420 



GLEANINGS IN UEK CULTURE. 



Jl'XE 



bees will crawl through the slots in the zinc, 

 but the drones and queen will be left outside. 

 Pick up the (jueen and put her in the hive. 

 Let the drn)ies all remain until next morn- 

 ing, and you will lind them in a compact 

 cluster. Feed llieni to the chickens, or de- 

 stroy them as you choose. The arrangement 

 is supposed to i)revent swarming. Itv keeping 

 tlie queen in tJie hive, so that the'bees will 

 come back as soon as they discovei- she is 

 not with tliem. I believe it'does- not always 

 work just right for this piupose; but for 

 disposing of drones, there is no tronl)le. 

 Wliere yon want to restrain (pieens. tlie 

 alighting - board on which the trap rests 

 must be smooth and (tat, or the queen will 

 squeeze out where tliei-e is a little irregular- 

 ity in the wood. 



The price of the above drone-trap. is lo 

 cts.; 10. 7.-. cts.: 1(1(1, s.3.(l(). If wanted bv 

 mail, add i' cts. each extra. 



Recent Deyeii0pment^s, 



And Suggestions and Queries Particularly Pertaining 

 to the Season. 



buckwheat honey than the Italians, al- 

 though I can not say that I ever saw the 

 blacks bnsy when the Italians weie idle. 



IIONEV I'llOM TIIK WII.I.OW. 



Rocs aie doiuK tlie best that I ever saw lliem at 

 this time of year. I transferred colonies into 

 LanKStroth frames, and had to extract the honej 

 before I could do any thing- with them. That was 

 about ten;days a^o, and to-day all the hives are full 

 of honey, bees, and brood, and Imir of them are 

 woAinji- in the ujjper story. To day they are work- 

 infr on willow, and they drop when they c<jine in. 

 Uees wintered very^badly in this section; at least Ri 

 per cent of thcai died. F. W. M(»ats. 



j The Rend, Defiance Co., OUin. 



WHICH 



AV SHAM. THK ENTHAVCi-: or THK HIVE 



A PKOMISE OE MORE HONEV-DEW HONEY. 



T NOTICED this morning- more honey-dew than I 

 ^f ever saw before in all my life put together; it 

 |i is actually beyond all human calculation. If I 

 -*■ had not seen it myself 1 could scarcelj' have 

 believed it to be possible, for all the trees ap- 

 pear to be one entire coat of honey-dew all over the 

 leaves, every part and particle being smeared with 

 it. J. Y. McCkackex. 



Rosebud. Ala.. May 15, 1885. 



SORCHUM FOR BUII.DINO UP IN THE SPRIXO AND 

 SUMMER. 



Is good sorghum safe and good for feed at night, 

 to build up colonies? I can furnish it at 40 cts. per 

 gallon. J. C. Stewart. 



Hopkins, Mo., May !), 1885. 



Friend S., yon can feed sorghum or any 

 thing else, providing the bees will take it; and 

 during a dearth, when they are not gather- 

 ing stores they will sometimes take it with 

 great avidity. Be careful, however, that it 

 is all used up for l)rood-reaiing. or it might 

 get into your honey for winter stores, or, 

 worse still, your honey for market. Several 

 years ago, when there was a dearth of honey 

 between fruit-bloom and white clover, we 

 fed scNcial Ijarrels of cheap maple sugar, so 

 poor that bees would not even touch it at 

 other times. 



( OMMON IlEES BEST AT SOME TIMES, AM) ITAL- 

 IANS AT SO.ME OTHER TIMES. 



1 wintered my bees outdoors, packed in chaff; 

 had Ts colonies in the fall; 25 of these were artificial, 

 not much better than nuclei. I have 68 left. I 

 should like to have friend Doolittles opinion on the 

 working <)ualitics of the black-and Italian bees. I 

 think the Italians are best on basswood and thistle; 

 the black, on raspberry and buckwheat, and about 

 etjual on white clover. F. Rour,o. 



Portvillc, Catt. Co., N. V. 



A'ery likely you are at least partiallv 

 right, friend K. This I do know : That the 

 black bees will sometimes gather more dark 



The .V 15 C tells us to set the hive of !)ees, when 

 setting out, square with the i)oints of the compass. 

 Will jou please let me know to which i)oint of the 

 (•nmj)ass U\o friDit of the hive should facey 



P. K. Perkorixe. 



Aniiret, Lyon Co., Minn., May -'], 18,^5. 



Friend P.. I can not discover that it makes 

 any material difference which way the hives 

 face. I have seen times in the spring when it 

 seemed desirable to have them front to the 

 south -, but dming extremely hot weather, 

 the opposite direction would be somewhat 

 desirable. All things considered, I think I 

 should pay no attention to it. My remarks 

 in the Al](" were totheelfectthat you should 

 have some regular system in placing yonr 

 hives, that they might not be so disorderly 

 arranged as to be painful to one who likes 

 order. It is a bad plan to change the way 

 the hive faces during the swarming season, 

 for the bees are greatly annoyed and hinder- 

 ed by such a proceeding. 



HOW -MANV FRA.MES ARE NEEDED TO ( OXT.VIX AM, 

 THE BROOD V 



This day my bees are gathering fruit-bloom hon- 

 ey by the loads. The weather is fair, and not any 

 too hot. Drones have been fiying for some time. 

 Most of my colonies have 5 to 7 frames with brood: 

 a few have 8 frames with brood. One had 9 frames 

 with brood. How would that be with an 8 - frame 

 hive? You know my hives all have 10 frames. My 

 strong colonies also have (jueen-cells started., so 1 

 expect some new swarms soon. My strong colonies 

 also have quite a bit of new honey in their hives al- 

 ready. Otto Kleinow. 



Detroit, Mich., May 21, 1885. 



Friend K., if you made your bees til! a cer- 

 tain mmiber of' frames of brood, and made 

 them till them clear up to the corners before 

 yon gave them more frames, I think you 

 cpuld get all the brood there is in the best of 

 your hives into eight frames, and still have 

 room. Where we want to get the bees to 

 put all the brood in the brood-frames, and all 

 the honey in the sections, we wish to use the 

 fewest niimber of brood-frames possible, and 

 this is the reason why reversible frames 

 have been talked about so much. By their 

 use we can make the bnwd go clear np to 

 the top-bar and clear down to the bottom- 

 bar, and oblige the bees to put what honey 

 they get, into sections. 



