436 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



ment added it. One reason why a qneenless 

 colony is crosser is because they usually al- 

 most stop gathering honey. When I open a 

 hive and see white, new combs, or the cells 

 newly lengthened with white tops near a 

 particular spot, I know pretty well that 

 there is brood under this white, thrifty look- 

 ing point, and tbat the new stores will make 

 them feel so good natured, that I can open 

 the hive without smoke. In the hive next 

 in order, if I find no such indication of 

 thriftiness, I always hesitate about trying to 

 handle them without smoke, for I will be 

 pretty sure to find that they have not a lay- 

 ing queen.— Your sheets of fdn. curl, friend 

 E., because the bees work out one side fast- 

 er than the other. If you hang the sheet in 

 the midst of a very populous colony, they 

 will be pretty sure to build it out, hanging 

 straight down. — When I was advised to stop 

 the cartoons, I rather expected the majority 

 would be found to prefer them, and that 

 their influence had, on the whole, been salu- 

 tary in calling attention pointedly, to certain 

 errors that we are all likely to make. The 

 number of inquiries for them seems to indi- 

 cate as much, and I think we shall have to 

 consider our friend Merrybanks recalled to 

 office again by acclamation of the majority. 



GOOD REPORT FROM BUCKWHEAT. 



I would just as soon think of running- my apiary 

 without queens as witlout Gleanings, because I 

 have learned from it just about all I know about 

 bees. Of course, I have learned by experience at 

 the same time, yet the journal is certainly invalu- 

 able to me. My bees have had a perfect swarming- 

 fever since buckwheat came out. 1 have put back 

 swarms, and cut out queen cells, until 1 am almost 

 disgusted with them. One colony swarmed twice in 

 8 days, and had 12 queen cells ..each, time; the last 

 time they were not all sealed up. From one swarm 

 I took out 18 queen cells. 



FERTILE WORKERS, AND HOW TO GET RID OF THEM. 



Now, friend Root, I am just going- to scold a little. 

 You say, on p. 36!), Aug. No., that it is a disgrace to 

 have a fertile worker. Are you not rather hard on 

 us beginners? I think you are. 1 have just had my 

 first one. I had no trouble in getting rid of her. I 

 shook the bees off from the frames in front of the 

 hive, and as they crawled in let a laying queen go in 

 with them, and they accepted her all right. 



My wife has got the smoker filled and lighted, and 

 is waiting for me to go out and find 2 queens that I 

 want to replace with new ones. M. D. York. 



Millington, Tuscola Co., Mich., Aug. 11, 1880. 



If your wife is good enough to help you 

 hunt the queens, and, especially, to light the 

 smoker while you write letters to the bee 

 journals, you should by no means keep her 

 waiting, friend Y. "When I come to see you, 

 I hope to find you two working together in 

 just that happy way. If I should never 

 come, remember I am thinking of you, and 

 asking God to bless you, and all the other 

 husbands and wives who keep bees. Your 

 plan of getting rid of a fertile worker is per- 

 haps as good a one as you can have, if they 

 will accept a fertile queen. I cured two, 

 and made them valuable stocks, by just let- 

 ting a laying queen into each, right on top 

 of the frames ; but, when I tried a third one, 

 and she was an imported queen right from 



Italy, I lost her. She was received all right 

 at once, and was walking over the combs 

 next morning, but, when it was time for her 

 to be laying, I found 2 eggs in a cell, and 

 eggs right on top of pollen, which'is almost 

 a sure indication of a fertile worker, and, 

 alas ! my nice, yellow, $6.00 imported queen 

 was never seen more. Now I have con- 

 fessed to having 3 fertile workers in our own 

 apiary, but I am ashamed to own it, and I 

 still think it a disgrace. If unsealed brood 

 had been kept in the hives, it could never 

 have happened. 



COTTON HULLS VERSUS CHAFF FOR CHAFF HIVES. 



I write to make a suggestion which I believe will 

 be of great value to northern bee-keepers. Cotton- 

 seed hulls, two inches thick around a hive, will ab- 

 solutely and certainly keep the bees from freezing, 

 with the mercury at 40° below zero. In ordinary 

 winters, such as you have in Ohio, one inch thick 

 would be sufficient. Cotton-seed hulls are used in 

 this section as a covering for steam surfaces. The 

 steam dummies in use on some of our city rail- 

 roads are covered with two inches of hulls. They 

 carry a heat of over 300°, yet the outside is only a 

 degree or two above the atmosphere. Thus you see 

 their value as a non-conductor. They are to be had 

 at the cotton-seed oil-factories, and the price here is 

 $5.00 per ton. There is a factory at Memphis, and 

 one at Grand Crossing, near Chicago, and also at 

 many other points. These hulls contain the solid, 

 hard covering of the cotton seed, and 5 per cent of 

 the crop of cotton, which the gins can not remove. 

 They are very light, and I think 5 lbs. would be 

 plenty to cover a hive. If I am not in an error re- 

 garding the expenses and losses of wintering bees, 

 the general use of cotton-seed bulls as a protection 

 would save many thousand dollars worth of bees. 

 You are so'earnestly working to build up the bee 

 business, I hope you will test this matter this com- 

 ing winter, when you will And my suggestion of 

 value. Amos S. Collins. 



New Orleans, La., Aug. i, 1880. 



Thanks, friend C. I shall be glad to make 

 the experiment of packing several chaff 

 hives with them, if some friend will send me 

 about 50 lbs. or so, by freight. It is with- 

 out doubt, an excellent non-conductor, but 

 will it absorb moisture as chaff does, and 

 still not rot or get moldy? 



MOTH WORMS IN THE BROOD COMBS. 



The millers are very bad here this summer among 

 the bees. We find them among the Italians, work- 

 ing inside the brood comb. We have both blacks 

 and Italians. Do you find the same? E. W. Lowe. 



Sebewa, Ionia Co., Mich., Aug. 15, 1880. 



From your description, friend L., I am in- 

 clined to think you have been using combs 

 in which the moth laid eggs before they were 

 placed in the hive. Such combs will often 

 produce moth worms in great numbers, and 

 even Italians seem, for the time being, un- 

 able to cope with them ; but this lasts but a 

 little time, as they soon hatch out, and then 

 the trouble is at an end. In such cases a 

 little assistance in picking the worms out of 

 the sealed brood with the point of a knife, 

 or some sharp instrument, will be of consid- 

 erable avail. A single worm . plowing his 

 galleries through sealed brood will destroy a 

 great number of bees. The path of the 



