1880 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUHE. 



385 



survived. With modern appliances, if we 

 do not look out, we shall be nursing up and 

 wintering over good, bad, and indifferent. 

 Friend Jones and Benton have made a good 

 start in the right way ; shall we not follow 

 it up. by trying to make the ''survival of the 

 fittest" our rule to work by? 



TOO MUCH RAIN, PATENT-HIVE VENDERS, ETC. 



Bees in this vicinity have scarcely made a living 

 so far. White clover is in bloom, but we have fre- 

 quent showers of rain, which seem to wash out all 

 the nectar, as the bees don't appear to attend to 

 business for two or three days after a good shower. 

 I have sections and extracting- cases on, but no hon- 

 ey as yet, though there is plenty of brood and a few 

 swarms. I have some black bees, but am trying to 

 Italianize. I have had good success by killing- the 

 black queens and immediately inserting- a queen 

 cell. I think this plan is not considered good, but it 

 suits me so far. I raise my cells according to Town- 

 send, and have 21 in one hive now (after the stealing 

 was done), and about the same in another. I don't 

 expect to get much honey this season, as there has 

 been a patcnt-hivc vender around this spring, sell- 

 ing shares in his hive at $5.00, also giving the lucky 

 buyer the chance of getting his hives at wholesale 

 prices. He was armed with a Quinby smoker, a 

 piece of fdn. two inches square, a one-piece section 

 (busted), and a model hive similar to the Gallup, only 

 the bottom board is in strips, so you could let down 

 one or more and make room for the moth in the 

 cracks. The neighbors almost all went in for a 

 share. He called on me, but I was supplied with the 

 L. hive. He told the neighbors that I was behind 

 the times on bee-keeping. Perhaps I am; but I 

 think it best to be behind sometimes. I have t!5 col- 

 onies; use the L. hive, extractor, Italian bee, raise 

 all my own queens, do my own transferring, and 

 think I can do all Mr. Vender can, except swindling 

 the people. I have often tried to get subscribers for 

 the journals, and they say it won't pay, as they keep 

 only a few swarms; but $5.00 would pay for a bee 

 journal a longtime. My bees have worked on clover 

 just 3 days since it rained, and now we have another 

 shower to-night. Is the rain the cause of there be- 

 ing no honey in the clover? or what is it? Some 

 colonies have not 4 lbs. or' honey in their hives, but 

 10 frames of brood. D. G. Webster. 



Park's Corners, 111., July 4, 1880. 



Too much rain is rather bad, but I do not 

 think it as bad as too little : and if you will 

 just hold on, friend W., I think you will 

 have honey yet before the season is over. 

 Let your neighbors see that it is a steady 

 pull and not patent hives that gives success. 



WHY ARE THE BEES CROSS? 



I have 30 stocks of bees, all in chaff hives, and from 

 the stock I bought of you in June, 1878. They arc on 

 a plat of ground about 1(5 x 150 ft., covered with saw- 

 dust, at one side of my house. I have not extracted 

 any yet this season, intending to have nothing but 

 section honey, and have put on wide upper frames 

 for sections (from 5 to 10), as the bees appear to want 

 more room. Now, they have been exceedingly 

 troublesome this spring, and are growing more so. 

 They attack man and beast in and out of doors. This 

 morning I was attacked, though not among the 

 hives, and was stung on head, arms, and hands, in 

 more than fifty places. Please give me some reason 

 for this, or advise me in what ways I may look for a 



cause, and oblige. If it can not be remedied, I shall 

 be compelled to destroy them all in order to live in 

 any comfort. They are surrounded with fruit-trees 

 and berry-bushes. Edward Orr. 



Mt. Clemens, Mich., July 1, 1880. 



I presume the primary trouble, friend O., 

 is that the flow of honey has suddenly 

 ceased. Perhaps the late heavy rains have 

 washed it out of the flowers, and you have 

 been trying to handle them, without paying 

 any attention to this fact; and, possibly you 

 have let them get a taste of stolen honey, in 

 some thoughtless way. See what the ABC 

 says about Anger of Bees. May be your 

 bees are hybrids. In any case, if you let 

 them alone for a few days, the matter will 

 usually right itself. Practice and experience 

 will enable you to so handle cross hybrids, 

 that you never need be annoyed in this way. 

 I presume, without doubt, that every thing 

 is tranquil long before this reaches you. 



There is something queer in the way in 

 which a beginner will " put his foot into it " 

 at every turn, when bees get cross or are 

 robbing. It was only yesterday when the 

 boys said they could not tell what " ailed the 

 bees ;" that they acted crazy to push into 

 every hive that was opened. I took a look, 

 and declared they were robbing some hive. 

 They said they had examined every hive in 

 the L'oO, and there was not one that was not 

 defending the entrance perfectly. I insisted 

 they were robbing, and pretty soon cast my 

 eyes over to the house apiary. It was liter- 

 ally black with bees around the entrances, 

 large numbers being dead. The entrances 

 were all promptly reduced in size, and the 

 hive that had been overpowered was closed 

 up entirely. In a half-hour all was as quiet 

 as usual, but I lost a fine colony having a 

 nice, young, laying queen. The queen and 

 brood were saved, but the bees were all de- 

 moralized and gone from the hive. This 

 was all done by letting them go on for per- 

 haps a couple of hours, when one glance at 

 the house apiary would have shown where 

 the trouble was. If your bees get to acting 

 in the way you describe, friend ()., find out 

 where the trouble is. If it is not in your 

 own apiary, it is probably at a neighbor's. I 

 once had such a time when the Dees were 

 robbing a strong colony in the woods, and 

 the best I could do was to nearly close all the 

 entrances to every hive in the apiary until 

 the woods swarm was " cleaned out. v It 

 took about a day, and they filled boxes, in 

 some hives, with old, thick, dark honey. 



THE BEE FEVER; HOW IT IS "INDUCED." 



I am a beginner in the bee business, and have 

 never read an article on bees. I have one good col- 

 ony of Italians, which I procured from a friend here, 

 one year ago. He has been kind enough to give 

 them some attention and show me how to do it. He 

 has an extractor, and with his machine and assist- 

 ance, on the 1st of July, we took out of the hive 4 1 j 

 gallons of strained honey, and 30 lbs. of beautiful, 

 new comb honey, which, with 10 lbs. taken out a few 

 weeks ago makes 40 lbs. of comb honey taken out 

 this season, besides the strained honey. The sight 

 of that pile of honey has inspired me with an ambi- 

 tion to know more about the business. 



CHARLES H. TtTKNKR. 



I'urkcrsburg, W. Va., July 3, '80. 



