1880 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



485 



a bit of trouble. During this dry fall weath- 

 er the young plants are now bearing nice lit- 

 tle crops of honey. 



THIEVES IN THE APIARY. 



Mr. Editor:— With your permission, I will tell W. 

 Z. Hutchinson how to rid his apiary of thieves. In 

 the first place, always give the boys all the honey 

 they want to eat every time they call to see you. 

 Get them to eat all they can, and, ill a short time, 

 they will not care enough about honey to steal it. 

 We have always succeeded in this way, and have 

 never lost a lb. of honey, nor had a colony disturbed. 

 If this fails, then you may rest assured that the 

 thieves do not belong to your neighborhood. So we 

 give you remedy No. 2. Go to some good dog breed- 

 er, and buy a genuine, English, bull dog. Build him 

 a "shingle, chaff, tenement" kennel, somewhere 

 near your apiary, and see to it that it is painted up 

 nicely and kept as neat as your bee hives. Give him 

 to understand that his business is to watch your 

 property, and that he must make friends with no 

 one. Give him plenty to eat, so he will not be 

 tempted 'to stray away nights. If treated and 

 trained well, we think you will have no reason to 

 complain. But should he be tempted to sleep on 

 duty, give some sure footed and courageous boy 

 half a dollar to "wake him up" some dark night, and 

 if thieves don't give your apiary a wide berth, please 

 send us a postal. F. L. Wright. 



Plaintield, Mich. 



QUEEN CELLS NOT ALWAYS AN INDICATION OF 



QUEENLESSNESS. 



I feel as if I should not be doing my duty to you, 

 if I did not write and let you know how we got along 

 with the last queen received from you. As you may 

 remember, I wrote you, telling you of our apparent 

 want of success in introducing a queen to a strong 

 colony of black bees. They chased her off after she 

 was let out among them, and she flew away, and we 

 had no idea of ever seeing her again; so I wrote 

 you for another queen, which arrived in due time. 

 W r hen we opened this hive to put in the cage, we no- 

 ticed queen cells which seemed to confirm our idea 

 of loosing the queen which flew away; but, on look- 

 ing further, lo and behold! there was the old lady 

 quite at home, only twice as large as when we tried 

 to introduce her. How she got in there, and how 

 she made her peace with the little savages is more 

 than we shall ever know. The character of these 

 black bees seemed to change soon after letting in 

 an Italian queen, and we can open and look them 

 over with much less trouble. Another quite inter- 

 esting time we had with the last queen received. 

 On opening the box we found every bee dead, and 

 the poor queen had evidently turned her face to the 

 wall, and given up all hope. But I noticed some 

 signs of life in her, and set the cage in a warm, sun- 

 ny spot, and in ten minutes she had changed her 

 mind, and began to run around the cage. What to 

 do with her was the question now. As an experi- 

 ment we took two frames and bees from the gen- 

 tlest Italians we had, and put her between the 

 frames, and soon had the pleasure of seeing the lit- 

 tle fellows feeding her. We have given them brood, 

 fdn., etc., and it bids- fair to became a strong colony 

 before winter. Allow me to thank you for your 

 promptness in sending; also for the splendid queens 

 received, every one of which has proved more than 

 satisfactory. F. A. & J. C. Baller. 



Bloomington, 111., Sept. 15, 1880. 



MORE THAN ONE EGG IN A CELL HATCHING. 



Please allow me to say that more than one egg 

 may hatch in one cell. At the beginning of the 

 yield from basswood, the queen in one of my best 

 swarms decided that bees were wanted in a hurry, 

 and began laying from two to six eggs in a cell. Of 

 course not all of these hatched, but I saw several 

 cells with three larvas in them, and more with two. 

 I think they were about 24 hours old. Just when 

 the surplus ones were removed, I cannot say; but 

 when the cells were ready to seal, there was only 

 one in each cell, and they hatched out perfect 

 workers. After the first three or tour days, the 

 queen dropped back to the good old way of one egg 

 in a cell, and has kept it up since. I have had little 

 surplus honey, and no swarms except a couple of 

 artificial ones, because my swarms were very weak, 

 and light in stores in the spring. 



Dayton, 111., July 22, 1880. James A. Green. 



Thanks, friend G. Since my remarks on 

 the matter, we have found several cases, 

 where two or more live larva; were found in 

 a cell, but, as you remark, but one was to be 

 seen when they were ready to seal up. 



WINTERING THREE COLONIES IN ONE CHAFF HIVE, 

 ETC. 



We have had a good yield of honey from the white 

 clover, and now the basswood is in bloom, and I am 

 getting at least something back from my bees for 

 the time and money I have spent. I am not out 

 much money however, as I make almost everything 

 I use myself. I am making some chaff hives by 

 hand. I do not find it such an awful job after all. I 

 got straight siding for the outside and though it cost 

 more than the rough lumber ($20.00 per M.) it is 

 cheaper for me in the end. The lumber for one hive 

 costs me $1.00. I am going to make 2 entrances in 

 the upper story, and try wintering 3 swarms in a 

 hive. How do you think it will work? It would be 

 quite a saving, and I like the Simplicity best for 

 summer use. C. B. Thwing. 



Hamilton, Mo., July 2, 1880. 



Your plan of wintering is not new, friend 

 T., and I believe it has worked well, where 

 sufficient care has been taken to see that 

 there was no crack or crevice where the bees 

 might get through, or even communicate 

 from one apartment to the other. The col- 

 lective warmth from the three stocks so near 

 each other is doubtless an advantage, but 

 the great drawback is in having at least the 

 lower one, where it cannot be easily looked 

 at, for at least 4 or 5 months. If they all 

 have an abundance of stores, and also an 

 abundance of bees, this may not matter very 

 much, but most people prefer, in the end, to 

 have every colony where it can be easily 

 overhauled and examined. 



AN A B C "BOY'S" REPORT. 



I came out this spring with 17 swarms, 13 heavy 

 and i very light. They have made 300 lbs. of sec- 

 tion honey, aDd increased to 35 very heavy swarms. 

 I have no extractor, or I could take 300 or over of 

 nice clover honey from the hives. They are all so 

 full that they are crowded for room to raise brood. 

 How will this do for an A B C boy, forty years old, 

 and the first season, without any capital to start on? 



B. P. Lovejoy. 



Grcig, Lewis Co., N. Y., July 12, 1880. 



