626 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



had been tluee or four days queenless, and 

 she would be ready to take her wedding- 

 flight as soon as slie is out. From what ex- 

 perience I have had with bees. I should think 

 that there would be quite a good many losses, 

 unless] the one who had them in charge had 

 by experience learned just how to manage 

 every little minute point, as fiiend (iood 

 doubtless has. 



FRIEND SHUCK'S HEVERSIBLE IION- 

 EY-BOAKD. 



ALSO SO.MKTIIINC 



REGARD TO HIS REVKRSIDT.?: 

 HIVE. 



RIEND ROOT: — Bro. Heddon's experience 

 reminds me of my efforts to g-et comV> 

 honey in the brood - chamber of the hive 

 some years ago, by dividing- a large brood- 

 nest with cases of sections. I invariably got 

 queen-cells in all, except the division occupied by 

 the old queen. 



I have raised queen-cells in an upper story when 

 the lower story was occupied by a laying queen. 

 Oi'dinarily the cells are larger, and the queens of 

 better color, when thus produced. The cells must, 

 of course, be removed for the timil ("merging and 

 perfecting- of the queens. 



More than one queen may occupy the same hive 

 by keeping queeii-excludors between them. The 

 excluder must divide the entrance so that the occa- 

 sional passing of a queen around it is prevented. 

 Aside from the fact that the bees occupy the hive 

 and surplus apartment in common, this is simply a 

 modification of the tenement hive idea. After all, 

 this is a question of arithmetic: A good queen will 

 occupy just about so much space, whetlicr in a hive 

 by herself, or along- with another queen. 



1 send you to-day a sample of mj- skeleton board, 

 such as I use and sell with my invertible hives. 

 The spaces are readily cleared with a piece of steel, 

 the proper size. I like them for cvcluding- (jueens 

 when a swarm is hived, as the swarm can immedi- 

 ately go into the sections, and leave the queen upon 

 the brood-combs. Also if a colony is stubborn about 

 going above, I put the sections un<t''.i- the hive, with 

 the skeleton board between; or, rather, turn the 

 whole apparatus upside down, when the bees will be 

 ofiliged to go into the sections. 



This boai-d may be modified by extending the 

 metal strips on one end, and thus form a queen-ex- 

 cluding division-board when it is desired to keep 

 more than one queen at liberty in the l.rood-cham- 

 ber of the hives. 



I first took the idea of this board from the Quinby 

 five-piece honey-board, which I used until sections 

 were introduced, when 1 adapted it to the use of 

 them. Mr. Heddon's board is a different thing en- 

 tirely. He cleats it all around so as to get his bee- 

 space between it and the sections. 1 have my bee- 

 spaces in the hivc-l;)ody and in the section cases 

 themselves. 



If I ever want a drone and (piccn catcher, I shall 

 get the Alley trap, unless some one invents a better 

 one. Rees well managed do not swarm much. Col- 

 onies run for comb honey should not swarm to ex- 

 ceed ten per cent. If run for extracted honey, not 

 more than five 'per cent; so there is little use for 

 queen-clippers and queen-catchers. Hov.ever, if 1 

 had a valuable queen which I dreaded to lose, 1 



should lose no time in gretting a queen or drone 

 trap. J, M. Shuck. 



Desinoines, Iowa, Aug. 4, 181-5. 



Thanks for the honey-board, friend S.. 

 and also for the facts you give us. I will 

 explain to our readers, that this honey-board 

 is made of slats of iiine, i inch wide, kept at 

 the right distance apart forexcluding queens 

 and dfones. by a folded strip of galvanized 

 iron tacked across each end. Your idea of 

 inverting tlielhive so as to bring this queen- 

 excluding honey-board, sections and all, un- 

 der the hive, is a novel one. Yoii will notice 

 that it is in a line with friend Heddon's re- 

 cent experiments. Yom- letter is dated Aug. 

 4,l)ut it may have been written before friend 

 IIeddon"s article. 



CRYSTALLIZED HONEY-DEW. 



FRIEND COOK (ilVKS US SOME, ADDtTIONAI, IXFORM- 



TX answer t(- ( nr recpust, A\hich see on 

 M page oS(3. Prof. ('«iok sends us the follow- 

 ^- ing in regard to the crystallized honey- 

 -■■ dew: 



Yes, frien<1 Koot, and you may add my thanks 

 for such a mine of sweet, and that, too, from lice, it 

 is good to see. In every case the source of the hon- 

 ey-dew— lice secretion were more appropriate— is 

 found to be aphides, or plant-lice. Surely our friend 

 need not condemn sueh nectar. 1 am sure the honey 

 from Oregon will lose nothing- of its reputation if 

 the nectar is always as sweet and wholesome as this. 



As you know, Mr. Editor, the great crystallized 

 masses, large as the end of one's finger, were not 

 only very sweet, but wei"e very pleasant. The lice 

 on the fireweed were of the genus ^pJiis, as shown 

 by the long nectar -tubes, or nectaries. Those on 

 the fir were of the genus Sacliunx. These must 

 have secreted an immense amount of nectar, to 

 show so much cane sug-ar. It is a good thing- for 

 the sugar manufactories that these lice are not 

 very common, or the former would have to go out 

 of the business. Just to think of a single twig, less 

 than si.x inches long, having- more than a table- 

 spoonful of flue sugar on it, and that all crystallized 

 and refined, with no care or labor: As I have al- 

 ways observed, the sweet secretion of these plant- 

 lice is always pleasant and harmless, and I do not 

 believe it will ever l)e any detriment to honey. We 

 can not say the same of that from bark or scale lice, 

 for that is bitter and distasteful to bees and tons. 

 I say distasteful to bees, for I have noticed that 

 bees will treat bark-louse nectar as they do glucose, 

 —leave it entirely alone if they can get nectar from 

 any other source. This is not true of aphis nectar, 

 which attracts bees even at the very time that the 

 incomparable basswood and clover secretion, or 

 nectar, is abundant. 



As Mr. R. suggests, honey-dew does not fall. So- 

 called honey-dew is almost always secretion from 

 insects. It may come from fungi, as shown last 

 year to be true of the ergot; it may come from ex- 

 tra-Horal glands, like those of the cow-pea, illustrat- 

 ed in my Manuat,. 1 think no apology need be 

 spoken for this plant louse nectar. It will never 

 harm the lioney. A. ,1. Cook. 



Agricultural College, Mich., Sept. :!, 188.-|. 



