GLEANmaS IK BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



had forgotten it. Xow, j'our plan, if I un- 

 derstand it, is something like the monthlj^ 

 calendar, found in many books on bee cul- 

 ture, agriculture, etc. As each season comes 

 in turn, you look at your reference book, to 

 see what you had marked down to be done 

 at such a season. 



DRONE-EXCLUDEHS. 



Do we AVant our Drones Caged Up, or do we 

 Simply Want to Drive them Away? 



FRIEND AI.LEV CRITICISES THE SPAFFORO DRONE- 

 EXCLUDER SOMEWHAT. 



TrarR. SPAFFORD has described and illustrated 

 WJffI a drone - excluder which he calls "better 

 (MIJ) than Alley's." The arrang-ement as shown 

 ■*- '^-*- and described will no doubt work " like a 

 charm"— a fact I discovered more than 

 25 years ago. The same device described by Mr. 

 Spafiford was exactly what I used in connection 

 with my first drone-trap. But I did not only exclude 

 the drones from the hive, but I caged all in a box 

 as they came out to take a Higlit. From this came 

 my drone and queen trap. Now, if friend Spafl'ord 

 will place a box at the end of ihe outlet of his ex- 

 cluder he will have the principle of my drone-trap 

 complete. I do not use drone-excluders, and never 

 did in my apiary. They are as useless a piece of 

 furniture in the apiary as one can have. Of what 

 benefit is it to exclude drones from a colony of bees? 

 They return to enter the hive again when they 

 have had a flight. If they can not enter some hive, 

 they will block the entrance and interfere with the 

 working bees. Unless excluders are placed at the 

 entrance of each hive, the drones will soon find a 

 home in some colony in the yard. When it can be 

 done as well as not, why not exclude the drones 

 and at the same time catch and destroj' them? 

 Every drone can be entrapped and destroyed with 

 very little trouble to the apiarist; and by the use of 

 the same device his bees can not swarm and ab- 

 scond. 



When I used the device as described by Mr. Spaf- 

 ford, I found the bees would soon gnaw the wood 

 away, and the drones had no troutile in getting 

 into the hive again. I used tin to prevent this, but 

 it was a very unreliable way to manage and control 

 drones in an apiary. As I have before stated, my 

 drone-trap was not perfect until I obtained perfor- 

 ated zinc. As these traps aie now constructed, 

 eue7~ij drone can be destroyed. Those we have made 

 this season have shorter tubes through which the 

 bees pass into the trap. I noticed, wlien watching 

 the working of the traps, that some of the drones 

 would get half way up the tube; the distance was 

 so great that they would turn about and go back. 

 I soon remedied this slight defect. Then, again, 

 instead of nailing the zinc on the front cd' the trap, 

 or letting it run in on grooves, I now cut the zinc so 

 that it goes inside the ends of the trap, and the bot- 

 tom edge runs about half way back toward the 

 hive, thus forming an inclined plane over which 

 the drones pass directly into the tube, and into the 

 trap. As now made, 1 l)clie\e the ti-ap is as perfect 

 as it is possible to make them. 



I do not see how any man can claim that the ex- 

 cluder of Mr. Spatford's is better than the one de- 

 scribed by me in Gleanings some two years ago. 

 The latter was exactly like Spafford's in principle, 



and as it is so arranged that there is a chamber 

 back of a piece of perforated zinc, it afforded plenty 

 of ventilation to the hive. Let some one apply 

 Spafford's drone-excluder to a strong colony during 

 a hot day, and see what the effect will be. The 

 colony can not possibly get jiroper ventilation by 

 such an arrangement. This is not theory. I know 

 from 2.") years' experience what I am talking about 



Wenham, Mass., Aug. 25, 1885. Henry Alley. 



Thanks for your hhits, friend A. With 

 the years of experience you have had in this 

 matter of getting rid of drones, no doubt 

 you are right, in the main ; but for all that, 

 I think the Spattord implement will answer 

 a very good luirpose under many circum- 

 stances. 



PREPARING THE BEES EOR THE 

 HONEY SEASON. 



HOW 1 HAVE WORKED AND SUCCEEDED. 



fHE outlook for me this last April was splendid. 

 My bees had wintered so well, comparative- 

 ly (and I had learned, uo matter how, how to 

 make them build up in the spring) that I was 

 just going to have my hives roaring with 

 bees when white-clover harvest set in. T was not in 

 the hurry I once was, to remove the winter packing. 

 In some cases I put a frame outside of the division- 

 board; in others I merely uncapped some of the 

 honey occasionally, adding frames of stores as the 

 latter became scarce. I had so many extra frames 

 with more or less honey in them that I did not feed 

 any syrup. I commenced by turning each alter- 

 nate frame containing brood, end for end. As the 

 bees begin rearing only at the front half of the 

 frames, by this means the two or three frames con- 

 taining brood would soon be full. Then I would 

 spread the brood, inserting the frame containing 

 none in between. 



The above methods, I believe, stimulate brood- 

 rearing as well as any kind of feeding. The area of 

 brood increased so rapidly that early in May I be- 

 gan to remove a division-bf)ard in one side, and in- 

 sert another frame. The methods pursued which, 

 to me, were something of a trial, were succeeding 

 admirably— at least, so it seemed for awhile. But 

 now when clover is beginning to blossom, what is 

 the final result';' I am no better prepared for the 

 harvest than I have ever been before. I might al- 

 most say that my hives are full of brood and empty 

 of bees. I have not a dozen tirst-class stocks on the 



I place, while there are no more bees in my 45 hives 

 than there should be in ;?0. Do not tell me, please, 



' that 1 have made some prodigious blunders. I 

 think I know where I made some mistakes. The 

 spring has been cold and backward. The different 

 fruits bloomed about a week later than usual. 

 Ne.\t spring, however, may be entirely different, 

 and my plan may work well as pursued this season. 

 A fter all, then, what have I provedV Neither that to 

 stimulate brood-rearing in the spring wiU or will not 

 build up. With two or three exceptions my bees 

 showed but slight traces of dysentery, so they 

 could not have been weakened from that cause. 



j Meelumicsburg, 111. Geo. F. Kobhins, 39— 1.5. 



j I should say. friend H.. that yoiu- spread- 

 ing and chariging ends with the brood did 

 more harm in the end than it did good. May 

 be if you had waited imtil the season was a 

 little further along, however, it miglit have 



I turned out dilferently. 



