274 



GLEANINGS IN i3EE CULTURE. 



A Pit. 



;^ECENT DEYELOPJ)IEjX¥g, 



And Suggestions and Queries Particularly Pertaining 

 to the Season. 



heddon's honey-board. 

 I)\V wide are the slats, and how far apart, in 

 Heddon's sink honey-board? also the thick- 

 ness and width of the side-pieces and end- 

 bars? Docs friend H. use enamel cloth, or 

 its equivalent, above the bees? 

 North Freedom, Wis. F. Minnich. 



The slats are one inch wide, friend M. 

 There are 9 of them in all. The outside 

 ones are tight np against the side-strips, 

 and the others are on an average about I 

 inch apart ; yet in the sample sent us the 

 spaces vary from a little more than i inch to 

 a full i inch, so I presume the space is not 

 very important. The end and side pieces 

 are'l thick ; the, end-pieces are f wide in the 

 clear, and the side-pieces i incli wide. In 

 making similar honey-boards for the Sim- 

 1)1 icily liive, we make the slats also one inch 

 wide," and the spaces i inch. To make tliem 

 space the brood-frames and come out riglit, 

 the two outside slats are only f inch. This is 

 because we do not use the si^ik honey-board 

 for the Simplicity hive, as exyilaiued on page 

 :22!». 1 believe friend Ileddou does not use 

 enamel cloth at all, or any ('(luivalent to it. 

 The cover to the hive is all the covering he 

 has over the frames or over the sections. I 

 should like to look through his apiary, and 

 see if he or his students do not smasii hun- 

 dreds of bees wlien they place their cover 

 back on the hive in a hurry. 



REVERSIBLE WIDE FRAMES. 



Have you ever tried I'eversible wide frames -that 

 is, wide frames with open top-bars, top-bars same 

 width as the bottom, and the tops and bottoms of 

 section boxes, so that the tiering up plan could be 

 pi-actised with the wide-frame supers? The frames 

 mig-ht or might not be made to reverse. Section 

 cases are growing popular recently, and the chief 

 i-eason for this seems to be that they can be tiered 

 up, while close-top wide frames can not. If separa- 

 tors are to be used, wide frames are best adapted 

 for this purpose. If nice thick tabids of honey are 

 desired, separators must be used. E. E. Ewing. 



Kowlandsville, Md. 



Your remarks are good, friend E. The 

 reason why we do not often wish to tier up 

 wide frames is because a complete set hold- 

 ing ")S sections usually give all the room any 

 colony wants at one time. Where we want 

 nice thick cakes of honey, I agree with you 

 that separators nmst be used. In using 

 wide frames in the house apiary, I thought 

 of setting them in upside down. To do tliis 

 we should have to have narrow top- bars 

 such as you describe. Projecting ends 

 might he full width. If they were reversed, 

 omit the" supporting-arms entirely, and rest 

 the frame on a (puirter-inch strip of Avood 

 placed on the brood-framts at each end of 

 the liive. ■ 



ONE WAY THAT QUEENS ARE LOST. 



That queens which fail to i-eturn from their bri- 

 dal trips are generally eaten by birds, or fall into 

 the water, is well known; but that some of them 

 are injured by the entanglement with the drone, 



the following would prove: The second year I kept 

 bees I had a large after-swarm ; when in the hive 

 two days I watched to see the queen come out (as 

 boys and beginners of all kinds do). 1 succeeded in 

 seeing her go, when I was called away. In about ■''.t 

 of an hour, when I came back, the queen had not 

 returned, as the bees were all around the hive, and 

 ready to go some distance to the next colony, which 

 stood on the same floor in a second story over a 

 shop. My bi-other, who had a mated queen in one 

 of his nucleus colonies, offered the same to nie to re- 

 pair my loss, and we were about to drum the queen 

 out, which was in a small straw hive, as were all 

 our bees at that time. When I went to get some- 

 thing, I passed by the front of the shop, and there I 

 noticed, among the usual number of crippled bees 

 on the ground, a q«een hopping around right below 

 the entrance of my qucenless hive. She had both 

 wings torn at the ends, and one considerably. I 

 realized the situation, and carried her to the hive at 

 once, when all the bees went in, and happiness was 

 restored. She turned out to be a first-rate queen. 

 We could not but think that the queen had pulled 

 toward home, and separated from the drone in 

 front of her hive, where she fell. I have often 

 thought about the occurrence since, considering all 

 the surrounding circumstances carefully, but could 

 not come to any other than the above conclusion. 

 Philadelphia, Mar. 9, 1885. C. H. Luttgens. 



Friend I^., I would suggest that your 

 queen got her wings torn by making a mis- 

 take, and trying to go into the wrong hive. 

 In such cases the bees will ball and bite 

 them until they present just the appearance 

 vou mention. Wasn't that the case V 



THE OUTLOOK FOR BEE-KEEPERS. 



In view of present prices, has honey and the 

 bee-keeping business any future? How about the 

 survival of the fittest? How about Mr. G. M. Doo- 

 little's estimates; viz., 9 cts. per lb. for extracted 

 and 14 cts. for comb honey? I'd "sorter" like to 

 know, you know. For if any one can produce a 

 good article of extracted honey at low figures, lean! 

 That's one comfort. C,has. Waterrouse. 



Bayou Chene, La., March 23, 1885. 



Friend W., you will have to read what 

 Prof. Cook says in his article in our issue of 

 April 1, about" the plun^grower. that said tlie 

 curculio was his best friend. y(»u know. The 

 survival of tlie littest is a kind of hard doc- 

 trine, but we have to meet it al almost every 

 turn. The parabh^ of the ten virgins strikes 

 right on that point. If oiu' things won't sell, 

 there is one consolation — with the improve- 

 ments we have, and the recent advances 

 made, we can get a piece of ground and raise 

 enough to live On ; and if our jtroducts won't 

 sell for mom'!/, we will just settle down and 

 bs happy without any. I am glad to see you 

 take ''comfort," and I guess your ground 



is good and solid^ 



a hive without ventilation either upward 

 or downward, and how it turned out. 



On Nov. 2:5 1 left my home and my bees— 70 stocks 

 —four miles distant from the Capitol, to reside in 

 Washington during the winter. I saw no more of 

 my bees until March 6, when I went oiit home and 

 made an examination of thcuL I found 10 stocks 

 dead, all late swarms which had not had sufBcient 

 honey to winter. In passing on from one hive to 

 another, I noticed one which excited my curiosity. 



