380 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



SIMPSON HONEY -PLANTS; PLANTING AN ACRE, ETC. 



I have a hundred or two Simpson plants, which I 

 intend setting out in a day or two. Will they take 

 root enough to winter? I have quite a little patch 

 that is a least to the eyes, from seed this spring too. 

 There are about 25 colonies of bees in this village, 

 and 1 expect to put 16 stocks into winter quarters, 

 thus making about 40 in all. Next spring I want to 

 plant one acre of Simpson plants in one corner of 

 the corporation, but how much good will my bees 

 derive from this experiment, even if I count on no 

 increase? I want my bees at home, but would you 

 advise moving them out of range of others, and put- 

 ting the plants there? Do you think placing some 

 sort of cheap spring-lock, to fasten the cap to the 

 body of a hive, would check honey-thieves to any 

 extent? I wish to Italianize, with a view to raise 

 queens for a few seasons, but my aim is honey, as 

 soon as I can work up to it. Will it be necessary to 

 Italianize all bees in my vicinity, or can I confine 

 queen rearing to my apiary, and produce pure stock? 



KEEPING UNFILLED SECTIONS AND FDN. OVER. 



I prepared several hives (sections also) with fdn. 

 for swarms, but they have concluded to defer it un- 

 til some more favorable season. How shall I save 

 the fdn. in hives and sections until next spring? 

 Will they be destroyed if hi ves are kept tight ? Bees 

 are a complete failure here this season. There is 

 plenty of white clover too; but my hope reaches out 

 for '81 and onward. Wm. M. Young. 



Nevada, Wyandot Co., O., July 9, 1880. 



I would not set the plants out until anoth- 

 er spring. They will by that time have 

 formed good strong roots. In fact, seed may 

 be sown now in the open ground, and, if the 

 plants be kept growing, they will have made 

 sufficient roots to winter over safely with a 

 little mulching. Another thing : The .Simp- 

 son is a rather hard plant to transplant — 

 much harder than the spider plant unless we 

 wait until the second season and take up the 

 root. Old roots, even if broken into small 

 pieces, will grow and make strong plants. 

 One acre of .Simpson plants, with a strong 

 growth on good, rich soil, I think would 

 keep 2.5 colonies pretty busy from— say July 

 l-5th until frost. Of course, it would be bet- 

 ter to have your bees away from others if 

 you could without too much extra expense. 

 Locks might prove a partial remedy used as 

 you suggest, but I would prefer having the 

 bees near my house, and surrounded by a 

 high tight fence. You can raise pure stock 

 with common bees all around you. The 

 matter is fully discussed in the ABC. Take 

 off your sections and set them away in the 

 honey-house, in empty hives, until they are 

 wanted again. They can be left on the 

 hives, but the bees will wax and gum up the 

 sections so as to mar their appearance great- 

 ly. The fdn. will not be harmed at all by 

 standing over until another season. 



BEES THAT WON'T START QUEEN CELLS. 



I have 3 queenless hives. Now, how can I get 

 them queens from my old hives? They have start- 

 ed queen cells all over their combs. I have some 

 good, strong swarms, but I can not get a queen cell 

 that has an egg in it. I wish you would start me 

 right in this matter. Now ABC tells me to put in 

 a frame of brood. I have done so, but there is no 

 queen or brood as soon as they are all hatched. I 



want to work for increase instead of honey this seas- 

 on. Will my bees raise their own queen? Will 

 sawdust do as well to pack down bees for winter, as 

 chaff? L. L. Loom is. 



Scotch Ridge, O., July 9, 1880. 



In the first place, friend L., it seems to 

 me you have no business in having three 

 hives in that predicament ; but, as you have, 

 we shall have to get you right, and then you 

 must see that they have brood after this. If 

 you have a colony that will not start any sort 

 of a queen cell, from unsealed larva' given 

 them, you can set it down that there is some 

 kind of an unfertile or barren queen in the 

 hive that must be got out. I have once or 

 twice found a sort of half queen and half 

 worker, so nearly like a common bee that it 

 was only by the behavior of the bees to them, 

 that we could pick them out; but, after 

 finding this nondescript and pinching its 

 head, they built queen cells at once. All of 

 these troubles came from leaving stocks a 

 long while without queen, brood, or eggs. — 

 Sawdust has been used for winter protection 

 with success as you will see by back num- 

 bers of Gleanings, but the question as to 

 whether it is as good as chaff or not, is per- 

 haps yet doubtf ulh 



GOOD REPORT FROM TEXAS; DOLLAR QUEENS, ETC. 



Bees are doing well this season. From 40 hives we 

 are taking, on an average, 80 lbs. of extracted honey 

 per day. I don't know how long this will last; it 

 commenced a week ago. Of the three one-dollar 

 queens I bought of you last year, two proved hy- 

 brid; the other has the finest colony of Italian bees 

 I ever saw. I have raised a lot of young queens 

 from her. There are so many black bees here, we 

 are troubled to get them purely mated. We will 

 have to get more Italians from abroad, and then we 

 may succeed in raising our own queens. 



Lancaster, Texas, July 5, 1880. E. J. Atchley. 



You paid for the three queens, friend A., 

 the price of the one that proved pure, for I 

 presume she would be called a §3.00 queen, 

 and you have two hybrids besides, so that 

 you are nothing out, even though two out of 

 the three did prove hybrids, and I think this 

 decidedly an unusually bad report from dol- 

 lar queens. 



NON-SWARMING BEES. 



I have found a non-swarming strain of bees, should 

 anybody wish some of that class. Last week I trans- 

 ferred a stock that has been owned by the same par- 

 ty for 14 years, and has never sent out but one 

 swarm. That was two years ago, and the new 

 swarm has never swarmed yet. I also transferred 

 it. The old one was in an ordinary-sized box hive, 

 and stood out on a box in about the ordinary way. 

 They were, of course, the common black bees. How 

 is that for non-swarmers? A. A. Fhadenburg. 

 • Port Washington, O., July 12, 1880. 



Very good, friend F.; but if they did not 

 swarm at all, they ought to have made at 

 least 50 lbs. of honey each year. If, as I half 

 suspect, they did little or nothing, I do not 

 know that we shall care to develop such 

 non-swarmers. I once heard a boy boast 

 that he had never read a novel in his life ; 

 but when the truth was got at, it was found 

 that he had never read anything at all, for 

 the simple reason that he was too lazy. I 

 would rather have the boy who reads novels 

 and the bees that swarm, as the lesser of 

 two evils. 



