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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



229 



queens 1 ever owned. Some time in the latter part 

 of August, I opened the hive to perform some oper- 

 ation or other, and found the queen on the bottom 

 board balled. I rescued her, made a three-frame 

 nucleus to which she was introduced, and wintered 

 them successfully in n chaff hive, although there 

 was only 3 frames of them. I kept her during the 

 three succeeding seasons, and her colony has been 

 one of the most profitable ones I have had. Now 

 what could have been the cause of the bees trying 

 to destroy her? She had been the undisputed head of 

 that colony nearly 3 months, and exceedingly prolific, 

 the hive at thp time of the trouble being extra full 

 of brood for that season of the year. Nothing could 

 have been the matter with the queen herself, ns she 

 proved very valuable for full 3 years afterwards, 

 one year longer than I usually keep queens, unless 

 they are extra prolific. There can be very little or 

 no question but that she was their own queen, for I 

 had previously clipped one wing, and at that time I 

 had no other queen so large and bright, that raised 

 hybrid workers. 



There are some cases, friend P., where it 

 is extremely difficult to account for the hail- 

 ing of a queen by her own bees ; but, in your 

 case, I would suggest that the hive was so 

 near some other stand that a body of young 

 bees when out playing had, by mistake, 

 gone into that one. Finding a queen that 

 was new to them, they balled her just as 

 they would a strange queen put into their 

 own hive. That young bees do sometimes 

 make mistakes is easily seen, by standing 

 right in front of a colony when a great many 

 young bees are playing in the afternoon; if 

 a hive just like their own is standing very 

 near, they will often go in a body to it, and 

 go in. This is perhaps more of a peculiarity 

 of the Italians, and is one great reason why 

 I have so often cautioned you about stand- 

 ing in front of the hives. 



A FLOW OF HONEY THAT OID NOT START BHOOD 

 HEARING. 



On page 31, in answer to Mr. Hill, you say, in sub- 

 stance, that a bountiful flow of honey in the fall 

 always starts queens to breeding. We have had a 

 very peculiar experience about that this fall. Usu- 

 ally our fall crop of honey is the best, continuing 

 usually through nearly all of Sept., and sometimes 

 into Oct. even ; but this year the fall harvest did not 

 commence until about the 25th of August, and con- 

 tinued about one week only, being one of the most 

 copious flows of honey I ever saw while it lasted. 

 Previous to this flow of honey the bees had reduced 

 their breeding somewhat, and, during that week of 

 excessive How, every empty cell of comb in a large 

 majority of hives was filled with honey, entirely de- 

 priving the queen of laying room. I was working 

 with my bees all the time when I could, and nearly 

 or quite every hive that I examined ten days or 

 more after the commencement of this (low of honey, 

 I found to be full of honey from top to bottom, but 

 no eggs or unsealed larva'. Of course, what to do 

 to remedy this state of things was plain; viz., to ex- 

 tract honey from the centre combs of each hive, 

 which I did as fast as possible, but with very little 

 effect on breeding, for the combs were so quickly 

 filled up again with honey that but few eggs were 

 laid. Does not this explain how Mr. Hill's hives 

 might have been full of honey, and but little brood 

 ou Sept. 1st? If the theory that old bees cause spring 



dwindling is a true one, look out for a large loss of 

 bees this coming spring, in this entire section of 

 country. O. O. Poppleton. 



Williamstown, Iowa, Jan. 26, 1880. 



After queens have stopped laying, it takes 

 a little time to get them started again ; and 

 in my greenhouse experiments I think I had 

 fed the colonies bountifully at least a week, 

 before any egrgs were deposited. After they 

 get started, the feeding must be kept up, or 

 they will soon stop again. In the case you 

 mention, the flow was only just long enough, 

 to get them fairly ready to begin laying, and, 

 when they were ready, the combs, as you 

 say, were so completely filled that there was 

 no room ; but I should have supposed they 

 would have made at least a small brood 

 nest, and that,' as the flow slackened, the 

 bees would have moved the honey and made 

 room for them. After a brisk yield of clo- 

 ver honey, I have found the cells in the eve- 

 ning apparently all full; but, in the morn- 

 ing, they would be half of them empty. 

 The reason of this was that they had scat- 

 tered the honey through the hive, a little in 

 each cell, so that a greater surface might be 

 exposed for evaporation and ripening, and, 

 by morning, the ripened honey had been 

 gathered up, and the contents of two cells 

 put into one. By watching closely, you will 

 see this process is constantly going on, es- 

 pecially where the honey gathered is quite 

 thin, and, as a consequence, you might say 

 on opening a hive in the evening that every 

 cell was filled with honey, whereas every ceil 

 was only half full, or still less. I am not 

 quite sure that queens are very often perma- 

 nently crowded for room, at least not if their 

 owner takes and reads Gleanings. 



WHAT TO DO WITH EMPTY COMBS. 



My bees are nearly all dead. I had over 50 colonies 

 in the fall, but less than 10 now. I don't see any 

 chance for them. They have plenty of honey and 

 pollen. But very few had dysentery; the most go 

 out of existence by depletion. What would you do 

 with the combs? There is honey, pollen, or bee 

 bread in most of them. I bought 26 swarms last 

 summer, to save combs, honey, and hives. I gave 

 each of them from 5 to 15 lb. of honey, with every 

 hive full of comb. They never made any surplus. 

 Does giving them a good start spoil, or distract their 

 energy, or make them lazy and careless, as it does 

 some young- people who are set off in style? Let me 

 have your advice. You seem to have dropped that 

 word "Blasted," the best you could do with it. I will 

 never work under it, though I lose every stand of 

 bees I have. Success to Gleanings. 



West Point, la., Mar. 20, '80. J. E. Jarrett. 



The idea has been a few times advanced 

 that a new swarm would do better with an 

 empty hive than with a full set of old combs 

 furnished them, but I have so very emphat- 

 ically disproved it by actual practice, that I 

 can but think it a mistake. I should attri- 

 bute the result spoken of to the extreme bad- 

 ness of the season, last year ; but, even with 

 the worst season I ever knew here, it seems 

 the bees should have done better than that. 

 New swarms often fill a hive with honey in 

 two days, but they assuredly could not do 

 this if they had to build the comb. 



