476 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 



the Smilery ; and perhaps this will make 

 amends for my past indiscretion in putting 

 you in Blasted Hopes; -will it not? 



HOW TO UTILIZE A POUND OF BEES, 



AND A HINT ON INTRODUCING QUEENS. 



fjHE three queens shipped on the 28th came 

 through all right. The pound of bees accom- 

 panying them were so well supplied with prov- 

 ender that they built several pieces of comb in the 

 cage while on the way, and had sugar left. They 

 came on the 6 p.m express, and before dark I brush- 

 ed a hybrid colony off its combs into the grass, and 

 let the pound of bees and their queen have sole pos- 

 session of hive and brood during the night, while the 

 hybrids clustered in the grass, with only the starry 

 heavens to protect them. By morning the Italians 

 had accepted the situation, and the return of the 

 queenless colony created no disturbance. 



I gave Dr. Hall one of the remaining queens, and 

 now had only one left to care for. I removed the 

 queen from a populous black colony and inverted 

 the cage over the frames, where I left the queen un- 

 til the next morning. I then liberated her and clos- 

 ed the hive for an hour, when I found my queen 

 In the midst of a ball as large as a turkey's egg. 

 I then recaged her until evening, when I brush- 

 ed the whole colony off its combs and into the 

 grass, as I did the hybrids before. The Italian 

 queen was liberated among them at once, and all re- 

 mained out over night. They were returned to the 

 hive the next morning, and I have had no further 

 trouble. This manner of introducing queens is an 

 old one with me, and by far the most successful way. 



The year 1880, thus far, has been an unfortunate 

 one for bee-keepers in Southern Kansas. Dry weath- 

 er has prevented a yield of honey, and bee-keepers 

 who do not feed their stock will come out at the " lit- 

 tle end of the horn" next spring. 



W. McKay Dougan. 



Independence, Montgomery Co., Kan., Sept. 12, '80. 



Many thanks, friend D. STou have struck 

 an idea I never thought of before. It is 

 true, I have made bees stop balling their 

 queens by shaking them off their combs in- 

 to an empty hive, but your plan of shaking 

 them in the grass at night, so that the new 

 comers will have time to occupy the combs 

 before they get in is a decided novelty, and I 

 have no doubt but that it will work beauti- 

 fully. 



■»• ♦ » 



MEETING BETWEEN THE DRONE AND 



QUEEN. 



A VERY FULL ACCOUNT FROM AN EYE WITNESS. 



CA.N not, say whether the following account 

 corresponds with that given in "A B C of Bee 

 Culture" or not, as I never saw that book; but 

 I will give it to you as T saw it, and you can com- 

 pare them yourself. When I first saw the queen of 

 which I will write, she was on the alighting board, 

 and I thought perhaps she had come out for her 

 wedding flight; so I stood by to watch her. Now I 

 might say right here, that she had been given to 

 this hive of bees, in the cell, 12 hours before she 

 hatched; or, I gave her to them at night, and in the 

 morning I found the cell torn open on the side, and, 



on farther examination, found the queen all right; 

 that is, I found her alive, but her wings looked 

 somewhat torn and cropped, and this is the reason 

 that I could follow her so well in her flight. I was 

 also assisted by a good pair of target glasses. When 

 she went into the air, she flew very slowly at first, 

 and did not rise more than 30 or 40 ft. high. She cir- 

 cled around just over the hive three or four times 

 before she was joined by the drones. They joined 

 the circle on the opposite side from the queen, and 

 kept that up for several seconds. Then, all at once, 

 the queen shot out to the right, and across the cir- 

 cle. When she had about reached the center, she 

 was joined by a drone from somewhere on the oppo- 

 site side of the ring. As they came nearer each 

 other, they kept whirling around each other as if 

 they were carried up in a whirlwind, their circles 

 coming closer and closer together, until they min- 

 gled in complete confusion. For one instant they 

 whirled together as though they were one. The 

 next their heads were in opposite directions. One 

 body seemed to be revolving in one direction, and 

 the other in another. In this position, they came 

 towards the ground very rapidly. When within 

 about 15 ft. of the ground they separated, the queen 

 shooting outward and upward, carryin? with her a 

 white thread-like appendage. I did not watch her, 

 but turned my attention to the drone. He did not 

 fly away, as I expected, but came directly to the 

 ground. Poor fellow; he was used up. Although I 

 upset one bee hive, and knocked the cover off from 

 another, and pretty nearly dislocated my neck over 

 grape vines, I never lost sight of the drone, for he 

 fell within ten ft. of me. He caught just above the 

 ground on a weed, but fell off. He made two or 

 three tumbles first one way, and then the other, 

 then tried to stand on his head; but he seemed to 

 have lost his balance, for he could not stand at all; 

 so he rolled over in the ditch, curled up, kicked 

 first one leg and then with the other, and died. I 

 am keeping his body as a relic for his posterity. 



W. C. Howard. 

 Chelsea, Iowa, Sept. 13, 1880. 



CALIFORNIA BEE-KEEPING. 



No. 4. 



fDO not think 4x4 sections exactly suitable for 

 this State, as they do not hold enough honey to 

 be worth 25c, which is the smallest change that 

 is plenty here; and, as Californians are very careful 

 about paying too much merely for the looks of a 

 thing, we thought best to make our smallest sec- 

 tions large enough to hold about l?i lbs., so as to 

 sell readily for the aforesaid 25-cent piece. I also 

 think that a 35-cent box and a 5C-cent box would be 

 quite salable. 



We have been trying our hand at making thin fdn. 

 for sections, out of the whitish-yellow wax we get 

 here, and I tell you we can almost see through it. 

 We also find that fdn. run 12 ft. to the lb. is suitable 

 for brood frames when put on wires. In order to 

 make my 5-inch mill more handy, we take off the 

 wooden top bar, and it works better without it. 



We have tested the queen nursery to put over the 

 frames, to our utter satisfaction, and pronounce it 

 a splendid failure. The broad frame of cages is also 

 a failure, unless we kepp a card of unsealed larvae 

 on each side of it, to induce the bees to come close 

 to it, so as to keep it from chilling duriDg the very 

 cool nights here. 



