1885 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



413 



queens, etc., and as yet have taken no honey, and 

 received no income. I am not ready, however, to 

 go into the column of Blasted Hopes. Indeed, I am 

 quite confident I shall make a success of it in the 

 end. Sarah M. VV. Bentley. 



Fluvanna, N. Y., May 38, 1885. 



My friend, I have had bees beliave just as 

 yours do, when the queen was clipped. Are 

 you sure she is not a clipped queen? I am 

 inclined to think she is in the hive all right ; 

 if not, you will find (lueen-cells within L'4 or 

 48 hours. You could have divided the col- 

 ony without any trouble, without purchas- 

 ing any queens; but you will probably get 

 along faster with a fertile queen in "each 

 part of the divided hive If I Avere you I 

 would be careful about paying out any more 

 moucy until you get some in. Yonr hns- 

 band and tlu- oUicr goad p3opIe can b? mneli 

 quicker convinced of the i)ossibilities with 

 bees by j^ceiug you market a good crop of 

 honey, tliaii l)y any Ihing you can i)0Ssibly 

 say to them." I can imagine just exactly 

 how you felt, when your bees liad swarmed, 

 and you did not discover it until (i o'clock in 

 the afternoon ; and I can tell something 

 how your spirits arose when your husband 

 announced that they were hanging on an ap- 

 ple-tree back of the poultry-house. 



BEES AND CIDER-MILLS. 



HAS A UEE-KEEl'Elt ANV CHAN( E or HEDHESS l(V 



E clip the following from tlic Kansas 

 Jice-k-cepcr. it is a portion of an an- 

 swer given by our friend .J. K. Pond 

 to one of our" bee-friends who claims 

 he lias lost bees to the vahu^ of ^um 

 becavise of a cider-mill run by his iieigldn)r : 



A cidcr-raill would not he bciiefU-ial to an jipiarv, 

 ir near cnoiiirh to it so that tlic bees eoiild get to it. 

 It iiilglit be briicllfial to otluM-s, though, and proba- 

 bly would be to its owner. 



.V bee-keeper eioi not maintain an action against 

 the owner ol' a eidrr-iiijll, erected on his own hind. 

 .As to tite .incslion nC <l!iMiage, the cider-mill man 

 niiglit say the bees were a nuisance and dannig-e to 

 him. .\ man lias a riulit to ei-eet any thing on his 

 land Dial is not an injnrvto his m'i-hbors: that is 

 to say, in the lorm ol a iinisane.'. .\ eidrr mill 

 would not be considered a nuisanec, and the courts 

 would Ra.^■ that the liees must be shut up. I am 

 aware that a eider-mill is ro\igh on bees, but there 

 is no help I'oi- it in law. The cases Mr. B. uu'Utions 

 are not pai'allel. A hog-poii is a iniisanee. on ac- 

 count of the suu-ll, ami detrinu'Utal to health. The 

 Hooding ol' land by a dam is not at all i)arallel 

 either, for there is a direcl act done which causes 

 liiimage. In the abo\c I ha\c gi\<'n the legal status 

 of the matter. Morally, my idea is nuicli the sanu«. 

 I don't sccwhvmv neighbor should be ke|)t from 

 putting up a ei<ler mill on acc(Mint of my bees. My 

 course, if he should do so. would lie to go to him 

 ai\d get him to allow me to luit netting over the 

 windows, or else try to get him to run his mill 

 nights, and by foi-ce of moral suasion endea\(ir- to 

 get him to work as easy on the bees as he eouhl. 

 The matter of notice amounts to nothing. 'I'he only 

 way an action could be maintained at law woiihl be 

 on the ground that the cider-mill man willfulfv and 

 maliciously destroyed bees when he need not do so. 



I want to emphasize the suggestion friend 

 Pond makes, of getting wire netting to put 

 over the doors and windows of cider-mills. 1 

 wonder if lawyers always give that same sort 

 of advice to their clients. Christian lawyers 

 most assuredly do. Please notice, that our 

 bee-friend says he has lest over a thousand 



dollars. Very likely the cider-mill man has 

 been annoyed to a considerable extent, if he 

 is not out of pocket more or less. Of course, 

 he did not kill a thousand dollars' worth of 

 bees, but the bee-man thinks he killed so 

 many that his colonies could not winter 

 over. We will suppose the cider-mill was 

 SlOO damage instead of SIOOO ; now. it is not 

 likely it would have retpiired over .SIO.OO out- 

 lay to have fixed that cider-mill so that a bee 

 could not get a sip of cider. The wire net- 

 ting would very likely be a considerable ben- 

 efit to the mill-owner as well as the bee- 

 owner : and it would certainly be a very bad 

 neighbor who would not cheerfully assent to 

 a proposition such as friend Pond suggests. 

 (3h how easy just a little of the spirit of 

 l)rotlierlvlov'e woidd \\x all .these differences! 



FRIEND PORTERS COMMENTS ON 

 BLANTON'S APIARY. 



.M>ri.TEKAT10X OF SUGAR. ETC. 



fOUK Illustration of friend Blanton's apiary 

 ought to be very suggestive to many. On 

 "stilts ' you may call it; but the ease with 

 which a tall man can work among hives ele- 

 vated one and a half feet from the ground, 

 and with a Hat roof, so that each hive is a table, 

 ought to be apparent, if it is not. Years ago I 

 adopted>hort posts well set with cross cleats on top 

 to support my hives, and I could not be tempted 

 now to go on to the ground again. 



My covers are all 18', x^ti'i inches, and one of the 

 most valuable improvements I ever made was to 

 cover each with a sheet of tin, and paint it. Roof- 

 ing tin ^'HX28 is tiic kind. Wood covers will not 

 stand in this climate, let them be selected never so 

 well, and i)aintcd. No more leaky covers and wet 

 cushions and quilts below them. This for good 

 .Mrs. A.xtell, whose losses will be regretted by many 

 a reader of her great report foi- lS8;i. 



Now, what can be handier than to have tables on 

 each side'/ < (pening a hive we jilacc the upper story 

 on one. and it is ready to receive the combs taken 

 out, and can be uuide beetight by throwing a sheet 

 over it— :\n impt)rtant matter when bees are dispos- 

 ed to rob. 



We always wiiu<'i- on sunuiiei- stands here, and 

 bees lly ipiiie freely every pleasant winter's day. 

 .\ burlaj) bag olchalf above the duck quilt atTords 

 such protectio:i_that no losses need be feared, pro- 

 vided the bees are really in a vital condition, with 

 supplies of honey, a good fpieen, with young bees. 



Uobbing, following careless exposure or queen- 

 Icssness, is a cause of more loss than any other one 

 thing here. 



Now a word in regard to the sugar-feeding. I 

 should like to ask the e.\-perimenters, pro and 

 con, and especially friend Doolittle, for his last let- 

 ter calls this matter up, of what value are such ex- 

 periments, if we are not to know what kind of sugar 

 is fed':' We arc most of us delightfully ignorant of 

 what we get now in buying "standard granulated 

 sugar." 1 have been informed on good authority 

 that all of our rellned sugars are adulterated with 

 grape sugar, or, rather, that they can be, and to a 

 gieat extent are. Perhaps the low price of sugar, 

 and the high price of corn, makes it less profitable 

 now than formerly- If made free from chemical 

 impurity, it may not poison, as glucose has, but it 



