484 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Out. 



DOLLAR QUEENS REARED LATE IN THE FALL. 



One of those queens I received from you last Oct. 

 is worth all and more than the cost, but the other is 

 far from being pure. That, however, is all right. 

 Dollar queens are dollar queens. If it hits, all right; 

 if not, no growling. 



ITALIAN BEES WORKING ON RED CLOVER. 



If some of those fellows who say Italian bees are 

 no better than blacks had been here during dry 

 weather in August, and seen the yellow bees on red 

 clover, and bringing honey by the — not quite car 

 loads, while the blacks were simply living from 

 "hand to mouth," and now must be fed or die, I 

 guess they would "draw in their horns." Comb 

 honey is worth here 25 c. per lb. H. Breneman. 



East Germantown, Wayne Co., Ind., Sept. 14, 1880. 



HOW TO PREVENT QUEENS FROM FLYING WHEN IN" 

 TRODUCING. 



I have successfully introduced six queens, which 

 all came in good order from W. Z. Hutchinson's api- 

 ary. I used that tent you describe in Gleanings, 

 or, rather, one similar to it. Three of them flew up 

 against the tent, but I could catch them easily and 

 put them back into the hive again. 



John Reynolds, Jr. 



East Clinton, Kennebec Co., Me., Sept. 13, 1880. 



"Well, I declare, friend R., you have hit 

 the nail on the head. I have been wonder- 

 ing for some time what we should do to pre- 

 vent the losses that occur from queens fly- 

 ing off, but it never occurred to me that the 

 tent would do it, although our boys have 

 been using them constantly while introdu- 

 cing, to keep away robber bees. We do not 

 want to clip our queens' wings, and we don't 

 want to daub honey on them; for, in the 

 latter case, if they should not be received 

 they are in a bad predicament. 



PRETTY GOOD FOR A 3-FRAME NUCLEUS. 



Last May I bought of J. C. & H. C. Sayles, of Hart, 

 ford, Wis., a 3-frame nucleus. I brought it home 

 and the bees went to work. I got 30 lbs. of surplus 

 honey from them. About the 20th of July I sold S. 

 C. Miles, of this place, a 2-f rame nucleus, and he now 

 has 2 colonies of bees from that nucleus, making 3 

 colonies of bees and 30 lbs. of surplus honey from 

 one 3-frame nucleus. Let any one beat that if they 

 can, with the blacks or hybrids either. 



THE 3 BANDS ON BEES JUST HATCHED. 



Please inform me if young Italians have more than 

 one or two bands; or are the three bands on them 

 when they come out of the cell? I think perhaps my 

 young queen has become fertilized by a black drone, 

 as all my young bees have one and two bands on 

 them now. G. Phillips. 



Stetsonville, Taylor Co., Wis., Sept. 15, 1880. 



It is rather difficult to see the bands on 

 young bees just hatched, and I would not 

 therefore want to pass judgment on a queen 

 until her bees are three or four days old. 

 Still, with practice, one may tell pretty ac- 

 curately the first day the young bees begin 

 to bite out of their cells, when a pure queen 

 has met a black drone. 



ANOTHER WHO HAS COME FROM BLASTED HOPES 

 INTO THE SMILERY. 



I have been sadly discouraged with my bees. I 

 have watched them pretty closely all summer, and 

 they have made only just enough for breeding, and 

 my hives are now full of bees. We have passed 



through one of the severest drouths I ever witnessed 

 in my life, and I have lived in this county 43 years. 

 Our corn crops will be less than one-half the usual 

 amount raised in this section. Don't understand me 

 that the drouth has been general: there will be plen- 

 ty of corn in other places. Within the last 15 days 

 we have had several of the heaviest rains I ever 

 saw fall, and the bees are on the "boom." To-day 

 I examined my bees, and found every frame full 

 from top to bottom,— not an empty cell, but very 

 little of it was sealed. I gave them some frames of 

 comb for the queen to continue laying. 



8MARTWEED HONEY. 



They have made it out of smartweed, which is 

 abundant here. My bees have fully enough to win- 

 ter on, and I am happy. I lost 23 out of 24 last win- 

 ter, but 1 could not give up/the idea of having bees, so 

 I bought five colonies, and have increased to 13. I 

 bought 4 weak colonies in box hives for f 1.50 for the 

 lot. I found two of them queenless, so I doubled 

 them and have two fair colonies. I can buy late 

 swarms in box hives from 50 c. to SI. 00 each. I have 

 plenty of honey, and will buy all I can get hold of. 

 My honey is not fit for table use, as it has a strong, 

 biting taste. I have now 16 colonies. 



F. M. Jeffrey. 



Waynesville, DeWitt Co., 111., Sept. 6, 1880. 



WHERE PROPOLIS COMES FROM. 



I think that I have discovered how and where bees 

 gather propolis. May 10th, 8 o'clock a.m., I was 

 planting corn, and a very loud humming of bees at- 

 tracted my attention. I soon discovered quite a lot 

 of them on a hickory-tree that was too young to 

 bloom. I concluded that I would make an effort to 

 find out what had attracted them to that tree; so I 

 mounted the fence, and from that to the branches of 

 the tree, and seated myself in a position to watch 

 their movements. They would commence at the 

 base of the young leaves, and appeared to be clip- 

 ping the under side of the stems with their mandi- 

 bles; and when they reached the leaf proper they 

 would poise themselves on the wing, as they do when 

 gathering pollen. 1 could not see anything in their 

 mouths, but, after some time, I could discover the 

 appearance of propolis in their pollen-baskets. I 

 think, from my observation, that it was slow work, 

 and would take a long time to gather a load. If I 

 had had a powerful glass, I could have discovered 

 the propolis passing from their mandibles to the 

 pollen-baskets. Will some bright ABC scholar 

 work out this problem? S.H.Lane. 



Whitestown, Ind., Aug. 24, 1880. 



TRANSPLANTING THE SIMPSON PLANTS. 



One error you made in Aug. Gleanings I wish to 

 correct right here. You say that the Simpson Hon- 

 ey Plant is a rather hard thing to transplant. On 

 the other hand, it is one of the easiest plants to 

 transplant I ever saw, — just as easy as cabbage 

 plants. I have transplanted about fifteen hundred 

 grown from seed this season, and do not think I have 

 lost a half-dozen of them. I have handled them all 

 the way from two inches to six inches high, and at 

 all times from June until to-day, and they seem in- 

 variably to thrive better after being reset than be- 

 fore. A. A. Fradenburg. 



Port Washington, O., Aug. 16, 1880. 



I have discovered my mistake, friend P., 

 for I, too, have been transplanting them all 

 summer, and now make them grow without 



