- 

 wheat will pay as well as any crop you raise. Al- 

 ways sow it on the poorest ground you have. I 

 could say much more, b*t will only say, " Try it." 



Oxford, O. D. A. McCORD. 



In that funny, old-fashioned, behind-the-times, 

 English bee-book entitled, How I Made (360 a Year, 

 they advise havinar the surplus honey stored under 

 fheMve, or at least under the brood-nest, as you may 

 remember I once told you. Well, our f riend T. F. 

 Bingham, so I have been told, gives his bees room 

 for surplus by putting one of his shallow, six-inch, 

 empty stories, under the one containing the b«es. 

 The idea is at least novel if not useful. 



