524 



GLEANINGS IN LEE CULTURE. 



Nov 



I.ICM.'B'BB OF TONGUES OF DIFFERENT 

 KINDS OF BEES. 



SOME HUNG, TOO, ABOUT OUR RED-CLOVEE 

 QUEEN. 



M FEW weeks ago, we received thed'ol- 

 JJfi lowing order for specimens of the dif- 

 — ' ferent races of. bees contained in our 

 apiary : 



I am desirous of having sonic fpecimens of differ- 

 ent races of bees. Would you be so kind as to send 

 me a few workers'from each of your Cyprian, Holy- 

 Land, and red-clover queens? The best way to 

 send them is to put them in dilute alcohol, which 

 may be put in small bottles, and these put in a stick 

 of wood with holes bored in it. This would be less 

 trouble than putting each in a separate cage, and is 

 easily mailed. I would be much obliged for them, 

 as I have an opportunity to have some prepared for 

 the microscope. Each kind should be marked. This 

 will give us an opportunity to compare the tongues 

 of your red-clover bees with the Cyprians and oth- 

 ers. A. B. Weed. 



Detroit, Mich., Aug. 20, 18S0. 



We sent a cage full of each kind, and to- 

 day we receive this as the result: 



Last month I sent specimens of the three different 

 kinds of bees— Cyprian, Palestine, and home-bred 

 Italian— which I obtained from you, to Dr. J. T. 

 Main, of Jackson, this State, for his examination 

 under the microscope. Dr. M., by the way, is a very 

 skillful microscopist. The collection sent included 

 also a common black bee. Dr. Main mounted a 

 tongue of each kind of bee on a glass slide and meas- 

 ured it. They are now in the collection of the 

 Griffith Microscopic Club of this city. In his re- 

 marks on the specimens, Dr. Main said that the 

 most accurate way to obtain the comparative length 

 of bees' tongues is to have them reach for honey 

 through the meshes of wire cloth, as the tongue is a 

 muscular organ, and therefore liable to extension 

 or contraction at the time of being measured. The 

 measurements of the specimens are: 



Tongue of Cyprian bee - - - - .252 inches. 



" Palestine*" - - - - .256 



" " Black " - - - - .266 " 



" " Italian (homebred) .290 " 



Detroit, Mich., Oct. 14, 1880. A. B. Weed. 



I confess to being a little astonished, and 

 begin to feel that I was a little hard on the 

 bees of our favorite red-clover queen when I 

 pronounced them thieves. Will some other 

 microscopist try the result, and see if a sec- 

 ond similar investigation verities this? Many 

 thanks to you, friend Weed, for the pains 

 you have taken. If I am correct, we charged 

 you for cages and postage on these bees, and 

 here you have gone and redeemed the char- 

 acter of our red-clover queen. Her combs 

 contained sealed natural stores again this 

 fall, while we have been feeding nearly, if 

 not all, of the others ; but her stock has been 

 divided so much, I presume we shall have 

 to feed them some too. 



FRIEND GOOD'S GOOD REPORT. 



fF I should make an entire failure of bee-keeping 

 in the future, I should not blame you, as friend 

 Cole has done, but should still love and respect 

 you for the good you have done me in the past. My 

 hopes are not quite blasted as vet. In the fall of 



1879 I packed 67 colonies of bees in chaff. All came 

 out in good condition in the spring. Twenty of the 

 weakest colonies I broke up into nuclei to raise 

 queens from; the balance, I raised for comb honey. 

 1 have now at this date 134 colonics in good condi- 

 tion for winter, with plenty of honey to winter on. 



I have taken about 2100 lbs. of honey, of which 

 1800 lbs. was comb and 300 lbs. extracted. 1 have 

 sold 1821 lbs. at 17 and 18c per lb. I have 300 lbs. or 

 more on hand yet. 



I have raised and sold 247 Italian and Holy-Land 

 queens, for which 1 received $271.00, and I have in 

 my own apiary some 60 young Holy-Land queens 

 that I raised, which I am going to keep in an apiary 

 by themselves next season. I made and sold 300 

 chaff hives this season, for which I got $1005.00. I 

 transferred over 1C0 colonics of bees in the spring; 

 made and sold over 500 lbs. of fdn., and sold over 

 $300.00 worth of supplies purchased from you. All 

 the hired help I had to do the above was $69 00 

 worth; but, for all that, some people say I keep bees 

 because I am too lnzy to work. Do you think I had 

 much time to play, after doing the above? 



Perhaps you have wondered that I have never 

 growled about any of the four or live hundred dol- 

 lars' worth of goods purchased of you this season. 

 I will tell you why I have not. One reason is, I have 

 not had time; another reason, because everything 

 was satisfactory and as good as I expected it to be. 



Nappanee, Ind., Oct. 14, 1880. I. R. Good. 



AVell, I declare, friend G., I did not know 

 you had done so much in the bee business. 

 You certainly were not lazy, let others say 

 what they like, if you did all that with the 

 help you have mentioned. Counting the 

 queens you have sold, and the value of the 

 increase, you have not been so very far be- 

 hind friend Doolittle. While I think of it, 

 he has not told us how much he got for 

 his honey. Will all those who make reports, 

 please tell what their honey sold for? I 

 think it tends to develop a uniform price. 



HOW THE DOCTOR AND HIS WIFE SUC- 

 CEEDED IN INTRODUCING THEIR 

 FIRST QUEENS. 



f WRITE to inform you that the five queens you 

 mailed me on the 27th of Sept. were received on 

 J the evening of the 30th all in good condition. 

 Now, the next thing was to introduce them. This 

 was something I had never undertaken. I read your 

 directions carefully, and the next morning took my 

 smoker and went out and opened a hive to look for 

 the old queen; but before I could find her the rob- 

 bers came so thick and fast that I concluded it best 

 to close the hive and wait till the bees quit Hying. In 

 the evening I took my wife with me to look for the 

 queens. She is always willing to lend a helping hand 

 when I have a difficult job on hand with the bees, 

 and I must say she is a capital hand. We succeeded 

 in finding the queens in two hives before dark. Aft- 

 er removing them, we placed the cage containing 

 the new queens on the frames, according to your di- 

 rections, and closed the hive. We were two or three 

 days in finding the five old queens, as we could not 

 work at it but a short time morning and evening on 

 account of the robbers. Sometimes we would have 

 to look the frames over two or three times before we 

 could find her. A fter leaving the queens caged on 

 the frames 24 to 3ti h"nrs, I r»lene«d them. I did not 



