1880 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



387 



R., and another time do no not stop because 

 your other bees are in box hives, but get out 

 a piece at once. I never saw a box hive yet 

 that I could not get a piece of brood out of, 

 and in a few minutes too, if there was any 

 in it. Never let a colony be without brood, even 

 over night. If you have sent for a queen, it 

 is all the more important that the bees 

 should have at least a piece of unsealed 

 brood to busy themselves with. Brood is to 

 bees what weights are to clocks, — everything 

 stops when they are gone. If your bees get 

 to robbing, nine times out of ten it is because 

 there is no unsealed brood in the hive. Just 

 this forenoon I directed Ernest to give a 

 hive some brood, because robbers were get- 

 ting in. As we were on the way to dinner, 

 he informed me that they did have two 

 frames of brood. 



" But, is it unsealed larvae? " 



" Why, no ; I did not know that made any 

 difference." 



lie had to go back and close up the hive, 

 for it makes all the difference in the world. 



WORN OIL CLOTH FOR COVERING THE FRAMES. 



I am using old oil cloth for covering the frames. 

 You spoke of using enameled cloth, and, as I had 

 old oil cloth, I used that, and it works well so far. I 

 presume many families have pieces of old oil cloth 

 which are of no use about the house, but are large 

 enough to cut nice covers from. I think the honey 

 season has just begun here. Bass wood commenced 

 to bloom on the 7th. 



ASPARAGUS AS A HONEY-PLANT. 



I have over an acre of asparagus, which they have 

 just commenced on. White clover has been in 

 bloom two weeks, but there is not nearly as much 

 here as where there is newly cleared land. 



George H. IUce. 



P. S.— I have opened this to say a few words about 

 fertile workers. In looking over A B C, I can not 

 find that a queen is in danger of being stung to death 

 by a fertile worker. You say, p. 79, that " she will 

 be pretty sure to get stung." Is the fertile worker 

 ever the cause of her death directly? After the 

 tested queen you sent me was lost, I had a fertile 

 worker; I saw the scattering eggs and other signs, 

 and one day I saw a bee slightly developed, with the 

 glossy appearance, and as she went about she would 

 stop and make a kind of piping noise. Have you an 

 idea that it was a fertile worker? I have got rid of 

 her with combs of brood and bees from another hive. 



Worcester, Mass., July 9, 1880. G. H. R. 



We use enameled cloth, because it is so 

 soft that it can not kill bees when pressed 

 down on their backs ; but I fear most of the 

 oil cloth us,ed ordinarily would be too heavy. 

 Bees can not stick wax or propolis to enam- 

 eled cloth, at least not so but that it can be 

 quickly peeled off perfectly clean.— I do not 

 know that the fertile worker ever stings the 

 queen, but I presume it is the other bees 

 balling her just as they do when they have a 

 queen. The bee you describe was undoubt- 

 edly a fertile worker, and I should have 

 pinched her head the moment I set eyes on 

 her. After destroying such it one, 1 can us- 

 ually introduce a queen without trouble. 



ALIGHTING HOARDS MADE OF SLATE, ETC., ETC. 



Perhaps it may be of interest to know how I keep 

 my bees. I have them in l'i story hives, standing 



in 4 rows about 6 ft. apart. The hives in one row 

 stand in front of spaces in the row behind, all front- 

 ing the south. I make blocks of concrete with 

 coarse sand and Portland cement (ti sand to 1 ce- 

 ment), about 4 inches square, and 3 in. thick. Two 

 of these blocks, I put under the front corners of the 

 hives, letting them project about an inch in front, 

 and another block in the middle of the rear end. 

 On the blocks in front, I lay a roofing slate 9x18 in., 

 for an alighting board, with front edge on the 

 ground. Between the hives I spread ground dye- 

 wood which I get at the woolen mill, which tends to 

 keep down the weeds. Last fall, I put several thick- 

 nesses of heavy wrapping paper in the rear ends of 

 my hives, hoping it would make them warmer and 

 dryer. They wintered well on their summer stands, 

 but this spring tore the paper all out. 



Fishkill, N. Y., July 5, 1880. Jas. E. Dean. 



Your arrangement would be very neat, 

 friend D., but I fear you will have a lurking 

 place for toads, spiders, etc., under the 

 slates and hives. I think I should rather 

 prefer our plan of setting the hives on four 

 half bricks, and filling in and around with 

 rather coarse gravel, especially making the 

 entrance so the bees can walk right in when 

 heavily laden. 



A STRAY QUEEN REPLACING AN OLD ONE. AN EX- 

 PENSIVE MISHAP. 



I am in quite a quandary. On going to the colony 

 of my imported queen to remove a frame that I had 

 inserted a few days before, for the purpose of hav- 

 ing queen cells built, I found no eggs in the comb. 

 I made a search for the queen, but, to my astonish- 

 ment, found nothing but a young queen. This 

 greatly puzzled me until, on examining a nucleus 

 some 7 or 8 feet from the colony of my imported 

 queen, I found that the queen was missing. Would 

 it be reasonable to suppose that this queen, when on 

 her wedding fiig-ht, entered the colony of the im- 

 ported queen, and destroyed the queen? I cannot 

 account for it in any other way, as she was a very 

 active, prolific queen. F. J. Wardell. 



Uhrichsville, O., July 9, 1880. 



It is, quite probably, as you suppose, 

 friend W., and the only remedy for such 

 mishaps consists in having your hives far- 

 ther apart, or having the entrances face in 

 different ways. In our apiaries no two en- 

 trances are precisely alike nearer than a dis- 

 tance of 14 feet. At 7 feet, is the back end 

 of another hive, and young bees often clus- 

 ter on this, when we are standing in front of 

 their own hive. 



AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE CHESHIRE RAKES. 



I enclose a sample of an improvement upon the 

 "Cheshire Rake" as described on p. 309 of Glean- 

 ings for July. You will observe they are made very 

 cheaply of a sheet of tin of proper thickness, and 

 with no tools but a pair of sheers. To fasten into 

 frames turn the ends of strips containing spurs at 

 right angles, and they will hold securely. 



D. A. .IONES. 



Friend Jones seems to have been the right man 

 for the mission he undertook. He has secured new 

 races of bees hitherto unknown to bee-keepers, and 

 given us more new ideas of foreign apiculture than 

 others of whom more was expected. I wonder if he 

 has not some Yankee blood in him,— to accomplish 

 so much, in so short a time, and in such a quiet man- 

 ner. 



