52 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



colony has arrived at its new location. During this 

 week, comb has been built very rapidly, especially 

 if honey is coming- in plentifully from the fields, 

 ■while the queen has not been able to keep up with 

 the workers; the result of which is, that the bees 

 commence to build store comb, which is always of 

 the drone size of cells. This comb is mainlj' filled 

 with honey the first season (although in some cases 

 some drone-brood is found in them, especially if the 

 bees feel disposed to supersede the queen or the 

 honey-flow slacken somewhat), whilethe main troub- 

 le comes in having- this store comb filled with drones 

 after the bees have consumed the honey out of it 

 the next spring. In the above I have given the 

 "why" bees build drone-comb for the majority of 

 bee-keepers, and now why do they not do so for H.? 

 Simply because he put those sections filled with comb 

 foundation on the hives at the time of hiving the 

 swarm. This gave the baes plenty of room above 

 for store room, so that only comb of the worker 

 size was built below, and that only as fast as the 

 prolificness of the queen demanded it. As her abil- 

 ity for laying increased, more comb was built, till 

 at the end of the season friend H. had his hive filled 

 with nice worker-comb and lots of section honey. 

 Hence it all came from putting on those sections at 

 once instead of waiting, as othei-s do, thus securing 

 three things, lots of section honey, no drone-comb, 

 and a hive full of nice straight worker-comb, the 

 latter costing almost nothing. Friend Root seems 

 to attribute the success to the Heddon arrange- 

 ment; but I think that has little if any thing to do 

 with it, as I have used the plan successfully for 

 years, and gave it once or twice several years ago 

 in the bee-papers. 



Well, I have already wi'itten enough for an arti- 

 cle, and have not yet reached the main point in H.'s 

 article I set out for; so, with the permission of the 

 editor, I will saj', concluded in ne.\t number. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Borodino, N. Y., Jan. 1, 188.5. 



By all means, friend D., gW-e ns the re- 

 mainder of this interesting subject. It is 

 just now one of the greatest importance to 

 all concerned in the production of comb 

 honey. 



FRIEND DYKE'S BEE-FEEDER, AND 

 SOME OTHER MATTERS. 



INTRODUCING QUEENS, UNITING NUCLEI, BEE- 

 STINGS, ETC. 



«S I have not had a hearing in Gleanings 

 since the great flood of Feb., 1884, 1 again 

 ofl'er a " few remarks." I notice in last 

 Gle.\nings, that friend Heddon describes a 

 new feeder. Now, I was very much sur- 

 prised to see how much it is like a feeder I got up 

 and used last fall for the first time, and also pleased 

 to find that urcat minds run in parallel channels. 

 The ditterence between my feeder and Mr. Heddon's 

 Is, first, mine is to be set inside the ui)per story on 

 the frames; 2, The bees come up at one end instead 

 of on the side; and thirdly, the feeder is covered 

 with a loose wire-cloth top. The construction of 

 the feeder is as follows: I first made a bo.\- 12 by IG 

 inches inside, .I inches deep, with a partition one 

 Inch from one end open at bottom for passageway 

 for bees. I used stuff !4 inch thick. This bo.v was 

 thoroughly smeared with wax inside, to avoid 

 leakage. In the partition, and opposite end, verti- 



cal slots were cut, % inch apart from center to cen- 

 ter, ig inch wide, to slip thin boards in, similar to 

 his feeder, which gives the bees feeding-ground, as 

 it were. Those thin boards were ih inches wide, 

 and were prevented from going to the bottom of the 

 feeder by a 5-16-square strip, long enoug-h to reach 

 across each end of feeder. The partition came 

 within ^i in. of top of feeder. For the cover I made 

 a wooden rim of strips, 1 by '^i inch, just large 

 enough to fit over outside of feeder; upon this I 

 tacked a wire-cloth top, so by placing it on feeder it 

 was all closed up, except opening at bottom. Now 

 to use this feeder I simply turned one corner of 

 mat back far enough to make an opening corres- 

 ponding with the hole in bottom of feeder. Press 

 the mat down flat so it will stay, then set the feeder 

 down close up to the corner of hive, so that the 

 openings will be together. Now all j-ou have to do 

 is to pour in the feed right through the wire-cloth 

 cover. It will run through without any trouble. 

 The next time you want to fill it you can take out 

 every bee, if j'ou are afraid of drowning them; but 

 I always pour the feed in, and the bees soon came 

 up and went into the hive, not seeming to be in- 

 jured by their impromptu bath. I examined a feed- 

 er which I used all last fall, and there were not 

 half a dozen dead bees in it, and it never leaked a 

 drop. 



I do not want to appear presumptuous, but I be- 

 lieve I like my feeder better than Mr. Heddon's, as 

 I fear that there would be too many chances for 

 robbing, unless those covers were fitted nicely; and 

 even after we are careful to have such things to fit 

 well, the sun and rain play havoc with our calcula- 

 tions. The feeder which I have described holds 

 about I'i gallons of syrup, which is generally 

 enough for one colony, unless they are unusually 

 destitute. To any one inquiring about the manu- 

 facture of this feeder, I would say that I will adver- 

 tise them when I am ready to furnish them. 



UNITING nuclei. 



I read with much interest friend Doolittle's meth- 

 od of uniting nuclei. As you,r readers are doubt- 

 less aware, 1 raised many queens last year, and con- 

 sequently had quite a number of nuclei to unite in 

 the fall. I remember in one case I made one colo- 

 ny of 6 nuclei. I took the queen I wished to keep, 

 put her in a cage, and removed all others. I then 

 took a chaft' hive and put in one frame from each 

 nucleus, taking only such as had the most honey 

 (there was not much brood). I then filled the re- 

 maining space with four of my best frames, after 

 which I brushed all the remaining bees from the 

 frames and inside of nucleus hives into the top 

 story of hive. After smoking them down and cov- 

 ering with mat, they were smoked at the entrance, 

 and a strip of wire cloth tacked over the same. 

 This was done just at evening. They were given 

 plenty of ventilation, and left until about four 

 o'clock next evening, when they were liberated, 

 after which all went well, and not a bee seemed to 

 want to go back to its old stand. Some of my now 

 best colonies were thus treated. I forgot to say 

 that the queen was placed in an introducing-cage, 

 and the bees allowcl to let her out at their leisure. 

 This brings me to another topic; namelj-,— 



INTRODUCING QUEENS. 



Some months ago friend Doolittle gave us an arti- 

 cle on this subject, and I remember that many of 

 his ideas were good; and especially one which was, 

 to liberate the queen just at night, by means of a 



