1885 



GLEANINGS IN iJEE CULTUilE. 



281 



AN IMPROVED DBONE-EXCLUDER. 



SOMETHING TO LET THE DllONES OUT BUT NOT IN. 



fp^ URING the past year several inventions 

 .I I have appeared, "to permit the drones to 

 ■|>>1 set out of the hive without any 

 ^^ tronl)le, but arranged in such a way 

 that the perforated zinc shall permit 

 only the workers to return, malcing the de- 

 vice more automatic than it is, using only 

 perforated zinc alone. One of the best of 

 these is friend Xulilr's device, shown bidow. 



^1^ 



O-r 



^fe^ 



NOBLE S nitONE-EXCLUDING DEVICE. 



You will observe, that at the lower edge 

 of the perforated zinc a series of little doors 

 is hung by a light liinge on a slender rod 

 of tinned wire. These little doors are 

 just about large enougli to let a drone 

 pass through, and they are made of tag- 

 ger's tin, in order to have them very light. 

 That tliey may open ontward and not in- 

 ward, the door is made to be a little long- 

 that is, it proJe(;ts below the edge of tlu' per- 

 forated zinc, so that, when the /.ini- rests on 

 the alighting-board of the hive, tiie little 

 door stands sloping outward. We will now 

 let the inventor describe it. 



I mail you tin invention of mine tliat I call a 

 drone c.xclndcr. I should be glad to have yon pass 

 your opinion upon it. To use it, place it at the en- 

 trance of the hive, with the wire or hinj?e side out. 

 You will observe that the doors are about one twen- 

 tieth of an inch longer than the space, causing 

 them to stand out at the bottom; and as the drones 

 come pushing- along they will raise the door and 

 pass out, but can not enter again. T). C. Noul?:. 



r.arwill, liid., Feb. 11,1885. 



Tiie obstacle to the correct working of the 

 machine would 1)b rust, if left out during 

 storms. Tills might be partially remedied 

 by making the doors of thin sheet brass; 

 but I am afraid that even brass would in 

 time get to be rusted fast. Perhaps zinc 

 rolled very thin might answer: hut even 

 zinc wouhi rust enough to stick those light 

 hinges. The inventor does not say how 

 much he has used it, nor for how long a 

 time. We shall be very glad indeed to hear 

 from some one who has made us? of these 

 machines during a whole season. It seems 

 to me something (juite similar has been de- 

 scribed in our i)ages,but I can not now place 

 my liand upon it. 



Ill -^ m 



BROOD-REARING WITHOUT POLLEN. 



THE UECOHD OF AN lMPOHT.\NT EXPERIMENT. 



SEE in the A B C book that A. I. Root believes 

 that brood can be reared only when the bees 

 have access to pollen. Also in the " Manual of 

 the Apiari'," Prof. Cook is very positive re- 

 garding such being the case. As something 

 relative to the matter has lately come under my 

 observation, I will give it to the readers of Glean- 

 ings. 



; Last fall I prepared one of my colonies of bees on 

 the "improved plan for wintering," which was, to 

 take away all the combs it contained, and give them 

 only five frames. These five frames were selected 

 with great care, to know that they contained alm)- 

 lutclu no honey or pollen, and were placed in the 

 hive so that packing could be placed all around 

 them. The bees were then fed from 20 to 25 lbs. of 

 syrup, made by pouring hot water on granulated 

 sugar, nearly all of which the bees sealed over, as I 

 found by examination when I fixed them for win- 

 ter. The reason I took this extra precaution for 

 their welfare was because they had a choice queen 

 which I did not wish to lose. After packing they 

 were left undisturbed until about the first of Feb., as 

 I supposed it could not be otherwise than that the>- 

 were wintering finely, as they liad a good fly on 

 both the IJth and 31st days of Dec. Imagine my 

 surprise when, on Feb. 1st, as I looked at some of 

 my bees which were out on their summer stands, to 

 see that none were getting short of stores, 1 found 

 this colony quite uneasy, and ready to fly out as 

 soon as I raised one corner of the quilt to look for 

 scaled stores. I thought perhaps that they were 

 only out carr.ving honey into the cluster, and should 

 have felt siu-e of this were it not that I detected the 

 odor of bee diarrhnca. After this, extremely cold 

 weather, with snow and high winds, kept me from 

 looking at them for nearly two weeks, at which 

 time I found they were reduced nearly one-half in 

 number, and were in a deplorable condition, smear- 

 ing the hive and themselves with excrement, while 

 the foul odor from the hive Avas as bad as any I 

 eversmellcd from a diseased colony having plenty 

 of natural stores. 



I now kept watch of them daily, as I wished to 

 save the queen if possible, when, upon Feb. 24th, I 

 saw that they could not hold out longer, as all the 

 bees were dead but about 200. These I took into 

 the shop, caught the <iueen and caged her, when I 

 shook the poor daubed bees in the snow, where they 

 died in a few seconds in the zero air. Don't say 

 this was cruel; for* had I served the whole colony 

 the same on Fob. 1st it would have saved them 

 much of )nisery. 



The caged queen I slipped, cage and all (cage was 

 provisioned with the Good candy), under a Hill de- 

 vice, which was filled with bees in a strong colony, 

 where she remains yet. Whether she is dead or 

 alive, I do not know, as tlie weather has been so 

 cold for the past three months that no handling of 

 bees outdoors could be done. An examination of 

 the combs revealed about 5 lbs. of stores still re- 

 maining, and brood in one frame, about the size of 

 a silver dollar. By a careful examination of the 

 dead bees on the bottom of the hive I judge that 

 about 2X) bees had lately hatched, for there were 

 about that number of white fuzzy-looking fellows 

 there. The brood in the comb was mostlj' sealed, 

 with two bees just gnawing out of the cells, one be- 

 ing half of its length out of the cell. This brood was 

 dead; for when the cluster got small they left the 

 I brood and moved to the sealed stores. I had al- 

 i ways supposed that honey had enough nitrogenous 

 substance in it so the bees could rear brood from it 

 in absence of pollen, but thought otherwise of sugar 

 syrup. But from this experiment it seems that 

 ! brood can be produced where only sugar syrup is 

 I used for food. The death of this colony by diar- 

 rhoea also proves that pollen ofttimes is no factor 

 I in the civ.iso (jf our wintering troubles, or, at least, 



