596 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



I>EC. 



EGGS NOT HATCHING; HAVE BEES EARS? 



As I am an A B C scholar in bee culture, I would 

 like to ask a few questions. About 4 weeks ago I in- 

 troduced 4 Italian queens, 3 of which laid and raised 

 a nice lot of bees, and the other laid the second day 

 after I let her loose, but never hatched an Italian 

 bee. What was the reason? I also put some eggs 

 in the hive and they are all gone. The queen is all 

 right, for I saw her to-day. I also put eggs in the 

 3 other hives, in which 1 inserted Cyprian queen- 

 cells. From 2 of those the eggs were removed. One 

 of the young queens, in 4 days after, laid in the same 

 piece of comb, and plenty all around it; the thirdone 

 has the brood sealed over. The eggs were all from 

 the same frame. 1 have 50 stocks in good condition 

 for winter. I use the L. hive, with a chaff packing 

 case. It has been a poor honey season here, espe- 

 cially the fore part, there being no white clover. I 

 have 7 swarms that I got when they were going to 

 take them up— 3 Italians that were buckwheat 

 swarms. Will it do to winter them on sealed honey 

 without any pollen? I have one Cyprian that I got 

 in August. She is a good layer.— Do bees have ears? 

 A friend of mine thinks they have none. 



C J. Haight. 



Rush, Susquehanna Co., Pa., Oct. 20, 1880. 



The colony that would not hatch any of 

 the eggs given them, I think had got dis- 

 couraged, for some reason or other, and did 

 not take care of them. W here a stock is 

 quite weak, weather cool, and no honey 

 coming in, they sometimes act in this way. — 

 About bees hearing : This is an old question, 

 and I do not remember now how it was de- 

 cided,— if, in fact, it was decided at all. 

 Some experiments seemed pretty conclusive 

 that bees do hear ; others, that bees do not, 

 where sufficient pains was taken to be abso- 

 lutely certain their hive was not jarred. 

 Mrs. Root thinks they hear, because so 

 many of them would come to the pump 

 when they heard the chain rattle. Will 

 Prof. Cook please tell us if bees have ears?— 

 Pollen is not at all necessary for wintering. 

 and some think they winter even better 

 without any. Of course, they must have it 

 before they commence brood-rearing. 



THICK COMBS IN TRANSFERRING. 



I am very enthusiastic on the subject of bees. 1 

 have been transferring lately, and have had excel- 

 lent success. The only trouble I have is in not be- 

 ing able to get as many cards in the new hive as I 

 think they need, as they are so thick. Some of the 

 hives will hold only six frames, so thick is the old 

 -comb. Will they do well with that number? 



E. Z. Wood. 

 East Smithfleld, Bradford Co., Pa., May 16, 1880. 



The thick combs will do no harm, unless 

 the bees begin small bits of comb in the 

 spaces below, or because it leaves too many 

 cold spaces at the approach of cool weather. 

 On this account, you should begin to trim 

 off the protuberances as soon as they get the 

 combs well fastened, and gradually bring 

 them up into proper distance. The brood 

 combs can be pressed one way and another 

 until you get the combs straight and flat. 

 The comb is frequently found too large for 

 the frame when the bulges are straightened 

 out ; and in such cases, cut out a slice next 

 the bottom-bar, and, if necessary, draw the 

 bottom-bar up against the comb until the 



bees fasten it, with a transferring wire. 

 Where bottom-bars are found bent, down- 

 ward so as to kill bees, we bring them 

 straight in the same way. Bring your combs 

 into good nice shape, and then keep them 

 so. Pad, crooked, ill-shaped combs in a 

 hive, year after year, are an expense, both 

 to the bees and their keeper, that should 

 not be tolerated. 



When the honey season opened I had 50 stands of 

 bees; increased by natural swarming to 78, all in 

 movable-frame hives, and in good condition for win- 

 tering. They are the common black bees; made 

 2300 lbs. of comb honey, some in G-lb. boxes and 1' j- 

 1b. sections; 150 lbs. extracted, making a total of 

 2450 lbs. of honey, averaging 40 lbs. on the old stocks; 

 my best hive made 1175£ lbs. comb honey. Nearly 

 all is buckwheat honey; the yield in this locality 

 was very good. The early honey was a rather short 

 crop. An open winter, which froze the clover root, 

 and a rather dry summer following, was, in my 

 opinion, the cause, although the season opened well 

 on raspberry and fruit blossoms. Bees did not 

 swarm as much as usual as supplies fell short in the 

 height of the swarming season. 



PREVENTION OF EXCESSIVE SWARMING. 



I do not approve of too much swarming. One 

 good swarm from a strong stock of be^s is plenty 

 for profit. All other swarms should be returned to 

 the parent stock. The way I return such swarms is 

 by hiving them in a box or bee-hive cover, and plac- 

 ing them as neir the parent stock as I can, close 

 by the side of if, and letting them remain there 

 about 21 hours; then, return them, queen and all, 

 and they will not swarm again, as a general rule 

 perhaps not once in 10 times. I often take a part of 

 such swarms to increase weak stocks, taking their 

 queens away to supply queenless stocks during the 

 swarming season. lam well satisfied with the re- 

 sult. This season compared well with the general 

 result all over. Grooner Goff. 



Stcvensville, Soil. Co , N. Y., Nov. 1, 18S0. 



BEES DON'T OPEN GRAPES. 



According to promise, I now give you the result of 

 my experiments with grapes. As soon as the bees 

 commenced on the Catawbas, I selected a large 

 bunch of sound ripe ones, mashed a portion of them, 

 and laid them on a hive in my apiary, and in a short 

 time they were covered with bees. I then took my 

 seat by them, and, with a large magnifying-glass, 

 watched their movements until they had cleaned up 

 all the juice that laid around loose. I then smeared 

 all the sound grapes with juice, and watched them 

 clean it all off, and they never allowed their jaws or 

 pincers to come in contact with the grape. They 

 used no means, except their antennas, or tongue, 

 which they slightly doubled under, near the point, 

 and, instead of sucking the juice through the point, 

 they wiped it up as a person would water with a 

 cloth, only not quite so fast, but much faster in pro- 

 portion to their size. I also watched a number of 

 wasps, from time to time, and discovered that, in- 

 stead of trying to open the grape, Mr. Wasp would 

 force his head between the grapes and imbibe the 

 juice from a worm-hole, by drinking with his mouth 

 and not with his tongue, as the bees do. I then pro- 

 cured a nice grape, with a minute hole in one side 

 containing a worm, and laid it close to the cluster 

 on the hive, put some juice over it, and soon had 

 several bees at work wiping it up, and as I sat with 



