94 



GLKANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 



a dark leather color, and are a very active, hardy 

 bee, wintering- well, as they seem to bear confine- 

 ment in the cellar in winter better than others. 

 Those received from Oliver Foster are lighter col- 

 ored, one queen being a beautiful, bright golden 

 color. Some of the workers have four distinct 

 bands. In one hive of the Foster stock the drones 

 were the most beautiful 1 ever saw. By cross- 

 ing these two kinds I expect to make a great im- 

 provement, as each kind has marked qualities. 



I winter my bees partly in the cellar and partly on 

 their summer stands. Those on the summer stands 

 ai-e wintered something on the principle of the 

 chaff-tenement hive. The difference is, that 1 use 

 the Langstroth hive, placing two facing to the 

 north and two to the south. Then I make an 

 outside box to go over the four, with four inches of 

 space between the hives and the packing-box, 

 which is to be filled with chaff. The packing-box is 

 made high enough to cover a two story hive, the 

 bees being wintered in the upper story. A slat 

 honey-board is placed between the two stories, 

 which gives the bees a chance to poke the dead 

 bees down below. An entrance is made by boring a 

 hole In the packing-box and the front of the hive, 

 and connecting the two with a tin or wooden tube. 

 The lid is made with a gable roof; and, as the ma- 

 terial used need be of only half-inch stuff, and of a 

 cheap gi-ade, the cost does not exceed 20 cents a 

 hive, which is a great saving, considering what a 

 single hive will cost when chaff packed. This plan 

 may not be new to many of the readers; but as I 

 have not seen any thing like it described in the bee- 

 journals it may be of interest to some. 



In an experience of seven years in bee-keeping 1 

 have met with many difllculties; but by reading 

 books and journals of apiculture, a great many of 

 them have been overcome. W. S. Df)RMAN. 



Mechanicsville, Iowa, Jan. 12, 188.5. 



HOW TO USE EMPTY COMBS. 



HOW TO MANAGE SO AS TO HAVE THE HONEY GO 



INTO THE SECTION BOXES INSTEAD OF 



INTO THE BROOD-FKAMES. 



N last number of Gleanings I gave you, byway 

 of explanation, some comments on friend 

 Hutchinson's article found on page 803, for 1884, 

 but for lack of space did not say all I desired 

 to. The main point in that article which I 

 wished to speak of was, what caused the apparent 

 failure of Mr. Hutchinson in using empty combs in 

 the brood-chamber, while working for comb honey 

 with newly hived swarms. Friend H says, " I aban- 

 doned hiving upon empty combs, as the bees would 

 fill the combs with honey in a few days— fill them so 

 full that the (lueen found but little room to lay, 

 then they ' loafed ' a long time before commencing 

 work in the sections; and when they did finally be- 

 gin it was in a slow, easy sort of way." 



Now, inasmuch as I always, of late years, hive 

 new swarms on empty combs, and that with good 

 results, it becomes evident that there must be a 

 right and a wrong way to use empty combs, when 

 working for comb honey with new swarms. As I 

 have stated before, the queen going with a swarm 

 is not in a condition for rapid egg-laying until the 

 swarm has been hived long enough for the bees to 

 get under full headway building comb; hence if a 

 full hive of empty comb is given such a swarm, the 



first thing the bees will do is to fill it with honey, no 

 matter how few or how many sections are given, 

 for the bees have room in this brood-chamber for 

 all of their immediate wants. If we extract from 

 these combs we do not materially help matters, ex- 

 cept to give a little more i-oom to the queen; for 

 after extracting, the first instinct of the bees is to 

 fill those empty cells again, instead of leaving an 

 empty lot of comb in the brood-chamber, to go to 

 work in the sections. Thus we get only a little ex- 

 tracted honey for our trouble, while two such ex- 

 tractings will effectually exclude all honey from 

 the sections; while not to extract is nearly as bad, 

 for after once filling the combs in the brood-cham- 

 ber with sealed honey instead of brood, the bees are 

 always loth to enter the sections, for the reason I 

 first gave, which is, that they feel that all their 

 wants are well supplied. Now the trouble was with 

 friend H. in- giving the bees too many combs. By 

 so doing the bees found room to occupy all their 

 forces; while if only one-half or one-third as many 

 had been given, the bees not being able to cluster 

 and work on these combs, would have immediately 

 gone into the sections, and gone to work on them. 

 Having thus at once started in the sections, the lit- 

 tle honey stoi'cd in the few combs below will be 

 cai-ried to the sections as fast as the queen needs 

 room for egg-laying, and the result with me is, that 

 at the end of 1.5 days from the time of hiving, the 

 sections are well filled with honey, and the combs 

 below a solid mass of brood, except a little pollen 

 and honey in the extreme upper corners of the 

 frames. The object should be in all cases, whether 

 you use combs, frames of foundation, or empty 

 trames, to get the bees at work in the sections im- 

 mediately upon being hived. I use six Gallup 

 frames of comb (equal to 5 L. frames) for the very 

 largest swarms, while others have but 4 or 5, ac- 

 cording to the size of the swarm to be hived, and in 

 this way I always secure good i-esults. The great- 

 est secret of getting comb honey is to get the sec- 

 tions just as near to the brood as possible; and any 

 plan which allows of one or more inches of sealed 

 honey between the brood and sections is certainly 

 defective. By hiving swarms on empty frames 

 with sections filled with foundation, friend H. 

 placed his bees in the right position to comply with 

 the above secret, while with the hive full of empty 

 comb the condition was exactly the reverse. 



One other thing: While it is necessai'y, almost, to 

 furnish a full sheet of foundation for every section 

 when a swarm is hived, as H. recommends, such 

 foundation is often nearly as good as thrown away 

 while working on my plan, for I have repeatedly 

 had sections filled and completed which contained 

 only a small starter of natural comb, as quick as 

 those filled with foundation standing by their side, 

 while an examination of these latter sections show- 

 ed that said foundation had not been touched, ex- 

 cept as the bees added their wax to it. Now, why 

 is this? The reason is very simple. All new 

 swarms of bees have been preparing, for a week 

 previous to the time of issuing, for the construc- 

 tion of combs in their new homes, and for this rea- 

 son we often see little bits of wax, from the size of 

 a pinhead and upward, attached in many places to 

 the limb of the tree they have clustered on, if they 

 stay clustered for five minutes or more. This wax 

 being secreted, must be used somewhere or wasted. 

 In friend Hutchinson's case it is used in building 

 comb down in the brood-chamber, while the bees 



