1885 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



535 



LOW PRICE OF HONEY IN CALIFORNIA. 



There has been a large amount of flrst-class houey 

 gold here at oVi cents per lb., to be shipped 

 to Europe— a very low price, I think, as a case 

 with two cans costs a dollar cash, and each case 

 had to be strapped with strap iron at both ends and 

 middle. There is supposed to bo a large amount of 

 honey in first hands yet, in this county. 1 have on 

 hand about flve-siAths of last year's crop, which I 

 feel inclined to hold for a better price than the 

 above. I disposed of a small amount of honey at 

 the stores, lor whatever 1 can g-et; take i)ay in 

 trade, no cash. Although honey is so cheap, the 

 storekeepers tell me that they sell 10 or i' lbs. of 

 syrup to 1 lb. of honey. I wrote recently to England 

 to inquire about the prospects for disposing of hon- 

 ey there, but 1 am advised not to send any honey 

 there, on account of so much adulterated honey 

 that has been sent there. The English are suspi- 

 cious of all foreign honey. Several of my neigh- 

 bors have sent honey to the Eastern States, with re- 

 sults rather discouraging. Can you give us any 

 late information about the practicability ol the Stan- 

 Icy automatic extractor? Charles West. 



San Bernardino, Cal. 



I lost all but one swarm last winter, wintering on 

 summer stands. 1 think these open winters (open 

 to criticism) are very hard on bees left on summer 

 stands. We have a very good winter-house in which 

 we have wintered our bees several winters very 

 successfully. It is warmed by steain-heating>pipes, 

 and the temperatuie is never as low as freezing. 

 But as others were wintering on summer stands 

 with apparently good results, we were induced to 

 try the e.\periment. expecting, of course, we should 

 have an open winter. Well, we have got the expe- 

 rience; but, the bees ! oh, where are they? ] really 

 don't know, unless they are in somebody's apiary 

 who has exercised a little more judicious care and 

 ludgment than I have. But 1 want some bees, even 

 if F do feel somewhat guilty of committing bee- 

 slniighter in the first degiee. 



1 am not keeping bees for a business, but merely 

 for the pleasure of it. I am very fond of the saucy 

 little imi>s, and I like very much to work with them 

 when I have the time to spare. I am superintend- 

 ing a large oil-works here, owned by Mr. E. E. Clapp, 

 of President, Pa., and my time is nearly ail occupied 

 in that direction; but still I find an hour or two 

 nearly every day that I can give to my bees. 



W. G. SAMPi^ON. 



McGraw, Warren Co., Pa., .May 18, 1885. 



SETTINO HIVES CLOSE TOGETHER ; ALSO SOME 

 F.tCTS .\S TO WHETHER BIRDS KILL BEES. 



Gleanings especially mentions the setting of 

 hives close together. Well, I do it. Yes, after 

 reading all that Gle.vnings has said in regard 

 to it for the past three years. 1 use scantling :i x 3 

 inches, and IH ft. long, raised 10 in. from the ground 

 on brick pillars, as benches on which to set my colo- 

 nies and nuclei of queen-rearing hives. Of ray full 

 colonies I usually set U, facing all the same way, on 

 one of these 16-foot benches; of the nucleus hives, 

 which arc made to hold (5 L. frames, with a partition 

 between each three frames, and a hole bored, one at 

 each end, into each nucleus, so that one nucleus in 

 these double hives works out back and the other 



side front, I set 8 of these double nuclei to a 16-foot 

 bench, thus having 16 three-frame nuclei on a 16- 

 foot bench, entrances being about 2 ft. apart, front 

 and back. They are mostly of one color, too, but I 

 don't think that is advisable. I should prefer to 

 have each alternate hive of adiflerentcolor. 1 have 

 never had any trouble with my full colonies, set as 

 above. Out of 100 (jueens reared and mated from 

 my nuclei so set this spring, I have had only two 

 lost, or had four ((ueens disappear before they be- 

 gan to lay, after being hatched. I think the most of 

 our queeus which disappear before laying do so be- 

 cause they are caught by birds and insects. During 

 last September and October I lost nearly half the 

 queens I had hatched out from my nuclei, before 

 they began to lay; so this spring I kill all the bee- 

 martins and any other birds that I find around that 

 are catching any bees. Hence I have lost scarcely 

 any queens from my nuclei. I have them all num- 

 bered, and I keep a record of the time of hatching 

 out, the first eggs laid, the taking-out of a queen, 

 the giving of a cell, etc. 



3— Abbott L. Swinson, 41—55. 

 Goldsboro, N. C, June 1^;, 1885. 



Friend S.. your arrangement will work 

 very well, providin.^ yon do not have yonr 

 rows too lonp:. For instance, where the row 

 is only IH feet in length, the bees will connt, 

 as it were, the number of their hive from 

 each end. Should yon continue this row KM) 

 feet, however, I think yon wonld Hnd that, 

 with the exception of a few near each end, 

 the rest wonld all be mixed np. 



SOME UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES IN QUEEN-REARINO. 



Last year 1 wrote you an item concerning a rather 

 unusual performance of a queen, published in Nov. 

 Gle.\ninos. Fiom your remarks, I see you mis- 

 understood the case, and intended to correct your 

 impression before. While painting a cover, some 

 of the paint ran through the cover and fell on some 

 of the bees, the (jueen among others. The next day 

 they swarmed, I put them in a new hive. Two days 

 later they showed great agitation, as though they 

 had lost their queen. The day following I found 

 twelve queen-cells started; and on opening the ofd 

 hive 1 found the rjueen there. The odd thing was, 

 not that the queen was marked (though perhaps it 

 Ivan odd that she should be one of the dozen marked), 

 nor that they started twelve queen-cells, but that, 

 two days after they swarmed, the marked (jueen 

 was with the swarm in the new hive. 1 saw her 

 there, and the next day she was back in the old hive, 

 and the swarm still stayed in the new hive. She 

 was a pure Italian daughter of an imported queen; 

 the queen the swarm raised was a hybrid. 



A few days ago, finding a three-year-old queen 

 giving signs of failing, and that there were several 

 queen-cells found in the hive, I concluded to let the 

 bees raise a queen; but fearing that the new queen 

 might inherit her mother's weakness, I removed the 

 cells and gave them a frame of brood with cells 

 from one of my best queens. The cells were sealed. 

 Four days later I found they had started three 

 new cells, and had sealed them. I removed these; 

 and seeing that they were rather shorter than com- 

 mon, 1 opened one of them. It contained a live 

 worker, sealed up head down. The bee was just 

 able to crawl when I released her. 



A neighbor some time since had a queenless col- 

 ony. He gave them at different times over a dozeu 



